It’s easy to forget about exercise when you’re traveling for work (or better yet, on vacation). But that doesn’t mean you should neglect the body. It is your temple after all.
When you don’t have your beloved gym, trainer, workout buddies or equipment, motivation can easily wane.
The key is adaptability. Adjusting your workout to your surroundings. Once you mentally modify your mindset, you’ll find that working out can be integrated into any daily routine no matter where you are.
The YouTube workout
Trainer based workouts take the thinking out of the equation allowing you to just sweat it out.
There are a myriad of workout vids you can follow – anything from yoga to HIIT training, even warm up and warm downs – all ranging from five to forty-five minutes.
Tabata
8 x 20-second exercises with 10-second rest periods. Think burpees, mountain climbers, jumping lunges, plank, high knees, heck star jumps will do very nicely indeed. Just get your heart rate up. If 8 sets are too much, start at 4 and work your way up. Likewise, if you don’t have the time. Here’s a handy Tabata Timer for you too!
Go for a dip
If you’re in close vicinity of a pool, river or beach there is no reason you can’t do a few laps. Morning is best. Fewer tourists and locals = less wee in the water. Plus sports brands are FINALLY getting it right when it comes to swimwear so there’s no reason you can’t look cute and be active in the water.
Go for a run
‘‘Genius idea – how does she come up with these?” is what you’re thinking. If you need some motivation there are some really cool running apps to help you get through it! I personally love Zombies, Run! It’s an interactive game-like app where you’re being chased by zombies and have to run for your life!
Embrace the "free trial" concept
Yoga, Pilates, Spin, Gym – a quick Google search of offers near you will give you a range of 7/14/30 day trials based on your fitness preferences. These are more common in larger cities so won’t be available everywhere. Also, Groupon often have cheap weekly trials if you can’t find any free ones.
Hill Sprints
Contrary to what you may think, you can almost certainly find a large hill or two in any big city - and if you can find em, sprint em. 5×10 seconds with a 1.5-minute rest in between. Work your way up slowly but never more than ten. These little fellas are basically the holy grail of fat burning and will boost your metabolism and human growth hormone (HGH – a tissue building and fat mobilising hormone that our body produces when a) we sleep, and b) after intense exercise) ten-fold if done on the reg.
30-Day Challenges
These are great as you don’t need much room and can do them anywhere. Yes anywhere. I completed the squat challenge a while ago and can attest to the fact that it’s a great way to get you going, especially on those days you’d rather wax your Dad’s back than exercise. Start with the challenge, once your heart rate is up you end up doing a little more (maybe a Tabata or two?) and a little more and before you know it, you’ve spent the last 20 minutes sweating and can justify the mountain of room service you slammed down last night.
Y to the OGA
You don’t need to be Swami Sivananda to conduct your own mini yoga sesh. Who? Yeah ok, I just googled best Yogis in the world. But seriously, I’ve started doing a little 10-minute routine every morning – just a few poses I’ve hand picked to put my head in a good frame of mind and stretching those muscles after just having slept all night. The beauty is that you can choose from about a million different yoga poses based on what you want to focus on. Most of mine are aimed at helping digestion but you can structure yours to improve concentration, flexibility, release tension etc.