As gyms overflow with resolute New Year’s exercisers, try a less conventional method for breaking a sweat.

Archery Dodgeball
Arm yourself with a bow and foam-tipped arrow at Archery Games Denver, which offers a medieval twist on the gym class contest just outside the Mile High City in Arvada. Each 75-minute session (ages seven and up) begins with an archery lesson, ensuring even the greenest of bowmen can compete. Not that hitting a moving target—especially one ducking behind inflatable barriers on a 3,300-square-foot course—will be easy. Helmets, eyewear, and arrows with multiple layers of force-absorbing foam mean that if your team falls short, the only bruising will be to your pride. $27 per player

Photo courtesy of Smash*It Breakroom

Smash*It Breakroom
Acts of destruction help you get moving while simultaneously reducing the boiling in your blood. That’s the thought behind the Overland neighborhood’s new-in-September rage room, where smashable items (and all the tools you need to demolish them) wait inside a concrete-walled room for patrons 13 and older. The proprietors provide eyewear, gloves, and other safety equipment, allowing you to chuck plates against the wall and take a baseball bat to a television set without getting sliced up by debris. Where else can you Hulk out guilt-free? From $30

Skijoring
A Scandinavian sport in which a horse or dog pulls a skier through the snow, skijoring may seem like a cop-out—the animal is the motor, right? Not quite. Balancing makes your quads, hamstrings, and glutes burn, and you need to propel yourself, cross-country-skiing-style, to give your pup an assist. Devil’s Thumb Ranch and Frisco Nordic Center teach dogs and their humans how to skijor, and those feeling brave can try the horse-driven San Juan Skijoring competition January 11 to 12. There, kids and adult newbies enter the junior and novice divisions, respectively, before watching the pros sail off jumps.

Angela Ufheil
Angela Ufheil
Angela Ufheil is a Denver-based journalist and 5280's former digital senior associate editor.