One of the worst things about traveling is the constant sitting. Sitting in a bus, sitting in a hotel, sitting in rehearsal, sitting in a concert, sit, sit, sit. The human body was made to move and sitting is not per se, a natural position, not for long periods of time, anyway. As I have been travelling this last week and a half, I have tried to get in as much movement as possible. Yes, I know getting my heart rate up is a good thing, but when I get to a hotel, after a long day of sitting and look in the “fitness room” and all that is there is a stationary bike, elliptical machine and a treadmill….that really doesn’t look appealing to me. Is it cardio, is it motion? Sure, but it’s still staying in one spot, looking at one thing and after travelling all day, all I want to do is move!
So, I have definitely become a proponent of MOVEMENT and, shall we say, functional cardio. I have been doing a LOT of walking, as much as I can, anyway. One of the “perks” of travelling with a group is that you are reliant on the bus to get you places; you do not have your own car. So what do you do if you want to go somewhere? Well, you have to walk. So, the other day I did a fantastic body weight workout in my room and instead of traditional “cardio” I went on a long walk to Smoothie King for my post workout shake. Then I had to walk back, uphill. Plus, it was raining, so I threw in a few sprints to get me to my destination sooner.
When I got back, I had to go to Wal-Mart, about a half-mile away, but since I didn’t have a car what did I do? Walk of course. I blew my calorie burning goal out of the water that day, mostly by walking. Yesterday morning I went for an hour long walk around town before we had to get on the bus to go to our next gig. My body was definitely grateful for it and I felt wonderful the rest of the day. Blew my caloric burn goal out of the water yesterday, too. Did I want to do cardio afterwards? Heck no. So what did I do? After I took the 10 flights of stairs up to my room for my PWO meal, I walked around Knoxville. Granted I didn’t walk long enough to meet my calorie goal, but I got my movement and activity in for the day.
Moral of the story? Get in as much activity and as much motion as you can during the day when traveling. See your situation as an opportunity and a blessing to move more, rather than a hindrance because you don’t have a car and things are farther away. Look for opportunities to move! Take the stairs. Walk to the store. Explore the town if you can.
As for my workouts, I did one of the great body weight workouts by Craig Ballyntine of Turbulence Training. Since I had to buy his stuff and it’s copyrighted, I cannot reproduce it all for you here, but I can tell you most of what I did, and I’m still sore two days later. All you need is about 5-10 feet of space in your room and a stationary chair.
- Pushups
- Split Squats/Bulgarian Split Squats
- Wall-slides
- 1-legged squats (these are killer!)
- Planks
- Burpees
- Narrow Leg Press 3×8
- Superset with Hack Squat 3×8
- TRI-SET
- Lying Leg curl 2×15
- Leg extension 2×15
- Seated calf raise 2×15
- Shoulder Press 3×8
- Superset with straight arm pushdown 3×8
- Cable woodchop 2×15
- Superset with close grip row 2×10
If you’ll notice, there’s a conspicuous lack of arm motions and single joint exercises. This is because multi-joint exercises (otherwise known as compound exercises) include these muscles, so they do not need to be addressed. For example, when I did a shoulder press, I also hit my triceps, and when I did a close grip row, that also hit my biceps.
If I had wanted to make this a quicker workout, I could have left out the single joint leg exercises and I could have left out the abs/close grip row. However, I noticed that during the concert last night, my uniform does not allow me to properly raise my left arm and my back/rhomboids/lats were hurting because of it, so I wanted to make sure I hit them in the gym today.
So, don’t let traveling prevent you from moving. Look for excuses!