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Committing to be fit.
August 27, 2010 | 7 Comments
Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. ~ Robert M. Hutchins
Especially while travelling. How does one keep fit while confined to a cramped hotel room without any gear? Or while stuck in an elevator?
Look at Delta. Whether she’s inside the house, in the yard, or the cat hotel, she does lunges, stretches and sprints. No exceptions. No excuses. No equipment. She exclusively performs body weight exercises.
To preserve your hard-earned fitness level, exercise at least every third day while on the road, performing at least a third of your aerobic routine at your typical level of intensity and completing your strength training program at least once a week, using the same amount of resistance. Keeping at least part of your routine in tact will keep your energy level up. (Source)
Besides, crowded airplanes, junk food and dehydration put our immune systems to the test. Hence, staying fit becomes even more imperative.
We’ve listed some great resources that would be useful not just for those on the road. They’re also perfect for busy folks who have just a few minutes each day and don’t wish to clutter their home with fancy equipment. You don’t even need sports shoes, or socks for that matter. Most of the exercise routines cited below are supposed to be done barefoot. In each of these programs, there is a sequence of exercises that’s easy to remember.
No one has given us any incentives, monetary or otherwise, to endorse these products. We just happen to think they work.
I.
Download the free e-book from
http://www.bodyweightcoach.com/
It’s called Bodyweight FUN-damentals. It really is free and took precisely three minutes to register and download. It involves six exercises using just your body weight and you can do them anywhere – including in a hotel room. All you need is twelve minutes, three times a week.
That’s just 36 minutes of exercise each week. Of course, you could double them into 24-minute sessions, but if you’re doing the exercises correctly, after 12 minutes you should be smoked.
II.
10-minute Fat-Burning Circuit
via Youtube. Four exercises, ten minutes. You do need the cat, though. 
III.
Flow Fit by Scott Sonnon
If you find Pilates and Yoga boring or not quite aggressive enough, this could be what you are looking for. It combines yoga and cardio for strength, agility, mobility, and muscular/cardiovascular endurance. Recommended session length: “14-18 minutes”.
The beginner level exercises are perfect for novices. If you are quite athletic or a practitioner of martial arts, the advanced version of this program is very effective in improving flexibility and range of motion through dynamic stretching. VIDEO DEMO.
We’ve just ordered our copy.
This program comprises seven exercises at many levels of difficulty each with lots of transitions. Again, perfect for a hotel room or any room in the house. The only equipment you need is a chair.
There’s also a Flow Fit II that emphasises Ground Engagement (Video Demo).
IV.
Classical Pilates Technique: Complete Mat Workout
We have been using this DVD for years and have found it very effective in increasing core strength.
There are four levels – Basic to Super Advanced. The Basic routine has 10 exercises and is 7 minutes long while the Advanced has about 25 exercises and is 20 minutes long. No gear needed. A yoga mat or plain floor will suffice. (Video Demo)
V.
If you’re looking for improving joint mobility and range of motion, get Intu-Flow also by Scott Sonnon. You don’t have to be athletic to benefit from this. There are four degrees – Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Master. Think of it as a “Movement Vitamin” that gets you feeling like a car that’s all warmed up and ready to roll. It leaves you feeling energised, not tired.
You can either do the longer version, or condense it based on how much time you have. HERE, for instance, is a seven-minute version.
In this video, Scott Sonnon explains the ten principles behind Intuition + Flow (Intu-Flow).
VI.
Power Yoga by Rodney Yee. Excellent workout that will make even an advanced athlete sweat. It’s about an hour long, though.
All you need is a yoga mat or a carpeted floor.
VII.
The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga: A Personalized Practice for Strength, Flexibility, and Focus by Sage Rountree
The 3 programs (Strength, Flexibility, Focus) are each about 50 mins. each. You can customize a session by selecting up to 12 segments to make it as long/short as you want, as easy/difficult as you want. Rountree is an endurance athlete and her selection of exercises is especially useful for runners.
SOME TRAVEL TIPS
1. Print out the list of exercises and number of reps. Or load it into your laptop in a file. Even at home, with some DVDs, we write down/print out the exercises and reps after we’ve watched the DVD. You can zip through them in a lot less time that it takes to watch someone demonstrating a technique that you’ve already learnt.
Printing it out or saving it to the hard drive in pictures provides a better visual guide than just written instructions. Besides, the picture helps us re-focus our form and posture.
For instance, here’s an exercise from Youtube we like. It’s so much easier to take a screenshot as a reference than write down in words what you’re supposed to do.
2. If you have a favourite exercise DVD, load it onto your laptop and play it in your hotel room. Or carry the DVD with you and play it in your hotel room if it has a DVD player.
3. Throw a resistance band or tube into your suitcase to increase the difficulty level. These $2 mini-bands work really well. A jump rope is great for cardio.
4. Take the stairs. In your hotel room, at the airport, at the mall, everywhere.
5. Get a pair of Vibram five fingers shoes. (REI and many sports stores carry it). They are very slim and lightweight and much easier to throw in a suitcase than running shoes. If your hotel has a gym, just slip the Vibrams on. Or if you are in an area with nice safe neighbourhoods or trails, go for a run. We’ve stopped wearing our regular running shoes to the gym. We use our Vibrams. We’d run barefoot, but our gym has a “Shoes at all times” policy. On a road trip, if you stop at a rest area, slip your Vibrams on and bring out the jump rope.
6. Even if you’re not travelling out of town, keep a pair of running shoes or Vibrams and a gym bag with a T-shirt, shorts and pair of socks in your car. You may have half an hour to hit the gym at your workplace or go for a sprint. There have been so many times when one of us wanted to exercise, but didn’t have shoes or a set of change clothes.
Check out Tips for Staying Fit When Traveling with a Truck Driver.
A SOLICITATION FOR OUR TIGER BALM FUND
If you are inclined to purchase those DVDs, you can do so through our Amazon store (Under “Fitness”). It won’t cost you anything extra. We’ll certainly think of you whenever we are enveloped in the heady aroma of analgesic.
- The Jugalbandits
Filed Under: fitness, TRAVEL, vegan athlete, Vegetarian Athlete
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7 Comments
Thank you. Dont know which airport I am in, but I do know that I am in one.
- the weary traveler
Love U! 12mins x 3days . I can do. Even with an active and demanding 2 yr. old!
Thank you.
Good stuff. Sonnon has good information.
Your posts are always very informative, no matter the topic. This one is especially helpful for me while I try to find my rhythm in an over-chaotic world of mis-composed tunes
Thank you!
Inspiring post.
especially to a lazy bum like me.
Siri
Great post… served me as guide to keeping fit if i ever loose access to a gym. right now i prefer the traditional 3-4 day rotational gym lifting workout followed by cardio… but i have a nightmare scenario of having to move to india (hometown is small with no big name “fitness clubs”)… and not knowing how to handle this key fitness component missing from my life. you can’t run on the roads there or else people will look at you crazy … and there really isn’t a concept of working out… so you become lazy, fat and have backpain in your 30′s… i am not sure of your backgrounds in terms of if moving to india is even a possible scenario for you but have you guys ever given this much thought?
kettlebells at home. it’s cardio plus strength. no gym required.