Nowadays, most hotels/resorts have pretty well-equipped fitness facilities (where we are right now is literally the best I have ever experienced) but I thought I would take a few moments to talk about what you can do to maintain your fitness levels whilst away from home and your regular routine.
Jumping, leaping, sprinting, pushing and pulling are functional training methods that anybody can do anywhere. All you need is a good pair of training shoes, a little space, some body awareness, water and a towel (because you will break a sweat if you go for it)!
There are a variety of of ways in which you can structure a workout depending on desired intensity, variety and goal:
1. Time Challenge A - perform a particular number of repetitions of each exercise for a total number of sets and try to complete the entire thing in as short a time as possible.
2. Time Challenge B - set yourself a time limit and try to perform as many sets of the given routine as possible within that time.
**Either of these are great formats if you want to challenge yourself to 'beat your best' when you do the routine another time, giving you the ability to track your progress as time goes on.
3. Interval Training - set up an interval timer (there are some great apps available for this) with a 'rest' interval e.g. 15 seconds and a 'work' interval e.g. 45 seconds. Complete the set-up by setting how many rounds you wish to complete to give you a total workout time period e.g. 20 rounds of 15/45 for a 20 minute session. The goal is to perform as many reps of each exercise during your work interval, recover during the rest interval and continue. In this time example, you could perform 20 different exercises or maybe 5 exercises, 4 times through. Again, this is a great structure to use in order to track your progress over time if you record the number of reps you managed to complete during each working set.
The trick to getting the most out of Interval Training is to ensure that you push yourself to give maximum effort during your work interval. 30-45 seconds of work may not seem like enough to get real results but if you are working to maximum output, trust me when I tell you that those short seconds become verrrrrrrry long!
Effective body weight movements are only limited by your imagination!
Squats, Lunges, Single leg work, Push ups, Pull ups, Single arm work, Burpees, Ab work, Sprints, Jumping variations of squats/lunges/single leg work, Bear Crawls, Inchworms, Planks, Supermans, Swimmers, Donkey Kicks, Kicks, Punches... the list is endless. Balance work is great, particularly when it follows a cardiovascular focused exercise as it will demand a greater level of muscular control due to pre-fatigue.
Get creative and put together some exercises that are both demanding and balanced between upper body, lower body, cardiovascular and abdominal challenges.
Questions? Let me know! I'd love to help you get set up so that your next trip doesn't have to mark the death of your fitness progress. I also have an inside track to full workout programs that you can access on your laptop/smartphone from anywhere with an internet connection (or even without when you download straight onto your device!) - I live in the land of No Excuses and the population is growing ;o)
Sabs xxx
