20 February 2007
Training while traveling… you have to work for it!
Posted by Brad Hefta-Gaub under: Cycle; Fitness; Flexibility; Ironman; Marathons; Run; Strength Training; Stretching; Swim; Yoga; exercise; triathlon.
I used to travel a lot more. Last year I traveled on business from Seattle to New York at least once a month. From June to November I spent at least 1 week a month on the road, and many months I spent more than 2 weeks on business travel. Needless to say, this wasn’t easy in general, and it was really hard considering I was preparing for my first Ironman distance triathlon.
Fortunately I had a great Executive Assistant who knew my need for a good fitness center, and I had several friends and co-workers who were also into fitness, so I could often find a running partner or someone who’d lend me a gym pass. But the fact of the matter is, that if you want to exercise while you are a heavy travel (for business or pleasure) you have to put at least another 50% effort into your travel planning and your fitness planning to find a way to make everything workout.
Most hotels today have some kind of a fitness center. So you can usually find some kind of a machine to get a good base level cardio workout on. The only problem I have sometimes run into is “hours of operation”. Today for example, we didn’t get back to the hotel after a long day of site-seeing, shopping, and eating, until 8pm. By the time the kids were in bed, it was 8:40pm. The fitness center in this hotel closes at 10pm. I had just enough time to get in a quick 45 min spin on one of their bikes, and then about 30min of strength training.
But sometimes on business, I would have meetings that went from 7am until 9pm at night. Maybe you could squeeze in a quick workout around lunch if you had access to a gym, but you rarely have time to head back to the hotel, workout and get cleaned up to return to another meeting. That doesn’t mean I didn’t try. I was often the guy who asked to push dinner till later, so I could get back to the hotel and get a quick burn in before dinner.
Of course, becoming a triathlete, and therefore a runner, has made this a little bit easier. Assuming you brought your shoes with you, you can pretty much always go for a run. This is one reason why I wish I felt comfortable running back to back days. But fear of injury forces me to look for alternatives on alternate days.
Swimming on the road is always a blessing and a chore. First of all, if you travel on a budget (or you travel on short notice) like I would for business, then you certainly can’t count on finding a location with a pool. And if you do, you never know what you will find. Once I stayed in a hotel that was billed as having a lap pool. What I discovered was a square pool that measured at most 10meters on each side, and went from 1 meter deep on one end to approximately 5 meters deep on the other end. I guess this was someones idea of a multi-purpose (you could dive in if you wanted to, or you could swim laps, or you could wade in the shallow end) pool. I suspect it wasn’t at all functional for anyone who swam in it. My lap session was absolutely ridiculous, I probably got 5 strokes before turning, I couldn’t even bilaterally breath because I only barely got to my first breath before being to the other end of the pool.
For this trip, the good news is, that my wife did an excellent job in booking our hotel. This place has one of the best fitness centers I have ever seen in a hotel. There is a 25meter lap pool; a kids pool; a hot top; a dry sauna; a steam room; full free weight sets, dumb bells, bar bells, several benches of various adjustability, and nautilus style strength training equipment; several cardio machines including treadmills, upright and recumbent bikes, stair steppers, elliptical machines, and a rowing station; not to mention a yoga/aerobic studio, a racquetball court, and a stretching room. I’ve never seen anything like this in a hotel, and it turns out that partly because it’s supported by not only the hotel but quite a large private membership as well. The upshot was that it is practically like having a free 3 day pass to an upscale private gym. The only problem is that they close at 10pm. 
In addition to running and using the fitness center, I’ve heard of people who invent all kinds of solutions for hotel room workouts. Certainly, you can do all of the standard “P.E.” calisthenics: jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups, running in place, knee bends, etc. But you can also modify several dumb bell or bench based strength training routines to simple supplies you find in a hotel room. For example: Bench dips can be done with a basic desk chair. I also knew a business colleague who would do pull-ups on the top of an open bathroom door. He’d place a towel over the door so that the top edge of the door wouldn’t hurt his hands, but other than that, it was a solid location to hold even a 220lbs man. You could even pick up some “travel dumbbells” which collapse down when not in use, and can be filled with water to get up to 16lbs of weight per dumbbell.
I haven’t gone so far as to bring my bike along on airplane (or in this case boat). But I have considered it. There are several manufacturers that build very sturdy cases for bikes which allow you to check them as luggage. Personally, I can only see this making sense for a vacation where you are spending significant amount of time (say 2 weeks) and in those cases, it may make just as much sense to rent a bike for the time. Now, I’ll admit, I’ve been lucky enough to do all my triathlons in driving distance from my house, so I haven’t had to transport my bike to a race. I guess if that ever happens (maybe someday I’ll go to Kona) then I’ll be forced to get a bike transport case… and then I’ll have the excuse that I bought the case so I might as well us it.
3 Comments so far...
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Lisa Says:
Good tips for training on the road. It can be a real challenge!
Karl McCracken Says:
Hi -
Great advice - especially the reminder to try to alternate exercise activities. Visiting my wife’s parents in France, I’m now on my fifth day out of the last six on running. My legs and feet are starting to feel the strain, so tomorrow is now officially a rest day.
Your observation about hotel gym facilities is spot on - it sometimes seems almost like they can get the ’star rating’ bumped up just by putting a few weights and a large bath filled with chlorinated water in a cupboard! That said, the gym I joined last month is based in a hotel, but sounds more like the kind of place that you wife found for you on the last trip. And unlike most January gym sign-ups, I’m DEFINITLEY getting my money’s worth. 
BTW - this kind of hotel-based gym always seem to close quite early . . . but it is open from 0630 - an excellent way to start the day . . . .
Karl.
