The challenges of exercising and staying healthy while travelling are numerous:
- Access to gym facilities
- Jet lag, time zone differences and general tiredness
- Client or business dinners and receptions
- Early morning starts
- Breaking the consistency of your existing exercise regime (e.g. time of day, equipment used, facilities etc)
- Actual travel - i.e. exercising during a 15 hours flight when 30,000 feet in the air on a plane is not easy...
The biggest challenge I find is where the business trip is to a time zone that is 5-10 hours different and I arrive late on a Sunday evening, have an 8am meeting on the Monday and then workshops through to 18:30 and then dinner with the client at 19:30 and then the same again on the Tuesday, including dinner, before flying to another location early Wednesday morning to repeat. This really stresses the body and the jet lag drains me of energy such that even if there was time to exercise it can be a real challenge to have the motivation.
Travel Kit
When travelling I'll take a few items with me:
- Gym Kit and trainers
- Empty bottle - useful for water if the gym does not provide water in the gym. Exercising without taking in fluids will make an inefficient workout and you won't be giving your best
- Jump Rope - easy to carry with you and provides a cardio work out with limited space needed.
- Meal Bars - just in case the food doesn't provide you with the nutrition you need, a handful of high fibre/protein meal bars will help and are easy to eat. It also allows you to have the mid morning/afternoon snack to keep the metabolism going
- Tuna - I go for the plastic packaged tuna rather than the tins. They don't have the water content of the tins, are easier to carry and easy to open. You may not need them, however if you're concerned on protein intake then having one of these a day will help.
Hotel Gyms
Most hotel gyms from a Hampton Inn to a Hilton have a small fitness centre or gym on their premises. These may be a small room measuring 20 ft by 10 ft to something much grander.
If you're an avid jogger (I'm not) then the choice is a little easier as you can put on your gear and, weather permitting, go for a jog outdoors. This is a great and easy way for many people assuming you don't get lost on the route! For me, jogging is not an enjoyable exercise. I'm unsure if this is mental or physiological and perhaps is a topic for another post.
If you opt for the indoor option then typically the hotel will have a minimum of 2-3 treadmills, 1-2 stationary bikes and if you're lucky 1-2 elliptical trainers. If you're lucky then they may have a much more comprehensive suite of equipment including weight machines and free weights, cable TV, towels and more.
The most disappointing hotel gym to-date has been at the Hilton in Niagara Falls. The equipment was very old, the elliptical trainer was broken and set for a maximum duration of 10 minutes, the TV was archaic and couldn't be seen from most of the machines and the room was generally small, grotty and didn't really give a nice environment for working out. I'm assuming the gym will be updated before too long and let's hope it matches or surpasses my experiences of other Hilton hotels which have been pretty good.
The best hotel gym I've used has been the Westin in Bellevue, Washington state. This was a large, modern, well equipped gym that had TV screens on most of the cardio machines. Thumbs up to Westin!
Some hotel's will have a true fitness centre beside them that guests are allowed to use. While I didn't make the opportunity to use it, a recent stay at a Hilton hotel in Washington DC included free use of the adjacent fitness centre that was a proper gym/health club.
However you look at it, staying at hotels is a good opportunity for an early morning or late afternoon/evening work out!
I now take my gym kit with me when I'm travelling to ensure I make the effort to exercise.
Train and Air travel
It's pretty difficult to exercise while on a train or a plane and the journeys often last 2 to 15 hours (or more) unless your travel is just a local commute.
Maybe in the future train companies will create a carriage with exercise equipment and a shower that people can pay a premium to use. I would probably pay to use such a gym if my train journey was 2 hours or more, so health and safety issues aside maybe this is something the rail companies could investigate. The exercise carriages don't need to actually be accessible from the platform so adding a couple of carriages to the train may be less of an issue?
Whether on the train or plane trying to exercise is difficult. You can't jog, jump rope or do weight training. If you try to do push ups I'm sure the air-stewards would ask you to stop. Pretty much your only option is a few stretches to keep the circulation going.
If you have any other suggestions then post away, I'm keen to hear what you do to help if on a long-haul flight.
Business Dinners
These used to be the bane of my life. I would end up having some beer and/or wine, I would not make the best choices on the menu, and after some bread, an appetiser, main course and desert I'd probably take in or more likely exceed my day's calorie limit in one meal.
These days I am much better with the business dinners. As part of my getting healthy I've given up drinking alcohol.... completely! It was easier to make the tee-total decision (for now) then to say some drinking is fine and then find that I've not kept to a self-imposed limit. So for these dinners I drink sparkling water.
For the meal I typically limit myself to only a small amount of bread, and then I'll only go for an appetizer if there is one that is on the healthy side. So maybe a salad (without the calorie laden dressings), or some seafood (crab, salmon). The main meal is typically fish (Salmon, Tilapia, Sea Bass) which is blackened/grilled rather than covered in a sauce and for a side, plenty of steamed vegetables without the butter. Depending on what else has been eaten during the day I may also take in some additional carbohydrates via some potato, however typically not. Deserts are typically skipped unless there is something which is healthy!
My colleagues will encourage me to try some wine or have a beer, they may joke about the water, however that is part of life and I've not been seduced to the dark side :-)
Jet Lag and Time Zones
My preferred option is to try and arrive at my location at least a full day before the meetings, e.g. arrive on a Saturday if my meetings are on a Monday. This not only gives me some time to adjust, but also the Sunday to really get some exercise in at the hotel gym. I find this can help adapt to a different time zone quickly. The down side is that it usually means more time away from home and the wife.
My alternate approach is to begin to adjust my internal body clock for the week approaching the flight. e.g. I may start getting up an hour earlier each day and going to be an hour earlier. so 7am, 6am, 5am, 4am, 3am as the week progresses. This can work quite well although it does disturb those you live with (a big thank you for to my wife for being so supportive on this!). As I have a home gym it is easy for me to get up at 4am, have a work out and feel energised for the day.
The final part of the puzzle for me is to try to adapt my sleep pattern during the flight to force me closer to the destination time zone. This may mean forcing myself to stay awake for as long as possible, or going straight to sleep.
I haven't tried the various anti-jet lag pills/medicines that are advertised and available in stores, if you've tried these then feel free to post your experiences.
In summary, whatever your approach.. travel and exercise/fitness/health takes an extra commitment to keep on track.
I would like to agree wholeheartedly with the train gym idea! Not that I ever take a train but if I did for more than an hour a day, I think this would be a great use of time.
ReplyDeleteNick
actually thinking about it, its never going to happen. A gym on carriage would allow maybe 10 people to use it, however a non-gym carriage might sit 100. However, what if you only had running machines and were to connect them to the motor of the train.... This could be the green fuel of the future and could help curb americas obesity problem.
ReplyDeleteNick