When you're traveling, it often means you have a packed schedule with little to no downtime. However, you don't have to sacrifice your fitness just because you're not home. By following these five hotel workout ideas, you can still break a sweat when you're traveling.
1. Try These Moves in Your Room
Try these simple but effective moves in your room when you have some free time.
Squats and Lunges
The best exercises recruit your largest muscle groups, including your posterior chain (back, glutes, hamstrings, and calves) and core. So even without weights, you can fit in a decent workout session by performing a combination of these moves. Try 30 seconds of air squats, take a 10-second break, and then move onto forward lunges. Continue this routine and incorporate box squats, reverse lunges, curtsy squats, and side lunges.
High Knees in Place
This cardiovascular exercise is a great hotel workout to perform between moves. It keeps your heart rate up, which ensures that you'll burn more calories.
Step-Ups
Most hotel rooms have a stable chair that you can use for step-ups. This move uses your own body weight to fire up your core, glutes, and quadriceps to lift your body up and then lower it with control.
Planks
This simple but efficient core exercise offers tons of variety. It can be done on your hands or elbows, to your front or to your side, static or dynamic, and for increasing or decreasing amounts of time. It can even be made harder or easier by elevating your feet or hands. It's the perfect exercise for when you have no access to weights.
2. Utilize the Hotel Gym
When staying at a hotel, you can still squeeze in a full-body workout that consists of cardio exercise and strength training, and uses combination moves (a squat to a calf raise, for example). Combination moves will give you double the workout in half the time, and they rely less on heavy weights or fancy machines. Start with a five-minute warm-up, followed by 10 minutes of fast/slow intervals on the treadmill, even if you normally don't do cardio. This will elevate your heart rate, so you'll burn more calories while strength training.
Next, choose a different rep scheme than you normally use. When you do that, your muscles have to work hard to guess how many reps you're going to do or how long it will take you, rather than predictably going through the motions of your normal workout routine. For example, if you typically work out with heavier weights but are stuck with lighter ones while traveling, increase the number of reps you do for each exercise. If you normally hop on the treadmill for a half hour of steady-state running, try doing intervals of 30 to 60 seconds followed by 15 to 40 seconds of walking. You could even increase the elevation of the treadmill for a challenge.
3. Bike to City Attractions
Instead of a hotel workout, rent a bike (and helmet) and get in your exercise while exploring your location. Depending on how far and fast you're going, you can burn some serious calories. In fact, a 150-pound person biking 10 to 12 mph burns 204 calories in just 30 minutes. Just be sure to look up the local traffic and bike laws before heading out.
4. Go Running Outdoors
Are you visiting a pedestrian-friendly destination? Then lace up your running shoes and explore. Sometimes the best mornings start with doing something healthy and invigorating. The bonus is that you can check out local attractions on your route. Some hotels even offer a fitness concierge that will help you find optimal running, biking, or hiking routes if they're nearby. You can also find some stairs or a park bench to do drills after your run, including dips, squat jumps, step-ups, push-ups, planks, mountain climbers, hops up and down the stairs, and so much more.
5. Find a Class
Who says you have to throw out your routine completely while traveling? Find a yoga, spinning, or boot camp class in the area to stay active.
There are plenty of ways to stick to your workout routine when you're traveling. As long as you make exercise a priority while you're away from home, your body will continue to reap the benefits.
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