While travelling is fun, plenty of people tend to forget about their fitness routine while in transit. For others, arriving at a new place and figuring out how to exercise is too much of a bother.
Exercise for travellers is essential. That is because shelving your workout for long periods can seriously derail your training goals.
When it comes to workouts, consistency is one of the critical contributors to your results.
Consequently, it is best to consider embracing dynamic exercises you can do on the go. These will supplement your usual routine and ensure that you do not fall back in the fitness journey.
So, here are five tips on how to stay fit during your travels.
1. Trails
With prior research, you can learn plenty of things about your destination. That includes the neighbourhood where you will be staying.
Depending on where you will be located while there, the surrounding areas can offer plenty of workout platforms.
It is always a good idea to explore your new environment. If it is a locale with trails and areas that support walks and hikes, why not consider scheduling daily walks or runs?
Running is an excellent form of exercise as it offers a full-body workout. Did you know that an average 120-pound individual can burn up to 11.4 calories when running?
Alternatively, if you aren’t fond of running or walking, you could consider renting a bike and cycling around the neighbourhood instead.
Aside from that, there is the option of joining a local gym or fitness centre. Most gyms come with flexible deals for their short-term clients.
Spending an hour or so at the local gym will help keep your training goals within reach without disrupting your travel schedule.
2. Hotel Gyms and other amenities
More often than not, business and holiday travellers alike tend to stay in hotels.
Most reputable hotels come with a host of amenities that you can take advantage of during your travels.
Sadly, most people miss out on these either due to their ignorance or mere disinterest.
For instance, some hotels come with gym services, swimming pools, complimentary bike rentals, yoga studios, and many more options.
What’s more, in some cases, you do not need to pay anything extra to use some of these facilities!
Therefore, when deciding where to stay, it is best to look for a facility with dependable fitness amenities.
Even as a first-timer on the gym scene, a hotel gym can be a convenient way to ease yourself into training. Most of them are hardly crowded and are an easy way to learn about the gym experience.
Besides the hotel gym, you could also make the most of the hotel’s swimming pool. Some establishments even come with heated pools, which are an excellent facility during cold seasons.
3. Indoor options
Besides considering what you can do outside, also consider activities you can do in your room.
These are workouts that achieve the fitness goal without necessarily requiring lots of room or equipment.
Some worthwhile considerations in this regard include jump roping, yoga, pilates, and High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).
While some of the hotels might offer yoga classes, the beauty of this exercise is that one can do it in their room as well. However, the slight caveat is that solo yoga sessions can only be undertaken by persons with adequate knowledge of the practice.
Regardless, intermediate yoga practitioners may still practice it in their hotel rooms through online classes.
Apart from yoga, jump rope is yet another minimalistic exercise; in that it requires minimal equipment. A jump rope is easy to carry around, demands little space and offers an intense workout.
You can get it done within the confines of your room, thereby meeting your cardio requirements for the day.
To further boost your cardio, consider incorporating resistance band exercises and bodyweight strength training. These too require minimal equipment and serve to tone your body and increase your muscle strength.
Resistance bands are an excellent substitute for weight training. The best thing about them is that, like jump ropes, they easily fit in your suitcase, making them perfect companions for travel fitness.
4. Improvise
Since travel involves being in new places, improvisation will serve you well.
For example, instead of taking the elevator, opt for the stairs. Often, we take the elevator not because we are unwell or running late but because we are too lazy to go for the stairs.
We even take elevators when going down buildings, sometimes even one floor down! The world has grown so lazy that often, we just make a beeline for the lift. We do not even bother to know where the stairs are.
Taking the stairs is an excellent way to exercise while going about your day.
Another mode of improvisation is opting for walks whenever possible. Instead of exploring that new town on board a taxi, why not do it on foot?
Not only does it give you the chance to meet and interact with locals, but it also introduces you to nuances about the place that you might have missed while in a car. And you get all these benefits while also keeping fit.
5. Healthy foods
One of the pitfalls that come with travel is the high likelihood of indulging in unhealthy foods.
Cheat meals are okay once in a while. However, when unhealthy eating becomes the norm rather than the exception, your fitness goals will always be elusive no matter how hard you train.
One clever way to escape consuming unhealthy foods is by shopping for healthy snacks to carry with you.
That will ensure you have a healthy snack to sate your hunger pangs instead of purchasing a random unhealthy item when out and about.