Traveling and Training
Like a lot of you, I travel extensively. Between work and fun, there are some months when I’m on the road up to 75% of the time. Before I started the 10-Week Trim Down, I was really concerned about how I’d keep up with a workout plan given I could be in at least two different gyms in any given week. I told Ivan this up front (as well as my 99 other concerns), and he said not to worry about it, we’d work with my schedule and available equipment. I started the program while I had two weeks in the same place (happened to be London but could have been anywhere). I established habits, learned how to track food/balance my macros, and started sorting different machines/tools in my home gym. Then I established my pre-travel routine:
Visiting friends/family: emailing/caling ahead of my visit and asking them to send a picture of their gym set-up/list available equipment. For those who don’t have home gyms/equipment, I went online and found local gyms with one-week memberships or a drop in rate. In most places, you can get this for $7-20/week (or whatever the local currency equivalent is) and there are pictures online. Cardio, for me, is usually running unless the weather is really heinous, so I’d just continue my regular runs wherever in the world I happened to be.
Work travel in hotels/Airbnbs: checking their fitness facilities online ahead of my arrival. If pictures aren’t posted online, I call/email the hotel to ask what they have, and ensure all machines are working. If they don’t have a fitness center, or I’m in an Airbnb without one, I’ll research local gyms with drop-in or weekly rates (as above, typically $7-20/week)
Routine: the week before I’m set to travel, I typically drop Ivan a note in the app that details the fitness facilities for my upcoming travel. He’ll take those notes/pictures and put together a work-out routine that fits the available equipment.
Scheduling: the most important part about traveling and training is blocking off time to get it all done. I make sure that I don’t have early morning meetings and dinners on the same day; this way, I can fit in a work-out/cardio session most days and still get the work done. If I’m traveling on holiday, I try to do the work-outs first thing in the morning so I have the rest of the day to enjoy. That said, as I’ve spent more time working with Ivan, working out has become enjoyable so it’s less of a chore and something I look forward to spending more time on when I’m not working.
With some thought and advance planning, training while traveling is 100% doable.
-Susan, Globetrotter