Written by: Gabriel Lamas • March 10, 2015• Fitness Forum South Miami

Staying Fit While Traveling

Traveling can often be a major impediment to staying in shape and maintaining our health and fitness. Traveling causes us to be removed from our usual routines, usual amenities, and separated from our gyms, personal trainers, and spin classes. For many, it can be easier to just resume their workout program when their business trip or vacation ends. Health and fitness, though, is something that must constantly be worked on through exercise or it fades away. Even though it can often be much more convenient to resume one’s workouts when home, it is important to maintain the exercise routine – and truthfully, exercising really is possible anywhere!

Most hotels now have gyms, even though some might be relatively meager without the amenities and equipment we have become used to, however, any piece of exercise equipment can be beneficial. Most hotel gyms have, at the very least, a bench, some dumbbells, and a bike. You can put together a killer fat burning and muscle sculpting workout with just these two items! Get a 5 to 10 minute warm-up on the bike and begin your workout. Dumbbells can be used for almost any muscle group. Rest them on your shoulders, sit down on the bench and stand back up for a set of squats that will work your quads, hamstrings, and glutes. Stand up straight and press the dumbbells over your head straight upward for overhead presses that will work your shoulders and triceps, as well as your stomach and lower back. If you’re focusing on your triceps, you can get big triceps with pushdowns so including this exercise in your routine can also be beneficial. In between each exercise, hop on the bike for a couple of minutes and try to go as fast as you can in that time duration. Perform a few weighted exercises alternated with a few bike sprints for just 20 minutes and you will have a butt-kicking out-of-town workout!

If you happen to end up traveling without the amenities of a gym, fear not – there are plenty of exercises you can do in the confines of your hotel room using just your bodyweight. Work your legs by lunging back and forth across your hotel room until you start feeling that burn in your quads. Tighten up the back of your arms by doing tricep dips on your bed, a table, or a chair. Keep your stomach tight and toned by holding a plank position on the floor. You can even work your lower back and glutes by lying on your back and pushing your hips in the air up and down – hip raises. Take 5 to 6 of these exercises and perform them back to back without rest for 2-3 cycles for a killer full-body workout in your hotel room! If you want to push yourself, even more, do a set of 20-30 jumping jacks in between every one or two exercises.

If you get bored of your hotel room workouts and still do not have access to weights, or you find yourself unable to do these bodyweight exercises – there is nothing like good, old fashioned running for calorie burning cardio. Go outside and take 20 minutes to do some running intervals. Sprint as hard as you can for 20 seconds then rest 10-20 seconds and do it again. Repeat that for 8-10 cycles and you will have burned a ton of calories and increased your body’s fat burning processes over the next 12-24 hours! Many people swear by the power of fasted cardio as a way to burn fat as no other method can. It’s a method of deriving additional benefits from intermittent fasting and can maximize fat-burning, improve your aerobic fitness, and boost your overall health. It’s certainly something to try for yourself but there’s plenty of information on it online.

It doesn’t matter where you go – exercise is always an option. Make sure to stay on top of your health and fitness routines during your summer plans or vacations.

Passionate about the fitness business, Gabriel Lamas began owning franchised fitness studios at 23 years old. Originally from Massachusetts, Gabriel attended Florida International University and his fitness business holdings company, Gabriel Lamas Fitness LLC acquired the Fitness Together Miami brand his senior year of college. Conveniently located in South Miami and Coconut Grove, Fitness Together Miami has helped countless clients get in the best shape of their lives. Please contact Gabriel directly at gabelamas@fitnesstogether.com or visit www.fitnesstogethermiami.com for further information.

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Last modified: June 13, 2016