10 tips to stay fit while travelling

This is a guest post from health writer Mary Ward.

Getting into a fitness regimen is an important first step. The key to success however is to ensure that you stick with it, even when your routine changes. Many people do well with their workouts when they are in the comfort of their own home or working within their usual routine, but it can become more difficult if any of that changes. Here we look at tips for staying fit and keeping with your workout regimen, even when you’re travelling or on the road.

Let us know your favourite ways to keep fit while you are travelling in the comments section.

1. Keep Your Workout Schedule: Though you may have to juggle the times or the exercises a bit to make them conducive to your travel environment, keeping up with your regularly scheduled workouts is important. If you work out every day or even three times a week, keep up with these even on the road and get in whatever activity you can.

2. Plan Out Your Activities: Whether you are travelling for work or for pleasure, plan out whatever physical activities you can in advance. This can be as simple as walking around the mall if that’s all you can find and get in, or hitting the hotel gym if you have one. Plan it out in advance and you are more likely to stick with it.

3. Walk the Extra Mile: Take advantage of any opportunities that allow you to get in physical activity wherever possible. Park far away from the door at your destinations, take the stairs, and walk from Point A to Point B. Anything that can allow you to get in some sort of physical activity is important towards your overall physical fitness and keeping up with it.

4. Arrange a Workout Date: If you are travelling for business, try to arrange one of our meetings around some form of physical activity such as tennis or racquetball (squash). If you are travelling for pleasure, then be sure to include plenty of hiking or swimming into your regularly scheduled activities.

5. Pack Your Equipment: You’re obviously not going to pack up your dumbbells, but you can find some really effective travel workout equipment to take with you. Deflate and pack up an exercise ball or wearable weights for some added incentive to stick with the program.

6. Work With Your Surroundings: If you have no access to a hotel gym, then use your room as best as you can. Do walking lunges or squats in your room or the hallway, do pushups and sit ups while you watch TV, and do whatever exercises you can in the comfort of your own room.

7. Use The Airport: Some airports offer gyms to use for a fee, and if this is feasible then go for it. Otherwise you can log some serious miles walking through the airport at a brisk pace to keep up your fitness level.

8. Run For It: Running burns some serious calories, so whenever possible incorporate a jog into your activities. Whether you go for a jog along the beach or jog to get a morning cup of coffee, this is the type of exercise you can pretty much do anywhere.

9. Swim Away Your Troubles: Use your hotel pool or a local gym to swim off some calories. This is an excellent way to burn calories and you can usually find access to a local pool somehow within your given destination.

10. Make it a Priority: Many people fall off the work out bandwagon because they don’t make it a priority when they travel. If you make fitness your priority and ensure that you stick with it for the long haul, no matter what the circumstances, you are likely to get fit and stay fit.

With all the effort you put into staying fit and maintaining a healthy exercise routine, you don’t want to detract from your results just because you are travelling. These simple tips make maintaining your fitness easy, without losing any of the benefits that you’ve already enjoyed.

Mary Ward writes about various healthcare career topics, including how to choose among online surgical tech programs.

The “Paris Workout” photograph is from Nimages DR on Flickr and published under a Creative Commons licence.

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