If you tend to travel during the year, you know how disruptive a trip can be to a regular workout routine. Who has time to squeeze gym time into work trips and conferences? Vacations can make finding time to exercise even more challenging.
Who wants to do lunges when it’s time to party!?
Well, the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. So we’ve put together our most practical and easy hotel workout tips. These will equip you with what you need to make the most out of your traveling gym—motel, hotel, or otherwise.
Tips for the Hotel Gym
Hotel gyms are not always the most exciting or well equipped. Use these tips to make the most out of whatever size gym room your hotel has to offer.
- Come prepared – Bring along the basics, like a towel, water bottle, and mat so you can get more out of available flat space. If you find yourself in a windowless box in the basement of a Motel 6, music is your friend.
- Get in some cardio – Sometimes, a treadmill or elliptical machine will be your only option. Most modern machines now include pre-programmed workouts, such as hill training or interval work. Mix it up and do something new and challenging so you don’t get bored.
- Create stations with what you have – Create a circuit of workouts by moving from exercise to exercise. For example, you could do ten minutes on the treadmill, then a five-minute plank routine, before moving to weight lunges (if hand weights are available). Rinse and repeat three to five times, limiting rest time in between exercises.
- Hit the pool – So what if everyone else is poolside? The pool is your friend! Try some pool calisthenics and dynamic movement routines, tread water for fifteen minutes, then do a few laps freestyle down and back. What better place to get your heart rate up than in the pool?
Tips for Working Out In Your Room
For those times when a workout room or pool isn’t available, here are some in-room workout tips:
- Get going early – The best way to ensure you get your hotel workout done is to get it done first thing in the morning. This way, you don’t have to worry about fitting into you busy schedule later on.
- Clear and prepare a space – It seems simple, but adequate space is a must. Move furniture around, turn the television off, put a mat down, and get some music going so you can focus on your workout.
- Think burpees and bodyweight – You don’t need a lot of space to go through a challenging bodyweight routine. Get in a good warmup stretch, jumping jacks, and a quick ab routine. Then set the clock for ten to fifteen minutes and complete one hundred burpees before the time is up. There are a plenty of bodyweight workouts to choose from.
- Try a yoga routine – All you need for a yoga routine is a mat and a little bit of space. Bring in some natural light if you can and try a thirty-minute yoga routine. Yoga can do wonders for your energy and balance, especially while traveling.
Finally, it’s important to remember that you probably won’t be able to recreate your workout routine completely. Put yourself in a maintenance mindset, where the workouts you do on your trip are to keep your baselines for when you do return home and get back into it full swing. Plan for the bare minimum in terms of time and equipment, come prepared, and these hotel workout tips should be more than you need to break a sweat no matter where you’re staying.