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I'm travelling a huge amount with work at the moment and feel I'm piling on the pounds. I stay in hotels lots of the time which have gyms, and often attempts some kind of 5x5 strong lifts style work out, but am lacking consistency and a plan in the gym.
I can't run at all any more due to bad arthritis. My goal is weight loss, and also to feel stronger generally. I enjoy body weight work and pushups etc.
I'm old enough and have spent enough time in my life in the butcher's dog category of fitness to understand that consistency is the key to all kinds of exercise. You need a plan before you enter a gym or it's a waste of time - I've become that guy in the hotel gym wondering round in circles, between rubbing my joints from tendonitis.
Can anyone suggest an online circuits/calisthenics program that they like and found it easy to stick to?
No ........
But I did join PureGym for exactly this reason. There's almost always one within walking distance in any large town and the kit is fairly consistent.
Hypertrophy and dumbbell work is easier if you're not able to commit to consistency as the weights are lower so less chance of an injury. And if you miss a day it's much easier to skip a day and double up next time than it is with 5x5. And even the worst hotel gym tends to have a rack of dumbbells even if they don't have a lifting platform / rack.
I tried TRX and resistance bands but it's dull and did nothing for me, I need to feel like I've thrown some heavy bits of metal around or it's not a workout 🤣
This was a good starting point for resistance training:
https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/3-day-full-body-dumbbell-workout
This for a hip warm-up:
This for a shoulder warm-up;
https://youtu.be/TNU6umd0sNA?si=wFbSB6mekUzvWVek
And a selection of full body hollows, reverse hollows, planks, crunches, russian twists for core work.
"and feel I’m piling on the pounds"
Can't outrun a bad diet! Stay away from the biscuits 😂
As above. Hotel/airport food is not helping here. Gym workouts could be good for you but they won't shift the excess weight.
As above. Hotel/airport food is not helping here. Gym workouts could be good for you but they won’t shift the excess weight.
Take a bike/brompton?
I used to drive to the location on day 1, make sure my kit was in the right places, then park the car / van and ride everywhere. Easy way to get in a fair amount of riding time and it's generally ideal as I like being at home you don't need to make breakfast, do laundry, clean, etc etc, so an hour on the bike at either end of the day is easy to do.
As for food, I'm sure some will scoff at the "ultra processed" nature of them, but supermarket ready meals are an easy way to make sure you're not eating too much. Especially things like Asian salad/noodle bowls. Certainly beats the usual premier Inn burger and chips.
Buy some resistance bands and take them with you. Especially a set with an anchor that you can put behind a door or window so you can do rows.
My mate swears by a 10 min yoga routine (plenty on youtube) then a workout of squats, press ups, rows (say 15 of each), then repeat these sets over and over in a circuit until you have had enough.
Yeh I'm working abroad so sadly no pure gym or bromptons and whatever. I have some resistance bands with me, just have no idea what to do with them.
You're all right about the diet - it's just so tricky in se Asia where I am at the moment.
Park weight loss - you can still try and find an optimal workout within your other constraints.
The difficulty is that you'll probably be tempted to work all muscle groups every time you work out, and everything will just get a bit tired/sore, but you'll not really get stronger or fitter as you're not recovering enough.
I would consciously decide that today is leg day, tomorrow will be arms day, Fri is yoga/recovery day, etc.
As an example, doing press-ups every day will just mean you get tired and probably that you get elbow tendonitis, not that you get better at pressups (sorry, stupid "100 pressups a day" Cancer Research facebook posts 😀 ). Much better off hitting them hard two or three times a week.
When I was traveling a lot for work the only way I controlled weight gain was being really mindful about what I was actually eating. So not making the most of the breakfast buffet (so hard!) and not having resturant meals 4 nights a week. I would try and get a couple of M&S salad pots and some cooked chicken or prawns.
Just having a pan au choc with your coffee after your 'normal' breakfast because it is there will cause weight gain if you're otherwise static.
2 x 16kg kettlebells in the car, job done.
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Skipping rope. Skipping is a fantastic workout. You can do loads with TRX style bands if you search around for different workouts. Hotel gyms tend to be a bit shit imo. Are you traveling around to lots of different locations? No Pure Gym equivalent you could subscribe to?
"Normal roadman workout is doing wheelies on a Surron, innit blud?"
Barely scratched the surface, need to be able to shift bales of weed and bricks of coke, swing Buckfast bottles and sprint from police in rigger boots.
£16/month, gym or homebased. Friend uses this and thinks its pretty good. I looked at it but gone the PT route for now, will use it once that finishes.
When I’m in the US, I walk fast in the gym listening to BBC Sounds. Fast walking is an excellent exercise. I don’t run anywhere and walking must be kinder on the joints. I also can’t stand anything cycle related in a gym, unless it’s a spinning bike (fixed wheel). Then I play some old Sufferfest videos.
I've used Les Mills for a few years. Workouts on there are varied and get a good full body exercise going.
I paid £79 for this year's membership and I'd recommend it to anyone.
