The Hotel Workout: Fitness for People Who Want to Exercise While Traveling

Perhaps you are a “road warrior,” that breed of human who spends days and even weeks each month away from home due to business travel. If you exercise when in your hometown, you might worry that your travel schedule precludes maintaining a healthy exercise regimen when out-of-town. Aside from bad airport food, that hotel fitness center (if it exists at all) is probably a compromise to what you’re used to at home.

Should poor or non-existent workout facilities be a barrier to exercise while traveling? Does business travel necessarily have to defeat your intentions to be fit and healthy? The simple answer is no. Your solution is to rethink exercise altogether.

The good news is you’ve already started. Pat yourself on the back for already getting some exercise in during the process of traveling. Carrying luggage, walking the concourses at ORD, LAX, LGA, ATL or any of the other major hubs, perhaps sprinting to catch a flight – all of these things involve some degree of physical activity.

Still, you are not working out at your regular gym in your established routine. Not only does travel pit you against bad or non-existent fitness facilities, your time availability for exercise may be severely restricted. Our recommendation is to attack each of these problems directly, turning inconvenience into opportunity.

Making do with bad fitness facilities

As any exercise physiologist or fitness trainer will tell you, variety is the spice of fitness. Perhaps your workout routines at home have become ... routine. Having to improvise with a bad hotel fitness center – you know, the room with one or two cardio machines and a set of mismatched dumbbells ranging in weights from 5 to 20 pounds, with one 15 pounder gone missing – might actually wake up a few new muscles if you think creatively. Rethink the exercise scenario in these terms:

Get more from less. If you’re used to doing bicep curls with 25 pound dumbbells but the highest weights available are 20 pounds, use the “super slow” method of a 10-second count up, 10-second count down. Pause at the point of greatest difficulty for 1-3 seconds. Apply the same thinking to any weight that is less than what you’re used to. Extra credit: Lift one foot off the ground while performing this and other upper body exercises to add a core-stability dynamic to the workout.

Go hard on lame equipment. If you’re used to state-of-the-art equipment that provides a full range of motion, or, if you generally work with free weights because of the full-body benefits found in most free weight exercises, don’t fret if the hotel gym has a circa-1978 “universal” gym. Yes, that limited-range bench press would be limiting to you if you used it three times a week. Sure, the set path of motion with the shoulder press apparatus fails to give you the rounded exercise your fitness trainer explains is so important. But this is just one day out of many. Use this equipment (assuming there are no safety concerns with malfunctions) to push your weight limits a bit higher. If your muscles fail, the equipment at least precludes injury that might happen with free weights. If the weight maxes out before you do, try everything with one limb instead of two.

Go to real places. Life is not a treadmill – it’s running down streets and along parkways and on beaches. What better way to take in your surroundings than a quick jog in neighborhood of the hotel? Or, if the hotel stairwell is accessible, ditch the Stairmaster for a real climb.

Workout in the hotel room – with limited time

I recently surveyed members of a business group whose jobs require them to travel extensively. They told me the biggest barrier in traveling healthfully was time. Close in second and third reasons were stress and access. Consequently, many of them felt their health was being compromised by the demands of their jobs. Does that sound familiar?

Even if the hotel lacks an exercise facility, you can mitigate both stress and time factors when you learn to exercise in your room. Think about it: grab 15-30 minutes in the comfort and privacy of your own space, with the television tuned to the channel of your choice and your laptop not far away in case some great thoughts surface when your endorphins kick in.

This workout is graduated by time periods: a 15-minute workout if that’s all you can do, with additional exercises if you have 30 minutes.

The 15-minute hotel workout

This segment primarily focuses on the lower body muscles. A major benefit is that by working these large muscle groups, you are creating a more active metabolism – of benefit for mitigating the effects of that cinnamon roll you ate at the airport.

Inverted bicycle: Start out by lying face up in bed or on the floor, legs lifted straight up at a perpendicular angle to your torso. Begin “pedaling” your legs, bicycle style with wide circles, for two to four minutes.

Squat-reaches: Plant your feet on the floor, shoulder distance apart. Squat down as low as you can go without falling over, touching the floor or your ankles if possible. Rise all the way up onto the front balls of your feet, heels raised off the floor, then return to the squat position. Repeat ten times, times three sets.

One-leg squats: Stand at the side of your bed, facing away from the bed. Lift your left leg from the floor and extend it straight back onto the bed such that you are putting most of your weight on your right leg. Slowly lower your whole body on the right leg, maintaining an upright torso. After reaching the lowest level, rise up again. Repeat ten times on both legs, times three sets.

The 30-minute hotel workout

Now that you’ve worked your lower body during the previous 15 minutes, focus on the “push” motion in your upper body if you have the time. As the name implies, push exercises generally involve exerting force to move something away from the body. (On a subsequent day, a “pull” motion would be appropriate.)

Below-grade pushups: Set up two stable desk chairs (non roller wheels for obvious reasons) about 3-5 feet away from the bed and facing each other, about 6 inches wider than your shoulders. With your feet on the bed and hands on the opposing chairs, lower your body (plank form, in a straight line passing from your ankles through your knees, hips, torso and shoulders) to the lowest position you can manage, even to the point where your chest is lower than your hands. Return to the starting position, and repeat 10-30 times.

Tricep dips: Keeping the chairs in approximately the same position as with the pushups, turn around to face the ceiling, with feet securely near the edge of the bed, your hands on the chairs and arms fully extended. Keeping the hips as elevated as possible, slowly lower your body by bending the elbows outward. When your reach the lowest point possible, pause then press up with the arms. Repeat ten times, times three sets. Not challenging enough? Place luggage on your lap to add weight.

Two-hand shoulder press: Stand with your right hand at shoulder level as if you were about to raise a dumbbell in that hand but with the palm face open. Instead, reach your left arm across your face and place the left palm face down onto the right. Press up with the right, but simultaneous oppose that by pressing down with the left. Do this slowly, allowing the right to rise all the way up in about 8 seconds. After a pause, press the right hand down to the starting position at shoulder level. After ten repetitions, switch sides, then repeat for three sets each side. Note how both shoulders and arms are exercising in different ways and to different effects.

Did your time run out but you still want more? If you find yourself waiting in a line later in the day, rise up on the front balls of your feet – better, onto one foot only – and hold that rise for 3-10 seconds. If you have heavy luggage in one or both hands, the exercise progresses to the next level. This calf workout also helps improve balance – even though perhaps the people in line behind you may suspect an imbalance of the psychological kind.

But why should you care? You are fighting back against the unhealthy forces of business travel. And winning.

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Of course, you need to use good judgment in performing these and all other exercises, whether working out independently or in a group. Also, everyone should check with a doctor before beginning an exercise program.

Russ Klettke is an ACE (American Council on Exercise) certified fitness trainer and also the author of “A Guy’s Gotta Eat, the regular guy’s guide to eating smart” (Marlow & Co., 2004, with Deanna Conte, MS RD LD), available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and more than 70 public library systems in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Prior to becoming a published writer, speaker and fitness trainer, he worked in marketing and public relations for several large food companies based in the Chicago area, where he lives. He began competing (term loosely defined) in triathlons in 1987 and has continued in the sport non-stop ever since. For esoteric discussion on good nutrition, join Russ’ blog on cruciferous vegetables at CabbageUniverse.blogspot.com.