Here’s the situation…..
Your job has you on the road for 5 days straight. Normally, your company has it’s employees stay at luxurious Marriott brand hotels. Well, there’s been a slight change in plans because all of the major hotel brands in this town are booked solid!
As you look for another hotel, you realize that the only option you have is some local hole in a wall motel. You previously had planned on working out at the Marriott’s nice gym facility.
After arriving to this new motel you find out that:
- The only amenity is a continental breakfast consisting of 3 month old stale muffins!
- There’s no gym!
- Additionally, there’s no other gym facility within a twenty mile radius of your motel!
“Oh man! This is going to be a crappy week!”
What’s a traveler to do!!??
First off R-E-L-A-X!
Mr. Travel Fitness aka MicVinny is here to make it all better.
No matter if you’re traveling for work or pleasure, all you need is a room. One simple room is all you need in order to have a great workout.
Don’t worry about the fancy gym equipment. I’m here to teach you how that simple room on the road (or even in your own house) can still help you achieve a good workout.
Quick Hotel Room Observation
When you first walk into any room, look at all the objects that are around. In a typical hotel room you will normally find the following:
- Bed
- Desk
- Chair
- Table
- Pillows
- Sheets
- Dressers
- Luggage
- Lamps
Are all those items bolted to the floor?
If not they can be moved! Moving the items means that you can create your own workout space. Additionally you could use some of those objects to do some exercises with.
Creative Hotel Room Exercises
Flip the mattress
When you’re at home, you know the mattress should be flip about every 2-3 months right. You know how hard it its to flip that bad boy right? Isn’t that the reason you take so long in finally flipping it over?
Well why not turn this “painful” chore into a great exercise game. Take the covers off and see how many times you can flip that bad boy! Make sure no objects that could get damage are near the bed and go to town!
See how many times you can flip it in 10 minutes. Or set a specific amount of flips for the day like 5 flips. Increase that number during each trip.
Don’t feel to bad about leaving the covers off the mattress if this is your last night in your room, because you’ve just helped the cleaning staff!
(Please be sure to tip the housekeepers if you do this activity while you’re still actually staying in your room!)
Hotel Room Farmers Walk
Pick up an object and walk side to side with it in your room without putting it down. This will work out your arms, abs and legs. Sounds easy but the longer you do it the harder it becomes.
Depending on the shape and size you will either hold it by your side, to your chest or above your head. Anything over your head will provide your shoulders with a great workout.
Table Inverted Rows
This comes with a warning! If you’re a person over 225 lbs, you might want to attempt with caution. Regardless of your size you should still be careful. One of the best back exercises you can do is pull ups. Unfortunately you can’t find a bar in your hotel room, so a good pull up substitute is a Reverse Row. In this case instead of a bar we’re going to use a table or desk instead.
Bodyweight Exercise
Did you know that you had a 24/7 gym with you at all times? It’s called your body. It is capable of doing amazing things if you learn how to do it properly.
Bodyweight routines are the perfect type of workouts to do inside your room. Nothing is required excepted your imagination and ability to be humbled.
Too many folks over estimate just how strong they really are. Doing bodyweight exercise allows you to find imbalances in your body and address key weak points. A few days of bodyweight exercise will do you good if you do go back to your normal weightlifting routine at the gym.
Here’s a simple list of good bodyweight exercise to get you started:
Upper Body
- Push Ups
- Wall Push Ups
- Incline Push UPs
- Pike Push Ups
- Bench Dips
Lower Body
- Sit to Stands
- Squat
- Front Lunges
- Walking Lunges
- Stiff leg Bodyweight Deadlifts
Abs & Core
- Plank
- Crunches
Cardio
- Burpees
- Jumping Jacks
- Fake Jump rope (no actual jump rope involved)
- Mountain climbers
Now when picking a routine, make sure you do it smartly. In traditional workouts you try to pick your workout based on groups.
I would simple start with a workout consisting of:
- 1 Upper body movement
- 1 Lower body movement
- 1 Ab/Core movement
- 1 Cardio movement
Example bodyweight workout Routine
- Incline Push Up
- Forward Lunge
- Crunches
- Burpees
Training Style
Once you know which exercises you want to do, you now just need to figure out what style of training you will be doing in your room. Here’s some examples:
Time Based
You pick an exercise and just try to do as many as you can during a time period. Example: 5 mins of Push Ups
Sets/Reps
You repeat the exercise for set amount of repetitions with a break in between.
Example: 5 sets of 10 reps. Rest 30 secs between sets.
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
HITT is geared more towards getting your heart rate up. It’s a sneaky way to get a great cardio workout in a short amount of time. You do the exercise nonstop for a set amount of time before taking a rest for a precise amount of time. You then repeat. HIIT should not last for long periods of time (think over 10-20 mins) otherwise you’ll burn out!
Example: 20 seconds nonstop. 40 secs rest. Repeat 8x
Tabata
Tabata consists of four minutes of specific exercises done at a specific high intensity pace.
It is not for rookies!
You are to keep the rates on/off as prescribed to reap the cardio benefits. If you do more than 4 mins continuously, then you’re not doing it correctly!
Example: 20 secs on 10 secs off for 8 rounds.
Stretching
The simplest exercise you’re probably overlooking when exercising in your hotel room is probably stretching. One of the greatest stretching exercises is yoga.
Yoga is a great way to stretch and get in tuned with your body while being in a hotel room. All you need is your laptop and a good yoga site.
Here’s some good yoga sites:
http://www.yogajournal.com/category/beginners/
There’s also one more exercise you can add in for fun…….
SEX!!!!
Didn’t see that one coming did you?
This is a room is it not?
If you have your loved one traveling with you, don’t hesitate in getting some good loving in to help burn some calories! I think it’s an activity that you both would enjoy!
(Now if you’re traveling solo, I’m not giving you an excuse to cheat. I KNOW how some of you think out there….)
So next time you find yourself in a crappy hotel situation, why not give these creative exercises a try!