I got fed up taking gym kit with me all the time and then ending up in a rubbish hotel gym. On a recent trip I did 30 minutes of callisthenics in my hotel room every morning. Bonus is you can do it in your underpants so no need to add gym kit to your carry on.
I did a Tom Peto workout, was pretty good, I was puffing by the end and felt much better for it all day.
You tube - caroline girvan. Epic series, fuel and (my fav) iron series which is a 30 day weights programme. Structured, easy to follow and doesn't require much kit.
I have gone from never lifting weights in my life to quite enjoying it now. I tried her beast mode on Saturday - struggled with stairs the next day which is always the sign of a good leg workout 🙂
I used to work overseas for 9 - 10 months a year.
I mainly did sit ups / press ups / using furniture for weights in the room but I always used to stay in hotels with pools and did a lot of swimming. I was also nonchalant about personal safety and did a lot of walking/exploring local areas/city's.
Sitting bored at bars is what piles the pounds on.
TRX suspension trainer. Cheaper versions are available but the real deal is so much nicer, especially if you go for one of the gym quality ones rather than the home version. There are quite often promotions with 20% off.
Use it in your hotel room with the door wedge (or I guess you could take it to the hotel gym and strap it to something there) or on nice days pop it in your bag and find a park with a tree or rail to strap it too.
At home I've got a couple of kettlebells, a swiss ball and also a TRX rip too but really, it's all you need. Nothing would get me back in an actual gym again.
Have a look at Wahoo SYSTM, all of the cycling workouts can be done on "Perceived effort", but there is also strength and yoga workouts, and there is progression, so the strength workouts (all done with bodyweight and a couple of full water bottles) are actually pretty tough by the time you get up to 30-35 duration, and could all be done in a hotel room.
Think you are mixing up strength training and muscle mass growth with fat burn weight loss.
If you want to at least stop the gains I think you need to try and limit the calories input and increase the calorific burn . So you don't have excess sugar / glycogen in your system that isn't burnt and therefore stored.
So long duration exercise at a sustained rate for a couple of hours a day . Whether that's swimming , jogging , running , rowing , cycling or skipping. Low impact, raised heart rate and increase in breathing rate. Fat store burning gets converted to energy and the burn is exhaled so hours of heavy breathing should at least stop the weight gain.
i know that this simplifies things and will probably lead to 3 pages of arguements, a flounce , a ban and the thread being closed by a moderator
Think you are mixing up strength training and muscle mass growth with fat burn weight loss.
That was my immediate thought and I was surprised at the responses.
I have a workout plan on PDF i can send you. It covers 3/4/5 day per week programmes depending on what suits you or you dont need to follow the plan at all and could just decide to use it in the PPL/Upper & Lower/Body part programmes.
Bonus points is that for every exercise the PDF has links for videos PLUS alternative execises in case you dont have access to equipment needed.
Simple to follow and it runs pretty well for me with my ailments.
Message me if you want a copy sending over
"My goal is weight loss, and also to feel stronger generally"
If I was in your shoes, I would:
1. Be mindful about calorie intake. Honestly, It's not easy!
2. Walk/hike, quickly. Most people could find time to walk an hour at lunch and an hour later in the evening.
3. Calisthenics, partly in your room, and partly outside somewhere. It's quick and simple. You want a push, pull, legs routine.
- Pushups, done really well, slowly and fully are very effective. I've started doing them again, and tried to be more honest with them, ie. doing a full range of motion and slowing it down, and worrying less about rep count at the minute.
- Bodyweight squats are also incredibly effective, you could just increase the reps until they become challenging.
- And then if you can find somewhere to do pullups/chinups, often there's an outdoor gym thing in town centres, and even a play park. I prefer chinups, as feel like I'm getting an arm workout too, but it's good to use both types alternating on different days.
The benefit of a routine like this is you could do it more regularly, even daily. Making you feel good, and feel and strong.
That was my immediate thought and I was surprised at the responses.
I like the simplified view that fitness is 3 things, diet, fat, and strength (or cardio, or whatever reason you're training for).
If all 3 are crap then fixing one is better than fixing none.
If someone wants to go to the gym, then they're more likely to go to the gym than they are to skip the hotel breakfast for a green smoothie.
The good thing (IMO) about starting a structured routine at a gym (or in your room if you can muster enough enthusiasm and resistance) is that after a couple of weeks, you feel better even if you still can't do a pull-up. Which filters through into the rest of your day, you pas up on the cake or chips because there's a nagging thought that it's a few hundred grams extra you'll have to pull up. So you have a carrot and a protein bar instead (because a protein bar is still better than cake) and wash it down with diet coke (again, because it's better than anything else in the bar). Then the next morning you feel like crap because you didn't fuel properly, so you have porridge for breakfast instead of bacon and eggs. And before long you're on the way to fixing all three aspects.
I've found that logging what I eat throughout the day, has been a massive help with losing weight (21lbs in 2 months), as well as walking - 4 miles x 5 times a week. I'm using My Fitness Pal linked to my Garmin account, to log the walking - others are obviously available.
Recently started the calisthenics's thing in the house, with a couple of YT videos to follow on the TV