Big workout today, and a big drive to get to it. We are heading down to a river in Costa Rica for leg day, and this is one of my favourite spots in the whole country.
The plan was kettlebells by the water. Then I got to the river and realised I had forgotten the kettlebells. So this turned into a bodyweight leg workout. No equipment, just me, the silkies, and a flat rock by the river. As the saying goes: Improvise, Adapt, Roll With The Memory Loss…
The spot is Poza del Cañon, a river canyon outside Liberia. You find it by looking for a certain bridge. I will not tell you to just drive around Costa Rica until you spot it. Drop a comment on the video and I will send you the pin.
Poza del Cañon: A River Canyon Outside Liberia
The first view comes from the bridge. You look over the edge and it is a long drop down to the water. On one side the river runs stronger, and the rock is all chiseled out from years of it doing that. Today the water was running browner and higher than usual. It had been raining, so the river was up. Most days I come here it runs blue.
Down a path from the bridge, the canyon opens up. There are pools, a small falls, and walls of rock the river has carved smooth. People are rare over here. Most people heading up this way continue to La Leona Waterfalls. This location is much less busy and known, so it’s great for relaxing.
One thing about the rain. It makes everything greener, and green means I watch the ground more closely. There are bushes on both sides of the path, so I keep an eye out for snakes and for holes my foot could drop into. I was already slipping and sliding on the way down. This is part of the reason why the kettlebell was staying in the car.
Cliff jumps and rock carvings
The hike in is overgrown and worth it. There is a lookout, and a ledge people use to cliff jump into the deep water. I have watched guys jump from it. I am not telling you to jump from anywhere. I am just saying it happens. There are also carvings on the rock here. They look old, the kind of thing indigenous people left behind. I am no expert, but they look real to me. There are a few of them if you go looking.
The Setup: Silkies, No Kettlebells, a Flat Rock
So the kettlebells were in the car and the car was up the hill. That is fine. Legs do not actually need iron. Bodyweight on uneven ground is plenty, and a river makes a good gym. I found a flat rock to put my stuff on and got ready.
I was in the silkies, of course. The silkies I train in are the two-inch Soffe pair. They are short, they let the legs move, and part of why I like them is they make you want to train legs in the first place. On a riverbank in the heat, less fabric is the right call.
The river was higher than normal, so I kept half an eye on the water the whole time. In a canyon like this the level can come up fast if it rains upstream. Papi needs to get wet, but Papi also wants to get home. If the water starts turning brown suddenly, get to higher ground. Especially if there are clouds up towards the volcanoes farther inland.
The Warm-Up
I gave this one a proper ten minutes. A full-body warm-up, not just legs. Shoulders, then some twists, because there is a bit of rotation coming later. Hip openers and groin work, which I do standing because it is easier on a riverbank. Leg swings front and back.
Then I bring the heart rate up. Jumping jacks, running on the spot, some simulated skipping. I am not hauling a skipping rope down a canyon, so the arms do the work without it. The point is to move through every plane I am about to use, especially on ground this uneven.
From there I drift into the first easy bodyweight moves. Light lunges, switching feet. It is half warm-up, half workout. I want to feel good before anything dynamic, because the footing here does not forgive much.
The Bodyweight Leg Workout
I will not drag you through every rep. The base of this session is volume. A few hundred bodyweight squats and a few hundred lunges, the simple kind, switching the front foot each time. That alone is a real leg day if you go to full depth.
Then I add a little spice. For the squats I take a narrow stance and rise onto my toes at the top, a squat to tippy-toes. It is a small calf raise built into the squat, and it makes you fight for balance. For the lunges I stop returning to the start. I switch straight from one lunge into the next, left to right and back again.
I take a breather in the shade because it is hot. Whenever I sit down in Costa Rica I scan around, mostly for snakes. This time I found what I thought was a snake tucked into a rock line. I looked closer and it appeared to be a frog, taking shelter from the sun, with a camo pattern I did not know frogs had. Good company.
Then the rock. Doing outdoor workouts, I look for things to use, to step on or to lift. There was a perfect rock right there, so step-ups it was. I keep the non-working leg tucked in close to the rock rather than swinging it out wide, because that gives me a much better glute stretch. About ten a side to start.
Then the move I was most happy with. A step-up with a drive at the top. Not a big hop, just enough to add momentum, then land back on the one foot under control. The knee drive makes it feel a lot more balanced than a plain step-up. I was figuring it out on camera, about five a side, and the left side was harder. I was glad I had warmed all the way up to it.
Here is the whole session, river and all.
Then Get in the Water
The best part of training at a river is the finish. You earn the swim. This is a beginner-friendly session at heart. No equipment, just bodyweight and a rock, and you scale it by how much volume you can stand and how dynamic you make the step-ups.
So if you find the bridge, come down and try it. Watch your footing, watch for snakes, and run the live test on whether there are crocodiles in the water before you fully commit. There were not. I sat in the river until I cooled off, then went to go protein myself.
FAQ
Where is Poza del Cañon?
It is a river canyon outside Liberia, in the Guanacaste region of northwest Costa Rica. You reach the water by a bridge, with a calmer swimming entrance on one side and stronger flow on the other.
Do I need any equipment for this leg workout?
No. The whole session is bodyweight: squats, lunges, and step-ups on a rock. A gym step or a low wall stands in for the rock. Add the knee-drive hop on the step-ups when you want it harder.
What are silkies?
Silkies are short two-inch military-style PT shorts, also called ranger panties. They are light, they dry fast, and they let your legs move. I cover them fully in the Soffe Ranger Panties review.