Training whilst travelling is impossible. Myth or fact?
For too long we believed in this myth. When I first began travelling, it was about 40 years ago. Travelling was for both work and pleasure. Most hotels didn’t have gyms, pools, or fitness centres. It was virtually impossible to hire a bike, and equally as hard, and often cost prohibitive, to do a casual session in a gym. How things have changed. No longer can a lack of fitness facility be used as an excuse when travelling- most hotels will have a gym of some description, and there are even fitness centres in major airports these days.
Let’s get away from hotels / airports for a second and get into actual facilities in towns. I first began travelling overseas with schoolboy rugby tours when I was coaching at Ipswich Grammar School. These tours were mainly to New Zealand, but we also had fantastic tours to South America. In those days I ran a lot, so it was easy for me to maintain and sometimes develop my aerobic system. Throw in the odd swim session and a few weights sessions and my fitness needs were easily taken care of. On one trip to NZ my old mate Peter Wilson and I took our racing bikes, and we got up early each day, before the bus left for the next game, and rode for a couple of hours. Weights were a bit harder to organise, but we would invariably find a weights room at a school or in town.
In later years, touring with the Broncos, I ran a lot with Wayne Bennett and was able to lift at the gyms the players used. It was just a matter of organising my time and I believe this is the key: managing your spare time efficiently allows training whilst travelling.
With the Wallabies, especially on overseas tours, the training kept me sane. Fortunately, nearly all the coaching staff trained. We boxed, lifted, ran, and swam, and most mornings before breakfast I organised training sessions for the staff. It really helped with the pressure especially around Test time. Training was not only physically rewarding but had massive social and psychological benefits.
These days I don’t travel with teams, but I do travel almost yearly often with large groups, especially to Europe and especially to France. In 2015 my wife and I organised 60 people to go to England for the RWC. We stayed in magnificent chateaus in France and commuted to the games in England. Every morning, we had a swimming or walking group, we hired bikes, and I found various fitness centres where we could do our weights and cross-train. Nearly everyone in the group started the day with a walk or a boxing session and sometimes a swim but the water was very cold.
Foodwise we mainly cooked ourselves so we could control what we ate. Meals were healthy but also tasty. Of course, alcohol consumption was up but the extra training certainly helped with the extra calories. This has become the trend for all our tours.
The following are my top 10 tips if you are fair dinkum about training whilst travelling:
1] Make sure your hotel has a fitness centre
2] When in transit at large airports try and use available fitness facilities
3] Try and get an apartment where you can do some cooking yourself
4] Try and start every day with some form of exercise, especially before breakfast. This will free up the rest of the day to do other things.
5] Go and introduce yourself to the local gym and see if you can negotiate a cheap casual rate.
6] If travelling in a small group take some gloves and focus mitts and run some regular boxing/fitness sessions.
7] Take some TheraBand tubing. It is possible to do a whole-body workout with just these and your body weight. On my last trip, I did an hour’s workout 3 times per week of this. Coupled with some long walks, and some hard training swims, my weight stayed the same over the 2 months.
8] Make some time for some flexibility/mobility sessions. These require little or no equipment and need only to be 20-30 minutes in duration if done regularly.
9] Hire some bikes on a daily or weekly basis. These not only help your fitness but also you get to see a lot of the countryside.
10] Mix it up a bit. Don’t just do the same thing every day and most importantly HAVE SOME FUN.
All the above depends on your organising and time prioritization skills. These will show just how keen you are to keeping fit and keeping off those unwanted kilos.
Fit Education’s Certificate III and IV in Fitness provides greater insight into the importance of factoring individual client preferences and lifestyle choices into exercise programming and periodisation, overall improving exercise outcomes and consistency when training whilst travelling.
Find out more here – Certificate III and IV in Fitness | Personal Trainer Course / Fit Education