5 MORE Tips To Stay Fit While Traveling
I received some great feedback from the readers of last year's article titled “5 Tips for Staying Fit While you Travel”, so I've authored this article as a direct follow-up. As a Physiotherapist and Personal Trainer for executives, business owners, unique solo athletes, and others with high mobility lifestyles these are 5 MORE Tips to Stay Fit While you Travel for cottaging, business, or pleasure.
1. Leverage Technology
You already use your calendar to keep your social and professional life on track; leverage it in the same way to stay fit while you travel. For many of my clients, I recommend scheduling movement breaks daily or as often as your schedule allows. In my experience working with busy GTA executives and business owners 15 minutes seems to be the ideal length for a quick post meal walk or stretch break before you head out with the family for a drive to the cottage, or an afternoon of meetings on a business trip.
If you really want to power up your movement breaks, try adding in an online “follow along” exercise video to add some rigor to the process. There are thousands of hours of free content online that can be leveraged with or without a web connection, giving you less friction to getting movement in and investing in yourself no matter where life finds you.
As an example: while on a business trip with a full afternoon ahead of you, your calendar reminds you to go for a 15 minute walk, scheduled daily after lunch. After finishing your meal, start a timer on your smartphone and a “follow along” interval style walking workout on YouTube to go around the block with. Combinations like these are limitless, so use your imagination and leverage your tech to create opportunities to move!
2. Objectify Your Progress
My clients are HIGHLY motivated when they can see their progress towards a fitness, strength, or sports injury rehab goal with their own eyes. Objectifying your results is a great catalyst for this process and can take the form of strength or range of motion metrics, pant/dress size changes, or the less tangible but equally meaningful complements from friends/family/loved ones.
At Summit Performance, as both a Strength & Conditioning Specialist and Physiotherapist we leverage the latest tech, tools, and equipment so all of our clients get the benefit of objective measurement tied to their training or rehab program, so they can see the results for themselves as they train and progress towards goals meaningful to them. We monitor and re-measure against our baseline performance results as we progress so it holds you accountable to your training and effort, and us accountable to your progress!
In my experience, when coupled with consistent follow up communication from your Physio or Trainer, making your goals tangible and objective keeps you motivated and less likely to make choices in the moment counterproductive to your health and fitness goals whether life finds you local, or traversing the globe.
3. Find What Motivates you to Move
One of my favourite parts of being a Physiotherapist is the recurring reminder that people exercise more when that movement is meaningful to their life. Whether its an executive who has spent 40 years playing tennis, the martial artists I'm working with in Japan, or a high school student rehabbing after a concussion, people ALWAYS are more inclined to exercise when they can see that the movements integrated into their personal training or injury rehab routine directly translate into the sports and activities they care about most.
For some people that means working with a personal trainer to help you create an exercise program that aligns with movements from your favourite sport or activity, and for others it means being involved in exercise done in a group setting where they can socialize/connect with other like minded people. Define your activity, sport, or setting that's meaningful to you and get into the groove with a program you will be motivated to complete consistently to keep you fit and motivated for the rest of your life, no matter the setting, no matter the place, no matter the circumstance.
4. Use “Sterile Cockpit” Mode to Limit Distractions
I have immediate family members that spent their career in the aviation industry. This meant that I grew up using the “lingo” of planes, airports, and everything in between in my daily life. One of my favourite concepts I learned from the aviation industry is the sterile cockpit; in which only tools necessary to the function of an aircraft are permitted in the cabin. This limits distractions in the most crucial and risk prone times during a flight, takeoff and landing.
I create my own “sterile cockpit” mode as soon as I start my own daily fitness training. This means my phone goes on airplane mode (ironic - yes!) and the endless buzzing of emails and messages, goes away temporarily. This keeps me in a flow state, focused on my mission for the 45-60 minutes of daily "me" time. Allow yourself the space for a truly distraction free window while you travel and watch the benefits accrue by making this a non negotiable habit for your daily exercise/training time.
5. Mundane Movement Opportunities
This is one of those “not so secret” hacks people latch onto for being something easy to implement with huge benefits for what seems like a negligible amount of effort.
In your daily cottage routine of errands, housework, managing your social life, etc. there are endless opportunities to add a bit of exercise to the mundane aspects of your day. This can be as easy as intentionally parking in a further spot when you run errands, maintaining a few feet of your cottage property, even if you have someone to take care of the bulk of the work at a later date, or the cleaning/re-organizing necessary to keep your cottage in check.
People underestimate how quickly this can add up, but an extra 15 minutes walking for your errands, combined with 45 minutes split between cleaning & cottage maintenance QUICKLY turns into time spent “exercising” on top of any dedicated fitness/personal training efforts you're implementing to keep yourself as healthy as possible.
Once habitual, These "little wins" not only feel good in the short term by voluntarily choosing to clean up or improve a little part of your life, but the sense of control and unconscious effort once routinized will pay off again and again in the form of "compound interest" without seemingly any additional effort on your end to keep the habit going!
Mike Slomczewski, MSc.PT, CSCS is a Physiotherapist, Strength and Conditioning Specialist, and the owner of Summit Performance. He serves executives, entrepreneurs, high mobility professionals, and unique solo athletes with full-service and travel health and fitness services. Learn more about Summit Performance at: www.summit.fit.