9 Tips to Travel Fit with A Free Travel Workout Plan
By: Maximilian Schmid
Tags: Travel Tips, Fitness, Workout Tips, Fitness Program

I’ve been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel and work abroad but also travel to educational events and workshops ran by amazing organisations such as Strong First and the Asia Fitness Conference.

I love to travel as do a number of my clients but if you are like me then you know trying to keep fit and healthy whilst you travel is challenging… even with a plan!

Frequently, my travels have clashed with my training for a specific event or my Kettlebell Certifications whilst other times I have just been away on holiday and wanted to keep in shape.

MaxModernWell: Max with Pavel Macek at StrongFirst event in Germany

Knowing what do and what would keep me strong and mobile was stressful initially as I was unnecessarily worried I’d lose momentum and fitness.

Fear not, I’ve done the worrying for you, you can either maintain your fitness or even make good gains if you train following the principles below.

I’ve even included a simple training plan (you’ll be surprised how effective it is — training doesn’t have to be complex to get results!)

My 9 Tips to Travel Fit.

1. Know your schedule

It’s important to know how much time you have, what your company requires you to do, and when your free time is. Ask you self how much can you handle?

I’d be honest here, as there is no point adding load to a demanding schedule.

You will only pay for it on your return with, perhaps, many days or weeks of recovery if you’ve pushed too hard.

2. Know your facilities

MaxModernWell: Outdoor training space at Kasetsart University

Will you have space to exercise?

Is there a gym (or outdoor space available) and does it have the things you need? I’d suggest that you need to make compromises here and not worry about having the correct brand of kettlebell or a squat rack or TRX etc.

Hotel gyms are certainly better equipped these days so you should find enough tools to use but I’d suggest sticking to some key areas you want to work on. I’d suggest mobility, flexibility and some bodyweight movements.

3. Sleep/jet lag

MaxModernWell: Get your sleep!

This is a biggie!

Don’t let the HIIT brigade say the best thing to do as you step off an 11hr flight is an intense session.

You’ll be stiff, tired and will either be dehydrated or undernourished.

Get your sleep, I personally would only train the next day if I had 6–7 hours of quality sleep and even then I’d probably spend it working on my hip flexors, shoulders and back from all that sitting.

Let your body recover.

4.Be flexible with your training

As I mentioned earlier, facilities and availability to train will be questionable.

So either relax and enjoy the opportunities your get to exercise and don’t be outcome based or just work on movement exploration and enjoy yourself.

Being armed with a series of key bodyweight exercises will mean that you never need a gym anyway!

5. Mobility/flexibility

MaxModernWell: Foam Rolling

This should be a priority.

After all the sitting in meetings, coffee shops, planes, trains, etc. You need to be kind to your body, so I would recommend you stretch and mobilise frequently.

The airport provides ample space, and so do most hotel rooms. Use it!

6. Don’t train too hard!

Whilst travelling less is more! Honestly, your priority on a trip is your work or your family/friends. Any travel training plan needs to be repeatable and not drain your mind, nervous system or require days of sleeping to get the benefits. Work on perfect technique, lower reps and perhaps more sets if necessary. Take adequate rest between sets.

7. Deload

Your trip may be an opportunity to take a break from training (remember, rest plays an important part in helping achieve your goals). Effective periodisation can involve a de-loading week.

These are weeks where you still train the movements you are working on but you take a few steps back regarding intensity (load, distance, sets, reps etc).

This allows your body to build but not lose any of the gains, in fact, allows you to get stronger and faster. A holiday, for example, is the perfect opportunity to do this.

8. Stick to your healthy eating habits

If you make poor nutritional choices, you’ll feel underpar. To be fair, it’s challenging to eat well whilst travelling because you are sleep deprived, crave sugar and sometimes can’t get access to good food.

However, airports and most cities in the modern world have fantastic options to eat well. So, stick to your guns and eat well and as often as you need to, just stay away from too much entertaining and late-night snacking.

9. Ease back into training after a long trip

Don’t make the first workout back a killer. Spend the first few days mobilising and working on flexibility, then start with an easy workout, medium and then when you feel recovered go for a hard workout (but ease off if you feel a little queasy midway through!)

So, what exercises should I do, I hear you say!

Here’s my FREE Travel work out plan:

Your goals will be specific to you, but for general strength and conditioning, this will hit all the right spots.

In fact, it’d work as a longer-term plan if you work through the progressions over a couple of months.

This training plan is designed to be repeated every day. Usually, we spend a day on, day off, at least, to recover. However, travel can be unpredictable and therefore there needs to be 2 main considerations.

1. Those travelling for business need to be able to train wherever and whenever they can, therefore we need to hit some compound movements and fundamental movement patterns which give the biggest bang for our bucks.

2. Travel can be stressful and demanding so training cannot be an additional stress. It needs to be targeted, concise and easy to recover from. The training gains will be made by training frequently or potentially every day.

The training plan below should only take 20 mins tops, which means you can perform it before breakfast or when you return to your room before an evening meal/meeting.

You can also do it in an airport (which I recommend if you do long haul, all that sitting takes its toll.

If you don’t move regularly whilst travelling, you may end up spending longer mobilising and recovering on your return.

Travel Training Plan

The example plan is perfect for women and men (adjust exercises to your ability), I’ve added progressions to choose from. Because it’s all bodyweight you can do it anywhere and excellent for men and women alike:

Warm up:

Exercise 1: Push ups 6–12 reps x 2/3 sets

(choose from incline, kneeling, full, or harder press-up variations) Perform with clean technique 2 seconds down hold for 1, and 2 seconds up.

Exercise 2: Bodyweight Squats 15–25 reps x 2/3 sets

(choose from supported squats, half squats, full squats — harder variations may need lower repetitions.) 2 seconds down hold for 1, and 2 seconds up.

Exercise 3: Bridging — Hold for 20–30 seconds x 2/3 sets

(choose from bent knee hip bridge, table top bridge, straight bridge, head bridge and full bridge)

Exercise 4: Lying Leg raises — 10–20 Repetitions x 2/3 sets

(choose from bent hip and knee, bent knee and straight leg raises) 2 seconds down hold for 1, and 2 seconds up.

Cool down: Choose a couple of gentle stretches — I recommend a couch stretch for the hip flexors, the cobra for your spine.

Give me a shout if you have any issues with the exercises.

The aim is not to go to failure, look to complete tidy solid repetitions. Rest 1 min between sets and 2 mins between exercises.

I honestly believe that even for trips longer than a few days this program will not only maintain your current levels of fitness, it may increase them if you don’t push too hard and find the time to do them each day.

Remember you won’t go backwards if you take a day off. If you need to rest, then rest or just do the warm up and stretches.

You could even split the routine into two training two movements a day in this case you can try to hit the upper end of the reps.

Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

If this post has inspired you and you are interested to learn how to make subtle, but impactful changes to your health and fitness, then perhaps a great starting point might be my FREE 7-Day Mobility Video Series??

You can get access here — http://bit.ly/7DayMobilityGuide