The Travel Workouts Guide
Takeaway Points:
It’s probably easier than you think to train when traveling, as your primary focus should be on maintenance rather than continuing to gain strength and muscle mass.
By focusing on the basics, you often only need a single workout per week.
At the same time, it’s also important not to overlook the benefit of occasionally just… taking week off.
When you’re traveling or otherwise unable to get in your normal workout routine, what’s the best approach for training? It depends on what your situation is, and how long you’re going to be unable to hit the gym.
The Rationale
Interestingly, it doesn’t actually take very much work to maintain fitness compared to what it takes to build it over time. In general, something like 25-35% of your normal training volume, provided that you’re keeping intensity roughly the same, is sufficient to maintain strength and muscle mass for months if not indefinitely.
What this means is that if you were used to training with a certain number of hard sets per muscle group per week, you can cut that to about 1/3-1/4 of your original number, and still maintain effectively. If you’re training something like 4x/week, this would typically mean that just 1 workout per week is more than enough to maintain your strength and muscle mass, or maybe 2 workouts per week if you were training very aggressively (5+ workouts per week).
There are only a couple of major caveats here:
You need to make sure you’re hitting all muscle groups.
If you’re used to body part splits like an upper/lower split or similar, then this would mean that you’d typically need to switch to a full body routine, training all major muscle groups in one training session, so that you can ensure that you’re not letting any muscle groups go untrained.
You need to keep intensity roughly the same.
Intensity is the weight that you’re used to training with. If you’re training very heavy (for example, as a powerlifter), then accordingly you’ll NEED very heavy weights for your maintenance workouts.
You could also choose to train the same muscle groups with lighter movements, but this would risk some loss of strength if your break is long enough.
An Optimal Approach
So with this rationale in mind, what’s the best possible approach?
Typically, I would not recommend that most people try to get in a full training routine while traveling. If you travel very frequently for work, then of course it may become necessary to train seriously while traveling in order to continue seeing results.
But for most people who are just traveling for a little while, or taking a temporary vacation, your focus should really be on either managing stress (if this is a work trip), or enjoying yourself (if this is a vacation trip). As a result, trying to train hard is usually not a good plan in either situation, and I would recommend aiming for a maintenance/minimal program in order to minimize the amount of time you need to spend working out.
There’s another powerful factor in this case which is simply that you’ll be completely out of your normal routine and situation, and this definitely makes it very difficult to stick to your normal training. Often, it’s easier to just plan to pick things back up once you’re back to your normal habits than to try to push it hard when you’re thrown off and out of your normal routine.
Optimally, you would be able to locate a decent gym while traveling, and you would have access to all the equipment that you normally have, or at the very least somewhat similar equipment. In this case, you could do a simple routine of the following:
BB or DB Bench Press, or Chest Press Machine - 3 challenging sets @ the working weight you’ve used in your most recent workout
BB or DB Squat, or Leg Press Machine - 3 challenging sets @ the working weight you’ve used in your most recent workout
BB or DB Overhead Press, or Overhead Press Machine - 3 challenging sets @ the working weight you’ve used in your most recent workout
BB or DB RDL or Deadlift - 3 challenging sets @ the working weight you’ve used in your most recent workout
Lat Pulldown, Row Machine, BB Row, or similar - 3 challenging sets @ the working weight you’ve used in your most recent workout
This covers all major movements, and would definitely be a bit exhausting, but would effectively cover all your bases and ensure no loss of strength/muscle.
A Backup Approach
That said, very often, we do NOT have access to optimal equipment while traveling. Most people will not have the time or ability to locate a good gym, and so are used to relying on bodyweight workouts in their hotel rooms, or lighter workouts with hotel gyms, or similar.
This will not be quite as good. Since you’re violating the principle of keeping intensity high, you are risking a little bit of strength loss. However, since you’re still getting in some training, you’re ensuring no loss of muscle mass.
Here’s what such a routine would look like:
BW Pushup or DB Bench Press - 3 challenging sets to near failure @ whatever weight available
BW Squat or DB Squat - 3 challenging sets to near failure @ whatever weight available
BW Pike Pushup or DB Overhead Press or Lateral Raise - 3 challenging sets to near failure @ whatever weight available
BW Single Leg Glute Bridge or DB RDL - 3 challenging sets to near failure @ whatever weight available
Banded Pullapart, DB One Arm Row, or DB Bent Over Reverse Fly - 3 challenging sets to near failure @ whatever weight available
Depending on what equipment you have available and how strong you are, some movements may or may not be doable, and you may need to modify or skip some of the above movements. This isn’t ideal, but being able to do some of these movements is evidently much better than nothing.
A Backup Backup Approach
One last solution should also be mentioned briefly - not working out at all.
It actually tends to take longer to lose much strength and muscle mass than people think - usually a few weeks at least. In contrast, when most people travel, they typically only travel for a week or two at most, which is usually not enough to cause any serious loss of muscle mass or strength.
As a result, another completely viable solution is just not to work out at all!
This has the benefit of enabling you to fully focus on your travel and not worry at all about your workouts. However, it also has some disadvantages as well.
Firstly you’d likely lose some amount of muscle/strength, even if it’s a very small amount. Depending on your goals and level of training, this may or may not be an acceptable tradeoff.
Another major one is that complete cessation of training will meaning losing the repeated bouts effect and becoming resensitized to training - or in plainer words, you’re going to start getting sore again. Soreness is minimal on a training program where you’re consistently training the same muscle groups over time, but it will become worse if you train muscles at a degree of intensity that you haven’t trained recently - even a week is enough to make this worse.
So, while you may not lose much actual strength/muscle mass, you can become POWERFULLY sore again after just a week off of training, and this can mean a slightly rougher transition back into full activity. You’d struggle a little bit on your first week back, then you’d be back to normal activity by week two. This is a slight setback, though certainly not the worst thing in the world.
Still, it’s often nice to just relax. Taking a week off here and there isn’t the end of the world!
About Adam Fisher
Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.
During that time he has coached hundreds of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.
Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.
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