The Hotel Workout #2: Exercise for People Who Don't Want Travel to Interrupt Their Fitness Routine

“Road warriors” know the challenge. Killer flight schedules (and delays) and lame hotel fitness facilities – away from your home gym, exercise classes and trainers – conspire to leave a good exercise routine in the dust. Combine that with a diet of grab-and-go foods and the fight to remain fit becomes even more daunting.

If that’s you don’t give up. Think outside of the box and look for the fitness opportunities of frequent flying.

Start with a few assumptions, as follows:

• If the hotel has a gym, it won’t be like the one you use at home (read: less and inadequate equipment). Even if they do have one, it might not be open early or late enough to accommodate your work schedule.
• You may be short on time to workout – again, because your usual schedule is compromised. Or, if your usual at-home routine is to exercise in the morning, perhaps the your only time slot available is midday or evening. Or vice-versa.
• You might not have room to pack workout clothes, athletic shoes in particular (otherwise, I always recommend an easy run on trips as a nice way to see a new place).

This then forces you to pare down to some basic thinking on what truly constitutes exercise. Is it about having a treadmill or elliptical machine – or more about carrying your body weight with your legs? Do you need heavy weights or Mini Cooper-sized machines to provide resistance to your muscles – or might you pit your own muscles against each other to find a whole new dynamic in strength training? Are the atmospherics of a fitness club necessary to motivate you – or can the in-room television or music system allow you greater freedom to establish your own workout environment?

Solution A: The in-room lower body workout (15 minutes)

Forget the exercise facility hours – your own hotel room is open 24-7. Schedule a wake up call or pre-dinner time segment that gives you 15 or more minutes to exercise and chances are you’ll feel and perform much better the rest of your working day.

Warm-up: Start by getting the heart rate up and all limbs limber with a simple exercise that engages the legs, the core (abdominals and adjoining muscles in the lower torso) and the shoulders. We’ll call it the “Marry me? Score!” exercise.

Step 1: Kneel in the “marriage proposal” position, with the right knee on the floor and the left foot positioned in front of you, ready to lift you up (this may require a pillow to soften knee contact with the floor).

Step 2: Use the left leg to hoist your body to the standing position – assist with the hands and arms only if necessary. Simultaneously raise your arms and hands overhead in the “touchdown!” position.

Step 3: Return to floor but switch to a left knee kneel, alternating with each rise.

Repeat at a brisk pace for 1-2 minutes or 20-40 repetitions. If you want to add a bit more to the exercise, add light weights (shoes? Your laptop grasped with both hands? Unopened bottles from the mini-bar?) in your hands.

Other lower body exercises: The legs are the largest muscle groups in the body. The advantages in working these go beyond building strong, sturdy limbs that are a fundamental component of fitness. Because muscle is metabolically active, relatively speaking – i.e., a pound of muscle requires 50-70 calories per day to exist, versus the 3 calories required by body fat – you are actually increasing your caloric consumption overall with increased muscle mass, raising your metabolism, especially so with these large leg muscle groups. Try these two exercises in the first 15 minutes of your hotel room workout.

Plyometric jumps: Squat deeply, hands touching the floor or your Achilles heel. Rise up quickly and thrust-jump into the air, then settle back into the squat. Perform 40 of these – even if you need to take frequent breaks, just make sure you do a 40 in total. (The reason you are so winded from these is the large amount of oxygen requirement of the large muscles in your legs – a sign of the prodigious nutrition requirements of those muscles throughout the day).

Towel leg press: Lie flat on your back with a rope-twisted towel* grasped at opposite ends by both hands. Pull one knee to your chest and cradle that foot against the rope-towel. Press outward, with your arms and shoulders essentially providing the resistance. Pull back slowly, arms pulling against the leg, and repeat ten to 30 times on each leg.

*Pinch a bath size towel at a corner, then move the hand in a plate-sized circular motion so that the towel twists into a “rope.” Grasp the opposite end of the towel with your free hand before it untwists. Similar exercises can be performed using easy-to-carry elastic bands.

Solution B: The in-room upper body workout (second 15 minutes)

That set of towel leg presses above also served as a warm-up to your upper body. In the language of fitness, it was a “pull” exercise for the upper back, shoulders and arms. Here are three more pull exercises that can be performed with the use of a hotel bath towel and the force of your own body weight and opposing muscles.

Overhead shoulder pulls: Grasp the rope-towel at both ends and hold overhead with arms stretched up and elbows slightly bent. Pull to the right with the right arm, resisting it with the left. Imagining your arms as hands on a clock, stop at 12:15, slowly return to 11:10 (centered), then pull all the way to the left to 9:00. Repeat 10 to 20 times, and alter the workout with narrow and wide grips on the rope-towel.

Bicep curls: Sit at the edge of a stable chair or a bed. Grasp the rope-towel at both ends with your hands, palms turned facing up (your thumbs will point to the sides, away from your body). Cradle one foot into the towel, then slowly curl the towel up toward your chest, employing your leg as the weight. Control the rise as well as the drop, and use your leg muscles to press against the towel if you can manage greater resistance. You can also increase the intensity of this exercise with the slow-go method, counting to ten on the curl up and ten again on the release down.

Bent rows: Stand and grasp the rope-towel at both ends, then bend forward at the waist to a near-90 degree angle. Place one foot in the towel, and then row (pull upward) the towel with both arms (palms of your hands face backward, weight-leg and arms in front of the standing leg). Concentrate on the upper back and lat (back-underarm) muscles as you work to keep good form. Other key form points are to lock the standing leg in a “post position,” and to isometrically clench the core muscles for added stability. Apply more resistance with the cradled leg in the towel if you have the strength and stability to accomplish that.

If you perform this workout with enough intensity for more than about 22 minutes, those feel-good endorphins will kick in – a great way to start or end a day (good for lunchtime too).

As you well know, it’s important to remain in top form wherever you work – and to maintain a sense of control in the face of all the uncontrollables typically associated with business travel. All you need is a little bit of ingenuity (and a bath towel).

# # #

Do you have a beef with how business travel interrupts your fitness routine? Does going on the road necessarily doom you to eating badly too? Send your questions, comments and suggestions regarding travel fitness challenges to: RussKlettke@gmail.com.

For exercise variety, see also “The Hotel Workout: Fitness for People Who Want to Exercise While Traveling” and other tips on fitness and nutrition by this writer.

Of course, you need to use good judgment in performing these and all other exercises, whether working out independently, with a trainer or in a group. Also, everyone should check with a doctor before beginning an exercise program.

Russ Klettke is an ACE (American Council on Exercise) certified fitness trainer and also the author of “A Guy’s Gotta Eat, the regular guy’s guide to eating smart” (Marlow & Co., 2004, with Deanna Conte, MS RD LD), available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and more than 70 public library systems in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Prior to becoming a published writer, speaker and fitness trainer, he worked in marketing and public relations for several large food companies based in the Chicago area, where he lives. He began competing (term loosely defined) in triathlons in 1987 and has continued in the sport non-stop ever since.