Build Your Strength while Travelling - Your Gym on the Go

Hi there,

In this blog post I thought I would write about two of my passions: FITNESS AND TRAVELLING and the frustrations that come along when both are combined.

In my experience, travelling is one of the best things anyone can do; However, there are also a few things that can be quite frustrating when it comes to planning a holiday, specially when it comes to planning how to maintain your fitness and the hard work you've put all year long, on the days/weeks/months you are away.

The Frustration 

How many times have you planned a trip with your girlfriend, wife, family or friends and thought.. "hey, but what about training? ...Wonder if there's somewhere I can train over there, because... I still want to train!".

And even though I don't care about what anyone says about me, people will always tell you.. "RELAAAAX man! why don't you just stop training while you are away and get back into it when you go back home? It's not the end of the world"... .... well IT KIND OF IS! and if you thought "OH SH.. I've been through that", guess what?? You are not the only one! Many of us have gone through this too and IT'S DAMN PAINFUL!

 

When we exercise, our body releases hormones called endorphins, which are basically responsible for making us FEEL AMAZING. If you want more information, you can check out this article. That's one of the many reasons why exercising can become quite "addictive" and people become a bit "dependant" on exercising every day. 

But what about when we are travelling in places where we don't have access to gyms or training equipment? How do we feel? In my experience (which many of you might share) I feel very frustrated and certainly a bit anxious. Reason for this is: we put so much time and effort into getting to a certain level of fitness and into building lean muscle, to then realise that as soon as we go away, we will loose, not all, but a lot of what we have worked hard for. 

There are very good alternatives to a Gym

That's the reason why, it's very important to find the right equipment to train while you travel. Equipment that will allow you to perform training sessions and maintain your fitness levels regardless of where you go.

Things you might want to consider when choosing the right equipment to train and to maintain your fitness :

• Portability - Easy to carry. 
• Versatility - Can be used in many different ways, dynamic equipment.
• Light weight - Essential to comply with luggage weight limits 
• Compliant materials for travelling - Specially when travelling by plane. You don't want to be told by an annoying customs agent that your nice training equipment will be confiscated because it's classified as 'dangerous' to be carried on a plane.

In my last couple of trips to Cambodia and Mexico (if you have the chance, you should travel over there, Pretty amazing countries!) I took my Power Bands, my band handles and a set of "booty bands". 

I have to say, I was more than satisfied with the sessions that I did every day. The bands were super easy to travel with, they took very little space in my carry on bag and they were more than enough to do really good training sessions every day (some of them at some very stunning beaches!).

I would strongly recommend you to have a look at resistance bands as the equipment that will solve many of your fitness "issues" when travelling. On top of that, they have many other uses like rehab, stretching and can also complement your weights sessions with extra resistance; Pretty much, you can do every single exercise with them. 

Feel free to check some of the exercises using resistance bands in our Training Centre

Thanks for reading and stay tuned. Our upcoming posts will focus on how to innovate, be creative and build muscle with exercises that won't require any weights.

Eduardo