The amazing Phoenix weather nearly year-round means residents have their choice when it comes to finding free places to workout.

Participating in an organized activity or event is one great, free way to connect with other fitness-minded people while enjoying the boost of motivation that comes from working out in a group.

If organized events aren’t your thing, never fear because the choices don’t end there. There are so many ways to get your sweat on around the Phoenix Valley that your fitness routine will always be fresh and invigorating.

1. Exercise classes

Join one of the many free expert-led classes taking place around the Valley. These events are typically organized by stores or facilities like hotels, but you’ll never feel pressured to buy anything. It’s just an effort to create community and get people excited about fitness.

Lululemon holds frequent and popular classes at some of its locations. At Biltmore Park, a yoga class takes place each Sunday on the lawn in front of the store. On Tuesdays, enjoy the strength-training class FunFit, and Thursdays, stop by for the Run Club.

At the Chandler mall Lululemon location, practice yoga in store on Sundays. Check the calendar for an occasional Run Club.

Lorna Jane, another fitness clothes store, has a dedicated workout room in select stores, where it holds classes. Find updated schedules on the store’s Facebook pages: there’s one in Gilbert at San Tan Village and in Phoenix at Biltmore Park.

2. Phoenix meetups

You’ll find a range of free or low-cost fitness activities on Meetup.com, along with a great group of new workout buddies to make it fun. Join AZ Sweat Saturdays in Mesa, Scottsdale Horizons Running Group, or maybe Gilbert Free Group Fitness Workout.

You’ll find hundreds more groups for every type of activity in every part of the Valley. Some groups focus only on women or specific age groups, like seniors or 35 to 45, while still other groups focus on couples or singles. No matter what type of workout companions you seek, they’re out there.

The great thing about Meetup is that it allows you to fill your social calendar with as many fitness dates as you want because you can join multiple groups. The scheduled activities will help you workout in ways you might not have thought of, and when you connect with new people, you’ll have built-in motivation to keep exercising.

3. Riparian Preserve

Gilbert’s Riparian Preserve is a beautiful, 110-acre nature park featuring 70 acres of lakes, plentiful birds and animals, and easy-to-walk trails, all in a spectacularly tranquil environment that feels miles away from the surrounding bustling town.

The lakes are man-made water recharge basins that are part of the town’s water system, and connecting the lakes is an occasional stream with a small waterfall surrounded by stunning trees and a small picnic area. It’s truly a magical place.

Other special features include grassy areas, large trees, and desert landscape, giving walkers the benefit of enjoying multiple types of scenery all from one place. The preserve is large enough for you to enjoy meandering around its trails for however long you wish without ever feeling like you’re just walking in the same old circles.

Walking is wonderful exercise, gentle on the bones while still getting the blood flowing, and spending time in nature only amplifies the benefits.

4. Phoenix hiking trails

The Phoenix Valley’s many hiking trails are free to use, and offer a great workout while providing spectacular, scenic views of the surrounding desert. Here you’ll find a list of pain-friendly hiking trails. Options include everything from beginner, pain-friendly trails in Papago Park to the slightly more challenging Hieroglyphics Trail in Gold Canyon and Mormon Loop Trail in South Mountain.

The hiking options in and around the Valley are nearly endless. Free online databases like Every Trail and Hike Arizona help users sort through the vast possibilities and find the right adventure for them based on length, difficulty, and region.

Many wilderness parks within Maricopa County offer guided hikes and tours like nature viewing excursions. McDowell Mountain Park, for example, offers free fitness hikes along various trails (although it does cost a small fee to enter the area and park), and trips guided by park rangers who talk about the local flora and fauna.

Similarly, Mesa’s Usery Park hosts hikes exploring the vast area’s trails, along with fun events like the Wildlife Safari that guides hikers along a 1.5-mile trail as a park ranger reveals the secret hiding places of animals in winter. Beginner desert hikes are available for those wanting to learn how to hike safely in this one-of-a-kind environment.

5. City parks

Many city parks offer a range of exercise opportunities, ranging from walking paths to stationary strength-building equipment. You’ll also find sand volleyball, basketball courts, and sports fields, all available to use for free.

At Scottsdale’s Chaparral Park, for example, you’ll find a ten-station exercise course, two volleyball courts, a long multi-use path for biking, walking, and running, and even a pool for swimming during the warmer months.

The website City Park Search offers a database of Phoenix parks, where you can search by feature and type in your address to find the closest options. Search options include exercise courses, hiking, swimming, or specific sports facilities like tennis and volleyball.

6. Tennis

Tennis is a fun workout that can be made less arduous by finding partners and playing doubles. Paying to rent a tennis court can be costly, but thankfully many Valley cities maintain ones that are free to use. Cool wintertime temperatures are perfect for working on your game.

