Outdoor Exercise: Getting Back To Nature

Most people who go to the gym are looking for much the same thing - they just want to get in better shape. Some people are trying to shed the pounds accrued during pregnancy. Others find themselves working out to get back into the dating game. In places where the great outdoors plays an active part of so many lives, like Denver, more people are training for "sports" that most people would consider extreme.

Rocky Mountain Transplant

One personal trainer in Denver has combined exercise with the outdoors. 38-year old Lauri Ann Stricker, an avid rock climber, owns Evergeen Pilates. She first learned the discipline in her hometown of Chicago, but when she moved to Colorado she fell in love with the mountains and decided to take her Pilates instruction business outdoors.

Falling In Love

"I had never been to the mountains, I hadn't hiked or camped, but as soon as I did, I fell in love with it. It changed my life," she says, noting that everyday life is so full of distractions. "When you're outdoors, there's none of that. It's very pure - you feel the ground beneath your feet, the sun on your face. It centers you." Pilates would be considered cross-training for those who enjoy skiing, snowboarding and rock-climbing. "Pilates makes you more aware of body and movement, the biomechanics of posture and alignment," she says, noting that exercise is the best way to prevent injuries in the first place.

The Denver mom's vocation as a personal trainer, combined with her love of nature, has now expanded her life in another direction altogether; Stricker's book, Pilates for the Outdoor Athlete, was recently published by Fulcrum.

Audio Conferencing Meets Community Needs

Audio conferencing has many applications that go far beyond corporate board rooms. The military, law enforcement, school administrators, local governments, all of these and more have made great use of recent breakthroughs in telecommunications technology. One program uses a scheduled monthly audio conference in its bid to alleviate - and hopefully eradicate - the pressing social problem of homelessness.

Coast To Coast Assistance

Sponsored by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the National Council of State Housing Agencies, the Council of State Community Development Agencies, the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the Leadership to End Homelessness Audio Conference Series is designed to do just that. Its focus ranges from the urban Eastern seaboard, where homelessness has more crime- and climate-related risks, to the Golden State, where substance abuse issues have been a frequent subject of conference calls. Another point of concern for the Series is youth homelessness.

Linking Arms

The conferences highlight the institutions and events in urban areas that extend a hand to some of America's most vulnerable citizens. One of the points they stress is that gainful employment is one of the most effective means of reducing homelessness. Community leaders are able to get a better grasp of the needs of those they hope to serve, and get a better feel for the best ways achieve their goals, through audio conferencing.

Social improvement and the reversal of urban decay have gotten a huge boost from audio conferencing technology, speeding up the mechanisms of change that effect the lives of so many people. To the needy, how and why things get done are not of as much importance as the accomplishments themselves; it is the duty of innovation.