4 Tips for Working Out While Travelling
Undeniably, working out is a little harder to do when you are travelling. When you are at home, you might have a gym membership, home workout equipment, or some other resource you use to train. Despite, the increased hardship to get your workouts done, there are some tips that can make it easier. The rest of this article will be spent talking about those tips and how to implement them.
When should you work out while travelling?
Although the purpose of this article is to help you train while travelling, we should first talk about when you should work out and why you should. So, let’s talk about some reasons why you might want to train while travelling:
1. You have an event or competition coming up
Say for example you have an upcoming triathlon or powerlifting meet. I would first say that it likely isn’t wise to schedule a vacation before such an event. However, say you couldn’t plan the trip any other time or maybe you are travelling for work. Regardless, in this instance, it likely makes sense to get some training in during your travels
2. You are on a longer trip
Let’s define this as greater than 1 week. If you have been working hard towards a goal for a while, it might make sense to get a little training in on your travels to make sure you maintain your progress. It shouldn’t take too much working out to do so.
3. You just genuinely enjoy your training
This is the category that I would fall into. In normal life, my training is the part of the day that I tend to look forward to most. As a result, when I travel, it is still something that I look forward to doing and care about getting done.
Okay, so we’ve covered my main reasons why you might want to train while you are travelling. Now, let’s talk about some reasons why you might not want to work out while travelling:
1. You are taking a short vacation
Since we defined a long vacation as greater than 1 week, let’s define this as less than 1 week. Odds are that 1 week or less off of your training will do any damage to the progress you’ve made. In this case, I would argue that it’s best to just focus on enjoying the vacation. The little bit of rest might even do your body some good if you train a lot.
2. You are taking a short, time consumed work trip
This is something that we have all likely experienced at some point. If you are only travelling for work for a few days and already feel like you don’t have any time to sit down, then you might not want to train. The extra stress from trying to squeeze in a workout might do you more harm than good.
3. You are seeing family you haven’t seen in a long time
The reasons for this are similar to the first. If you are only there for a short time and you’re seeing family you don’t get to see often, then try not to stress about your training and focus on enjoying the time.
There are of course more reasons that you might or might not want to work out while travelling, but these are my top reasons and the reasons I see most people face. Now, if you feel like you fall into the category where you might want to work out while on the road, let’s talk about how to make that easier.
Tip #1: bring workout equipment that does not take up a lot of space
If you are working out while traveling, you are most likely going to use your body weight for most of your exercises. However, certain movements can be more difficult to do with no equipment. For example, a row becomes virtually impossible. So, if you want to feel like you are getting a more complete workout, having some gear can be helpful.
For this, I have two main recommendations. My first recommendation, and my personal go to, would be TRX straps. They can give you much more exercise variability, especially for your back, arms, and core.
My second recommendation would be to have some resistance bands. These can be a good option because they are cheaper than TRX straps and you can recreate almost every movement you would do with a dumbbell. The resistance is generally not as quality as using weights, but they are practical for when you are travelling.
Tip #2: try to make your workouts fast
The aim of this tip is to help you get in a quality workout without taking away from your vacation. A lot of times, working out can seem “in the way” if you are on vacation and have a lot of activities planned. And let’s face it, the point of your vacation shouldn’t be so that you can work out in a park.
Making your workouts more efficient is something that I talk about in more detail here. However, there are two ways specific to travelling that I want to bring up.
The first would be to utilize supersets. So instead of doing just 3 straight sets of push-ups, maybe superset push-ups and TRX rows (assuming you brought them). The key here is just to superset opposite movements or opposite muscle groups. You will need less rest time in between sets and can therefore get more done in less time.
The second way would be to do circuit training or HIIT (high intensity interval training) style workouts. While these are not optimal for building muscle generally, they can provide enough stimulus to make your body maintain muscle. Not to mention, these don’t take as long as normal workouts.
Tip #3: be prepared to get creative
If you look to your environment with an open mind, you will likely be able to produce a better workout than you’d think. I think this can be best described with an example. Bulgarian split squats are normally something that require a lot of reps for me to feel a sufficient stimulus. However, while I was in Italy, I fortunately found a big rock to do them with, pictured below:
Would dumbbells have been more optimal? Absolutely. Did this rock provide enough resistance to make them much harder? It absolutely did.
Tip #4: have the right mindset in your training
Most of the time, your training and nutrition will not be optimal to continue your progress. However, maintaining progress is much easier than making further improvements. So, if you go about your training with the mindset of holding on to your progress as opposed to furthering it, you will likely design more efficient workouts and have a better peace of mind.
Related: How Little Can You Train While Maintaining Your Strength and Endurance?