In the west Valley, try Goodyear Community Park, which offers four tennis courts along with a pickleball area. In Gilbert, Freestone Park offers multiple tennis courts. The Chandler Tennis Center offers courts for rental at just a few dollars per player for up to an hour-and-a-half.

Scottsdale’s Chesnutt Park offers free, drop-in tennis courts and restroom facilities. In Phoenix, Encanto Park also offers tennis courts, along with a host of other amenities in this large, 222-acre park.

Where are your favorite Phoenix hotspots for a free workout?

Image by Nicki Dugan Pogue via Flickr

If you’re looking to celebrate New Year’s Eve in style without spinning underneath flashing lights in a crowded Phoenix nightclub, you’re in the right place. Having pain doesn’t exclude you from the fun, but instead opens up an array of very special options.

Choices range from enjoying a nice dinner out with music or other entertainment to kid-friendly activities to fun ways of celebrating at home that are so festive there’ll be no place you’d rather be.

Fun, pain-friendly New Year events in the Phoenix Valley

1. Phoenix Symphony New Year’s Eve Celebration

Each year, the Phoenix Symphony puts on a wonderful show. To welcome 2016, the Symphony will play a medley of Strauss waltzes, modern hits, Broadway classics, and holiday favorites. Enjoy a complimentary glass of bubbly to get into a festive mood.

Choose from performances at 4 p.m. or 7:30 p.m.

2. Enjoy a special meal at a local restaurant

OpenTable.com has compiled a complete list of Phoenix restaurants with New Year’s Eve offerings. On the site, you’ll find menu descriptions and pertinent details such as whether the evening features live entertainment, a DJ, or perhaps a complimentary toast.

Options include popular Arcadia restaurant Beckett’s Table, with American-style comfort food that promises not to shortchange sophistication. This year’s menu features beef carpaccio for an appetizer and pan-seared sea scallops for an entrée.

Expect innovative touches like butternut squash cornbread cake with the scallops and pea tendril puree with the beef. Of course, a full cocktail menu with a variety of champagnes is also available.

Another popular option is Scottsdale’s Citizen Public House, which will serve a three-course tasting menu with reservations available from 3 p.m. to midnight. The prix fixe menu includes a variety of options for each course. Enjoy a sophisticated version of chicken pot pie, flat iron steak, or a vegetarian dish featuring rainbow chard and caper butter.

Dessert includes spiced ale cake and a potentially dangerous sounding confection called “heart of caramel”—a blend of roasted white chocolate ice cream, rich chocolate cake, mousse, and caramel sauce.

Reserve as soon as possible to secure your preferred restaurant and reservation time.

3. Desert Botanical Garden

Enjoy your New Year’s Eve amid the enchanting atmosphere at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden’s Las Noches De Las Luminarias. This holiday celebration runs all December and ends on New Year’s Eve for one last magical evening.

Breathe in the crisp winter air surrounded by the soft glow of 8,000 luminaria bags along with accent lights and stunning works of art. Musical accompaniment sets the mood. Meals are available on-site, at Gertrude’s, a farm-to-table restaurant, the more casual Patio Cafe, or from a buffet special to the event.

If you’re looking for a budget-friendly New Year’s Eve option, meandering around the light show and skipping dinner would be a great option.

Fun ways to celebrate at home

There’s no need to venture into the cold streets of winter when sometimes the most fun is had indoors, surrounded by family or friends. Special customizations like fun party favors, memorable conversations, or a commitment to carrying on time-worn traditions turns New Year’s into more than a year-end celebration, but one to truly remember.

4. Make your own decorations

Decorating your house for the last hurrah of the holidays can become part of the experience if you spend a few hours creating your own. From glamorously fun paper clocks to gilded wine bottles accented with sparkle and curled ribbon, the only limit to what you create is your imagination (or Internet research skills!)

Here are 32 DIY decorations from WooHome. Don’t miss the beautiful, sparkling hats or show-stopping front-door decorations.

5. Dinner and a movie

Just because you’re eating at home doesn’t mean it needs to be boring! Prepare special foods like cheese and chocolate fondue, and perhaps a decadent entree like lobster mac and cheese (it is a holiday, after all!).

Next, you’ll need a New Year’s Eve movie. When Harry Met Sally might fit the bill, or perhaps Money Train, an action movie about a band of crooks robbing a train on this otherwise magical day. Here’s Fando’s list of 13 New Year’s Eve movies you have to see.

6. Bond with family or friends

While you’re hanging out at home, take the chance to spur meaningful discussions, maybe talking about your hopes for the new year, or your biggest successes from 2015.

Talking about your dreams and victories is a wonderful way to connect and enter 2016 with intention and feelings of connectedness.

