by Matt Weik
We’ve all been there a time or two (or for some of us majority of the week if you’re in sales) where we are traveling—whether it be for business or pleasure. You plan out your trip and where you’re staying in advance and then the big day comes and you check into the hotel after a long day on the road. You’re sitting in your room wondering what to do for the rest of the night. Maybe some television? Or hit the sack early to get ready for the next day? If only you were home you could get in a good workout. Or can you? Of course you can!
The key to getting in a workout in a hotel room is to be creative. Of course you don’t have the luxury of a squat rack and a line of dumbbells the length of your room but you have everything right there in the room that you need. To make things even easier, you could always use the small hotel gym if you so choose to, but for the purpose of this article let’s talk specifically about working out in your hotel room.
Your hotel room workout will consist of bodyweight exercises as well as some weighted dependent on what you have available in your room (such as your suitcase filled with items). To save yourself some embarrassment, if you like to grunt and yell when you are at the gym, it’s recommend to refrain from that during the workout in your room. It will save you from a knock on the door asking if everything is all right since people will certainly be calling the front desk to complain about the noise.
So let’s get into the workout itself. Make sure you have a clear path around you so you have a safe environment to complete the exercises. You can also have water nearby or even your BCAA mix if you brought it along on your trip. It is recommended to begin your workout with a 5 minute warm-up consisting of brisk walking around the room, jumping jacks, or any type of calisthenics you’re able to perform in the space available to get your heart-rate up, muscles loose, and blood pumping.
*If you are reading this and have not been working out regularly, it would be a good idea to get clearance from your doctor before attempting to perform anything found in this article.*
The Full-Body Hotel Room Workout:
Being that the weight used in your workout is going to be lighter than what you would normally use in the gym, it would be beneficial to complete a higher-rep workout. This is also beneficial if you are used to going hard and heavy in the gym to change things up and shock your body/muscles a little.
After completing the 5-minute warm-up mentioned above, do anywhere from 4-8 sets of 12-15 reps per exercise listed below. If you want to keep your heart rate up and burn more calories it would be beneficial to run it like a circuit and do one exercise right after the other until you get through all the exercises listed.
Exercises:
• Squat Jump
• Walking Lunge
• Standing Calf Raise
• Push-up
• Door Pull-up (assuming the door is sturdy enough to hold you)
• Shoulder Press (use a travel bag filled with some items)
• Diamond Push-up or Chair Dip (if there’s a sturdy chair to use that isn’t on wheels)
• Bicep Curl (use one of your travel bags filled with some items)
• Crunches
