The Eight Best Ways to Exercise for Free in Brisbane

Get your lazy ass off the couch. Getting super fit and boasting marathon-running prowess takes a little more energy (and sometimes dosh) than snapping your fingers.

But before you part with your hard earned cash for some 'miracle' protein formula, intensive boot camps or costly gym memberships, listen up. We've got eight ways you can get yourself fit for absolute zilch in Brisbane. Let's get moving!

PARKRUN

Feel like sleeping in on a Saturday morning? Wrong. Get up and join a throng of enthusiastic runners every Saturday from 7am for a free, timed 5km run. With a number of Parkrun locations around Brisbane, you've got no excuse not to attend at least one. Oh, you need new runners? Well, if the exercise is free then you can afford to buy new ones.

Various locations around Brisbane

SOUTH BANK'S FEEL GOOD PROGRAM

While we're in South Bank, let's shake things up with the Feel Good program. A completely free program of group exercise classes that's been running for years, Feel Good has something for every lazy sod. At 5.30pm on Mondays is yoga, Tuesday is pilates, Wednesday is cardio and Thursdays is dance.

Little Stanley St, South Bank

THE KANGAROO POINT CLIFF STAIRS

Ahh, the infamous Kangaroo Point Cliff Stairs. For whatever reason (probably society's obsession with a toned gluteus maximus) the stairs have gone from being the convenient option to climb 20m from the bottom of the cliffs to the top, to Brisbane's fitness obsession. But remember if you didn't Instagram it, did you really climb them? Driving cheaters can #coffeegram their lazy cups from the cafe up top.

ACTIVE PARKS

Council's Active Parks program offers a range of mostly free activities to get you moving in greenspace through the city. Try everything from Tai Chi to yoga, zumba, boxing, sailing and hip hop. For those inclined for the less intense movements, you can even choose gardening — and anyone's who's ever weeded knows it's a full-on, calorie burning activity.

GO CLIMB A MOUNTAIN

Life is about making decisions. And if you're motivated enough to make the decision to get up and out early on your day off, drive and go conquer a mountain before 8am, well props to you. It's still on the to-do list. Brisbane is surrounded by mountains just asking to be climbed. Take your pick of Mt Coot-tha, Mt Glorious, Mt Mee, Mt Gravatt, Mt Coolum, Mt Ngungun, Mt Tibrogargan, Mt Tamborine… the list goes on.

GET ON YOUR BIKE

For those who enjoy sleep, this wake up call bribes you with breakfast down the road (before a big bridge trek). Better get on your bike. Start at the Cliffs Cafe with a coffee — you'll need it before you kickstart a run up and down those Kangaroo Point Cliff stairs. Follow this map that does a short 8km loop across the Story Bridge, along the river in the CBD before heading over to South Bank. Stop for a dip at Streets, if you dare.

STREETS BEACH

Now, plenty of us have mixed feelings about Streets and deciding whether to swim in the city's communal beach-pool can throw up a moral minefield. Best bet is to make like your grandmother, keep your ears and eyes above water and waltz around that pool like you're in some extreme aqua aerobics class. But if you hear anyone shout Code Brown, just get the heck out.

PARK GYM EQUIPMENT

Yeah, you know those bright and colourful looking too-big-for-kids playgrounds you might stumble upon at 1am on your trot home from the Valley? Turns out they are for exercising. Dotted all around the city, council has put in exercise equipment across a whopping 94 parks (and conveniently mapped it out). Bulging biceps? Taut triceps? Monkey bar nostalgia? You can get it all here.

Image Credits: Mt Gravatt and Park Equipment by Brisbane City Council and Parkrun.

Published on September 16, 2014 by Daniela Sunde-Brown