戶外運動被認為是20世紀80年代由西方傳入中國的具有休閒功能的體育活動。然而在東方,尤其在中國的歷史上,也曾出現過與現代戶外運動頗為相似的理念。在古代中國,不但有許多冒險家投身於戶外,更有無數文字表達出了關於戶外的理念,這其中,山水田園類的文學作品承載了大量有關於戶外的表達。東晉南朝時期作為山水田園作品的鼎盛時代,以陶淵明、謝靈運兩位大家為代表的山水田園作家,在文字中完整地描繪了自然觀、避世休閒功能以及冒險行為等一系列與現代戶外運動異曲同工的元素。這一時期大量的戶外表達除了文學方面的原因之外,政治因素以及亂世流民現象促使文人大量走入戶外更是極為重要的原因。古代的戶外理念與現代的戶外運動由於時代差異仍然不能完全等同,但二者的聯繫在戶外運動的文化脈絡上仍然具有重要的意義。
Outdoor sports are considered as leisure sports introduced into China from the west in the 1980s. However, in the east, especially in the history of China, there have been ideas quite similar to modern outdoor sports. In ancient China, not only did many adventurers devote themselves to the outdoors, but also countless literatures expressed the ideas about the outdoors. Among them, landscape and pastoral poetry carried a large number of expressions about the outdoors. During the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties, as the heyday of landscape and pastoral poetry, landscape and pastoral writers, represented by Tao Yuanming and Xie Lingyun, fully described in their writings a series of elements similar to modern outdoor sports, such as the view of nature, the function of seclusion and leisure, and the act of adventure. In addition to literary reasons, political factors and the phenomenon of refugees in troubled times are the most important reasons for the large number of outdoor expressions during this period. The ancient outdoor concept and modern outdoor sports are still not completely identical due to the differences of the times, but the connection between the two is still of great significance in the cultural context of outdoor sports.