7. Have a game night

Enjoy a lively, action-packed night by enjoying board games at home, preferably while wearing your snazzy made-at-home decorations.

A game of charades might be fun. Or, maybe you’ll finally have enough time to finish a game of Monopoly while waiting for the ball to drop. A game of poker could keep people’s interest, or you could even try to guess each other’s resolutions.

Don’t forget to enjoy hot chocolate, tea, or even a glass of champagne or two to make the evening extra festive.

8. Partake in ritual

While many people get caught up in the celebratory nature of New Year’s Eve, the evening has inspiring undertones for our ability to start fresh, pursue our dreams, and make this upcoming year our year.

If you’d like to encourage that fresh start, try a Columbian ritual, recommends FamilyEducation.com. Create a dummy doll with cardboard or thick paper that represents the old year. Make clothes for the dummy by drawing on it or gluing fabric scraps, preferably pieces of old clothing from each family member.

Then, each person in the family writes down on a piece of paper their faults and any situations they felt were bad luck. When the clock strikes midnight, destroy the doll by throwing it in the fireplace or tearing it into shreds if that’s not an option. While the doll is destroyed, each family member should read from the list of faults and bad luck situations, allowing the fire to purify the ill luck and create a fresh start.

How do you plan to celebrate New Year’s Eve?

Image by Nana B Agyei via Flickr

Exercising creates health and spending time in nature boosts mental health, so combine the two into green exercise and what do you get? A phenomenally beneficial activity that further enhances the benefits of exercise, researchers at Coventry University have found.

To examine the impacts of green exercise on a group of children, scientists showed study subjects, who ranged in ages from nine to ten, a video of a forest scene while they completed a 15-minute cycling exercise. A control group completed the same exercise but did not watch a nature video.

Children who watched nature videos while exercising experienced lower blood pressure after completing the exercise than those who weren’t exposed to the nature images. Low blood pressure reduces the risk for health problems including cardiovascular disease. Lead study author Dr. Michael Duncan says:

“[High blood pressure] is a chronic health problem across the world, so given the results we’ve seen in our study it’s crucial that we continue to try to understand the role physical activity and—in particular—green exercise plays in blood pressure.”

The good news is that practicing green exercise is both easy and fun. You don’t need a video of forest scenery to enjoy the health benefits. Instead, try heading to the great outdoors.

1. Bicycle outside

To most closely replicate the study, try getting green exercise by bicycling outside. You might cruise around your neighborhood, or visit the Maricopa Association of Government’s interactive bike map. The map shows everything from roads with paved shoulders to those with bike lanes to full-fledged bike routes in an easy-to-understand, color-coded map.

Many people also use the Valley’s canal system, which features a wide, bikeable surface on either side, for green exercise. The canals are operated by Salt River Project. You can find a map here.

If those ideas don’t sound amenable to you, try visiting your local park. Most large parks have concrete paths winding through them. Some parks also feature manmade lakes, offering the opportunity for waterside cruising. They include Freestone Park in Gilbert, Phoenix’s Encanto Park, and Scottsdale’s Chaparral Park.

Also in Scottsdale, the Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt offers a network of paved paths that traverse 11 miles along lakes and through parks and make a perfect spot for green exercise. Try this area if you like wide expanses of grass that have less of a desert feel.

2. Outdoor exercise classes

If you’d like a guided version of green exercise, try visiting one of the outdoor fitness classes across the Valley. These usually take place in fall through spring months, but some continue to be held during the summer.

Phoenix Adventure Boot camp provides outdoor workout opportunities for people of all fitness levels, from novice to experienced. Workouts change every day and typically include some type of aerobic exercise, weight training, or sports-related activity. The boot camps take place at Phoenix’s Dreamy Draw Mountain Preserve Park. This fee-based program runs for four weeks Monday through Friday, although a three-day per week program is also available.

Other green exercise options include free fitness classes on the lawn at Phoenix’s Biltmore Fashion Park. Yoga takes places at 10:30 a.m. Sunday mornings, Fun Fit strength training takes place at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays, and 6 p.m. on Thursdays is a 5k run club.

3. Hiking

Although some trails in the Valley are notoriously difficult, many other trails offer hiking opportunities for beginner and intermediate hikers and are suitable for those with chronic pain. Some paths, like those at the Desert Botanical Garden, are paved. The garden’s Desert Loop Discovery Trail offers exercisers beautiful views of the surrounding flora and fauna.

Papago Park in Phoenix also offers a variety of pain-friendly trails perfect for green exercise. The entire 1.2 mile West Park Accessible Trail is paved, and the first segment is level enough to be considered handicapped accessible. Another option is the quarter-mile Nature Trail that features interpretive signs with facts about Sonoran Desert animal and plant life.

