Staying fit and healthy while traveling can be a challenge.  The body and the mind are truly connected to one another and I’ve always said, garbage in is garbage out.  With the advancements in fitness and health it can be almost overwhelming when it comes to finding the right fitness routine, deciding what diet is good for you, and trying to plan all that while you are on the road.  There was a time I would spend over 260 days a year on the road traveling through so many time zones I wouldn’t know up from down.  Having a schedule to exercise and eat right was almost impossible, and so for a couple of years I worked to develop a travel workout concept that anyone can do.

1.     Establish a Flex Schedule

If you try and set a routine for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday workouts you may not be able to achieve that while traveling.  I found with myself and others too, that if I missed one of those “scheduled” workout days it would demotivate me from continuing on.  Instead, I recommend setting goals of how many times each week you want to accomplish your workout and be flexible with that.  For example, I try to schedule two days of weight training and two days of cardio, but I don’t set what days to do it on.  A traditional schedule would look like this:

Instead, I set a six-week period with a goal and reward at the end of it.  I make my schedule more of a weekly goal checklist.  This way I can lift or do cardio any day of the week so long as I’m making my weekly goals.  For example, maybe I lift Monday but am busy Tuesday and Wednesday.  With this I know I will need to finish my goals Thursday thru Saturday.  Maybe I combine two workouts for one day by lifting first then do a cardio workout.  Regardless, the system lets you flex when you want and adjust for travel changes and challenges.  My six week goal sheet would look like this:

2.     Design For Hotels

As a martial artist, I have specific workout routines that compliment my training.  This means that I need specialized equipment for the exercises I’ve chosen.  However, when you are on the road you can be severely limited in what you can find.  Just find a fitness center you might say?  What if you are in a remote part of Ireland or in Lisbon, Portugal?  Fitness centers are not always around you, but there is one thing you can almost always count on – a hotel fitness center.  Now some smaller Bed and Breakfast places may not have a fitness center, so you want to have a backup program for that too.  Regardless, over the years I have found that most hotels on average have the following equipment:

• Treadmills
• Dumbbells
• Floor Exercise Mat

With these three items in mind, design your travel fitness program so that you don’t have to rely on the fancy equipment.  My lifting programs all use dumbbells only and for hotels without weights, I have bodyweight routines to use as a backup like pushups, sit ups, and squats. 

3.     Don’t Overdo it

At home you may do your workouts possibly up to an hour.  If you are traveling through multiple time zones and experiencing jet lag, combine that with a packed travel schedule, working out that long may be a challenge.  Therefore, don’t overdo it.  With all we know about HIIT (Hi-Intensity Interval Training) or Tabata, keep your travel workouts to around 20 to 40 minutes using these methods.  If this is your first time hearing about HIIT or Tabata, there is plenty of information out there to get educated on it.  It’s worth it – do it!  Think of maximizing your workouts in a short amount of time.  Essentially a HITT workout will take a 45 minute routine and get the same results in 10 minutes.  Once you have the starting point, build from there.