Holiday Travel Workouts: Stay Fit On the Fly

WASHINGTON — Just when you feel like you’ve gotten into a solid fitness routine, the holidays arrive. With traveling and changes to your schedule, it can be challenging to keep up with your goals. Taking a break, staying active or doing a little of each is perfectly fine.

If you’re new to fitness or hoping to become more active in the new year, it’s also a great time to try something new. Here, we’ll give you tips for keeping your heart rate up during the festive season.

Do You Need to Work Out During the Holidays?

Whether you’re a newbie or a regular gym-goer with a strict routine, you may be debating this question. The answer is, it depends.

• If you’re a regular gym-goer, there are benefits to taking a week off from your routine. It allows your muscles to rest and recover fully and you may return even stronger.
• If you’re a newbie, you may feel like you don’t want to lose momentum. In that case, you may not want to take a complete break so, keep on building your new healthy habits.

In either case, resting your mind and body is crucial to any fitness goal. It’s an excellent opportunity to relax, sleep, eat well and de-stress. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can take some days to be lazy but add some walks or light stretching.

If you want some options for workouts you can do on the go, let’s get more specific.

Travel-Friendly Workouts

Exercise can be split into two general categories — resistance training, which strengthens your muscles, and cardiovascular exercise, which strengthens your heart. Whatever your fitness goal, most good training programs will have you doing both types of exercise.

Travel-Friendly Strength Workouts

If you typically do resistance training in a gym or with equipment, getting taken out of your routine can be confusing.

You can keep your muscles strong by doing bodyweight exercises or getting a set of resistance bands. If you’re staying in a hotel, even the smallest hotel gyms will have a set of dumbbells.

• Bodyweight Circuits: Put together circuits of multi-joint, compound exercises to work all your muscles using only your body weight. It’s time-efficient and can be done in a small space. Here are a few exercises to choose from:

• • • Glute bridges.
    • Bodyweight squats.
    • Bodyweight hip hinge.
    • Reverse lunges, forward lunges, side lunges.
    • Plank walkouts.
    • World’s greatest stretch.
    • Planks.
    • Push-ups (or knee push-ups).
    • Core exercises: supermans, bird dogs, dead bugs.

• Resistance Bands: With longer resistance bands, you can mimic some weighted exercises you might do in a gym. You can also use them to increase the difficulty of squats and hinges. Here are a few exercises you can add to your circuit with bands:

• • • Biceps curls.
    • Triceps extensions.
    • Lateral raises.
    • Shoulder press.

• Dumbbells: If you can access dumbbells, you can add some light dumbbell exercises to your travel workout. Here are some dumbbell exercises to try:
  • • Goblet squat.
    • Romanian deadlift.
    • Floor chest press.
    • Bent over row.
    • Shoulder press.
    • Biceps curls.
    • Triceps extensions.

Travel-Friendly Cardio Workouts

If you love doing cardio at the gym, here are some alternatives while you’re away. You can do steady-state cardio, which refers to doing a low- to moderate-intensity activity for a longer period of time. You can also do higher-intensity cardio, like high-intensity interval training, which refers to doing vigorous activity for short bursts of time.

• Steady-State Travel Cardio: Walk, jog or hike outside. If you’re traveling to a new place, this is a fun way to see the area. If you have access to a bike, an easy bike ride works too. If there’s a pool, swimming is great cardio.

• High-Intensity Travel Cardio: If you’re pressed for time during the holidays, a quick HIT session may make sense. You can choose some bodyweight exercises from the above section and do them for a few rounds.

Try Something New

If you’re mixing in resting with light activity, it’s a great time to try something new. YouTube and other virtual platforms have tons of free workout classes. Try a dance, yoga or Pilates class for some guided instruction. You can also find strength and cardio classes to take the guesswork out of planning your own workouts.

If you’re missing the gym, you can always look up local gyms wherever you are. Some gyms will offer a day pass or free trial.

Sweat and Rest

The holidays are a great time to unwind and let yourself be a little lazier than usual. Exercise also has mental health benefits — getting out for a walk or doing a quick stretch can help boost your mood and reduce stress. If you don’t want to miss your routine, try our tips for bodyweight strength and cardio workouts, or a new class or activity. Whatever you choose, enjoy the season!

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