4. Outdoor fitness courses

Who needs a gym for green exercise when you have outdoor fitness courses? Several parks in Phoenix and surrounding Valley cities offer stationary exercise equipment. Because the equipment is located in a park, those working out also have access to running trails and surrounding greenery.

Phoenix’s Cholla Cove Park features seven workout stations, each one complete with a sign that instructs visitors how to use the equipment. The fitness course is designed to build both flexibility and muscle strength. You’ll find a chin-up bar, sit-up bench, circular ladder, and hamstring stretch station.

Desert Horizon Park, also in Phoenix, is another option for green exercise with outdoor fitness courses. This park features eight fitness stations with many of the same options as Cholla Cove Park. In Scottsdale, visitors to Chaparral Park will find a ten-station exercise course.

5. Tennis

Not every park features a tennis court, but many do. The good thing about tennis is that it’s relatively low impact and gives plenty of opportunities to rest, although you can amp it up as much as you’d like. Playing doubles tennis is another way to slow the game down a bit if you’re still getting into shape.

A list of tennis facilities in Phoenix can be found here. Options include Encanto Park and Roadrunner Park. Scottsdale features a Google map of all its tennis courts. Chandler’s Tumbleweed Park includes the Chandler Tennis Center. Kleinman Park in Mesa features tennis, as does the Gene Autry Tennis Center, which offers lessons and court rentals.

In Glendale, visit Bonsall Park, with tennis courts in addition to basketball and volleyball courts.

6. Watersports

Arizona and water sports may not exactly be synonymous, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of opportunities to forsake dry land in the Grand Canyon State. Tempe Town Lake offers stand-up paddleboarding, which involves standing on a large board resembling a surfboard and using a special paddle to move.

The exercise is wonderful for building core strength and it is low impact. If you get tired, it’s possible to take a break and sit on the board until you’re ready to start moving again.

At Lake Pleasant, you’ll find guided hikes with a lake view, options for paddleboarding, and opportunities to rent kayaks.

What is your favorite way to get green exercise?

Image by Mackenzie Kosut via Flickr

Scottsdale, AZ., December 12th, 2014 –Volunteers from Arizona Pain’s charity organization, the Arizona Pain Foundation, will be hosting their 7th annual Christmas event for over 1,000 refugee children and their families this Saturday, December 13th, at City of Grace Church in downtown Phoenix. The “Christmas Party for Children Around the World” event will take place from 2:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m, and will benefit less fortunate families from other countries who have come to the Phoenix area with very few possessions.

The children come from countries that don’t typically celebrate Christmas, such as the Republic of Congo, Liberia, Iraq, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Somalia. Many of their families fled impoverished and devastating environments and escaped to the U.S. with only the clothes on their backs and whatever they could carry.

“These children are political refugees from all over the world, who have experienced civil wars, displacements, and of course terrorism,” says Dr. Tory McJunkin, co-founder of Arizona Pain (ArizonaPain.com) and the Arizona Pain Foundation. “Now, many of them will get to experience a traditional Christmas celebration for the first time, and we are thrilled to be a part of making that happen for them.”

Volunteers from the Arizona Pain foundation will serve alongside volunteers from Paindoctor, Inc., Arizona Medical Clinic, AZ Tech Radiology, Integrity Home Health, and City of Grace Church to provide all transportation, Christmas gifts, entertainment, and dinner for the children and their families free of charge.

“Each year we pause to reflect on how fortunate we are to live in this time and place,” says Joe Carlon, CEO of Arizona Pain and Paindoctor, Inc. “We are reminded in this season of giving that service to our community and providing to those less fortunate will largely define the legacy we leave behind. Pain Doctor and Arizona Pain are humbled by the success of this event, bringing Christmas to thousands in Phoenix each year, and we hope that our message and example continues to grow in the years ahead.”

For more information on how you can donate to these children and families, please contact Andy Le at Arizona Medical Clinic, 602-432-6579.

About the Arizona Pain Foundation

The Arizona Pain Foundation, which was started by Arizona Pain’ physicians Dr. Paul Lynch and Dr. Tory McJunkin organizes community service and charitable events each year as a way of giving back to the Phoenix areas. The Arizona Pain Foundation is comprised of Arizona Pain’ employee volunteers and serves as a way for the employees of Arizona Pain to give back to those in need –both locally and abroad. This nonprofit foundation is funded solely by 5% of all proceeds from the Arizona Pain eight Phoenix-based clinics in Scottsdale, Chandler, and Glendale, AZ. Founded in 2009, the Foundation’s mission is to share the love of God by bringing compassion, healing, and resources to those in need. This is accomplished by supporting international missionaries, by supporting local nonprofit community work and by promoting prescription drug abuse resistance to youth in Arizona.