Jul 26, 2021
Training while traveling presents challenges, whether your a
frequent business traveler or someone who only travels to visit
family or for vacation. Either way, we have to decide to train or
not to train and then how to adjust training before, during, and
after to best meet our goals.
If you are someone who rarely travels and NEVER misses a workout
and you finally go on a vacation, it's not important to your long
term progress to miss a week or even two. Again, though, there
aren't a huge number of people in this category.
For more people, it will be important to both maintain the habit of
training or at least exercise and the training can help destress or
at least make you feel better if on a vacation.
If you're a frequent business traveler, training while traveling is
a must: you cannot progress if you don't train on the road, so
you'll have to develop a strategy and habits to train on the road,
to include what to pack, gyms to look for, and how you train on the
road).
Now, let's discuss some travel hacks for lifters
Matt likes to train first thing upon arrival and before departure,
as it helps make travels days feel more productive and he knows he
accomplished training on those days. These aren't days to hit PRs,
but to get some work done.
A pro-trip here is if you train at a big gym they often have
showers, so you can train and still shower before getting on a
plane.
This also helps as training the first couple days after travel
tends to not feel great, so you will have trained on the last day
of travel and not feel behind on your training.
Niki recommends to search for "powerlifting" when you're
looking for a gym, as this probably will help you find gyms that
will have the equipment you'd like to have.
Both Matt & Niki acknowledge, however, that even big globo gyms
tend to have at least 1 squat rack.
Some hacks for travel:
- have liquid chalk in a travel size so it can go on your carryon
bag
- if you check a bag, use a hard shell case to help protect your
gear (and potentially any whiskey you take home
- pack your A7 shirts, as you'll experience some terrible
benches
- Niki likes to have a small draw string bag that goes in her
suitcase with her gym equipment
- Matt uses his backpack, which is also his carryon
- consider packing cubes for clothes
- eBags are great backpacks
- if you travel frequently, have pre-packed toiletry bags
- know where you can get higher protein options in the airport,
or pack some
- drink water frequently
Lastly, how should you train while you travel? This depends on
your goals and preferences, but in general, we can offer some ideas
and tips:
- not a great time for PRs - get some work done & maintain the
habit
- know thyself: will you want more frequent, super short workouts
or fewer, longer workouts
- have flexibility with equipment and difficulty
- explore the space: try out new equipment and exercises you
can't at your home gym or local gym
- front load stress prior to travel (go for PRs before the
trip)
- communicate with your coach ahead of time so he or she can plan
accordingly
- plan the training around your commitments and, for vacations,
tell your family (don't go to the gym when your wife wants to go to
a museum)
So, there's lots to consider and ways to train during travel
better or worse. How do you train while you travel?
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