5 Tips to Make Your Summer Travel Plans Your Fittest Ones Yet

Summer travel season is officially in full swing and I wanted to share some vacation and travel tips with you to keep your fitness and workout routines humming.

When traveling for work, I find a quick workout to be a great way to focus my mind, get my energy levels up and destress from the various modes of transportation.

When it comes to vacations, I may be one of those rare people who really look forward to having the time to focus in on my fitness. Vacations are in my opinion the perfect time to re-incorporate working out into your daily routine. Like many professionals, my daily routine can be pretty overwhelming, leaving me crunched on time to get in my workouts. Thus, when on vacation I take all the time in the world to do my dream workouts (whether that’s extra stretching, long yoga sessions, or killer 2 hour gym sessions).

An important takeaway for vacation and travel workouts is to emphasize routines and activities that you enjoy and/or make you feel good (or are at least good for you - because those will make you feel good in the end).

Here are a few tips on how to make your next travel plans your fittest ones yet

1.) Morning Yoga/Stretching: If you’re like me, you might always have the best of intentions to wake-up earlier in the morning to do a little yoga or stretching but the time crunch of getting into work, kids, eating or sleeping more gets in the way. While on vacation I like to leave my mornings open so I can leisurely wake-up and either do a 10 to 30 minute yoga routine or a stretching session. The app Daily Yoga or on YouTube - YogaTX are good yoga options. 

And here are two stretching series I designed: Sitting Stretch Series and Standing Stretch Series

2.) Runs: As a former competitive runner turned recreational runner, I love exploring my vacation or travel locale with a run. The two apps I use most frequently to track and guide my runs are MapMyRun and Nike Run Club. A cool feature of these apps is they can actually provide suggested routes right in the app for your current location. It’s also always a good idea to check with your front desk or check local running sites on the dos and don’ts of running in your area: for instance best times, safe neighborhoods, and proper footwear and attire.

3.) Best Travel Equipment: I will occasionally bring some equipment with me. A pack of resistance bands or my TRX cables. Both are great because they are pretty small to travel with and not too heavy. Plus, they make it easier to do pull movements and are also a source of resistance for workout moves. I’ll also travel with a small jump rope (my rope of choice)

4.) Workouts!: And of course these tips wouldn’t be complete unless I gave you a few JKF Fitness & Health custom designed workouts. Try my newest Travel workout which has its own accompanying video: 

And here’s a breakdown of all of the moves:

1. Jump Rope - 2 mins

2. High Knees - 45 seconds

2. Butt Kicks - 45 seconds

4. Jumping Jacks - 45 seconds

5. Speed Walkouts - 45 seconds

6. Bulgarian Split Squats - 20 each leg

7. Forward and Back Dive Push-ups - 10 reps

8. Jump Squats - 30 reps

9. Heel Touch Sit-ups - 30 reps

10. Close Hand Push-ups - 20 reps

11. Bent Over Row (Cable or Resistance Band) - 20 reps

12.Push-ups - 20 reps

13. Bent Over Row (Cable or Resistance Band) - 20 reps

14. Wide Hand Push-ups - 20 reps

15. Bent Over Row (Cable or Resistance Band) - 20 reps

16. Pilates Teaser Series (3 moves, (1) legs held up and out, upper body and arms back and sit-up to reach toes, (2) Sitting almost upright with arms extended above head, lower and lift legs, (3) V-up motion - 10 reps of each move

17. Jump Rope - 2 mins

Additional Workouts:

•Original JKF Fitness & Health Travel Workout

•JKF Fitness & Health Home Workout Routine

5.) Final Takeaways: Take advantage of the facilities at which you’re staying. If they have a gym or offer classes or running groups, be sure to check them out. Keep it rolling when you get home. Tried out some of the suggested routines above? Start tracking your progress with an app like FitNotes to see how you’re improving with reps, time, weight or resistance level. For instance, I’m challenging myself with some great pull-up and push-up challenges at the moment. I superset 15 pull-ups to 25 push-ups and see how many times I can go through in the shortest time possible. And lastly, be flexible. As my sister reminds me constantly, never let perfect be the enemy of done. If you crunched on time, sometimes the best thing to do is just a quick 20 minutes of cardio, or a 10 minute cross-training session, or a short stretch sequence. The important thing for your long term health and fitness goals is to get in those quality “active” minutes for your weekly total. Remember the CDC recommends 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity or 75 mins of intense activity a week to be healthy.

 

Interval Cardio Workouts Great for Getting you through the Holidays

       

Let me start by wishing everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving and I hope everyone’s Holiday seasons are off to a great start.

In the Nov/Dec issue of Muscle & Fitness Hers I gave them a tip for their Healthy Happy Holiday Survival Guide.

The holidays can be a stressful time and keeping up with your workout regimen shouldn’t be a contributing factor to your stress. My advice to Muscle & Fitness was to have a quick high intensity interval (HIIT) cardio workout in your back pocket to do. It’s a great way to work off excess energy from stress and get a little endorphin boost. In the Muscle & Fitness Hers Survival Guide (and below) you can see the cycling workout I created just for them.

Don't fret if you don't have a stationary bike to rock the above workout with, I also made a simple 5 move interval workout that you can do at home, in the office or on the road while traveling.

It’s 5 moves, 1 set takes 7 and a half minutes - and you are ideally shooting to complete 3 sets back to back, meaning in about 25 minutes you'll have gotten in a great workout. To push even harder in the workout, try to exceed the numbers of reps of each move in each of the three sets.

      

Breakdown of the moves

1. Deep Squats (1 min) - Stand feet little wider than shoulder width apart and drop you hips to the ground until thighs are slightly below parallel to the ground. Stand back up pushing through your heals. Repeat the movement varying the speed of the motion throughout.

30 seconds rest

2. Close Wide Middle Push-ups (1 min) - In plank start with hands spread wide (positioned a couple of inches outside of the shoulder), do one push-up, bring the hands to about shoulder width apart do a push-up, bring the hands to about 6 inches apart and do a push-up. Start the sequence in reverse beginning with the close hand position. One set will be 6 push-ups (2 at each position). Repeat for 1 min getting in as many sets as possible. Love this move as it works multiple aspects of my pectoral muscles and incorporates a cardio component as I switch from the different positions.

30 seconds rest

3. Jog in Place High Knees (1min)

30 seconds rest

4. Full body sit-ups (1min) - Lying prone on the floor with arms overhead. Swing arms forward lifting shoulders up. Once your shoulders are halfway up, start bringing your knees into your chest. The finished position should have you at the top of a sit-up movement with your feet off the ground. Slowly extend you legs out and lower your shoulders back to the ground to complete one rep. Repeat as many times as possible over the minute. This is a great total core workout. Working your upper, lower and middle abdominal muscles.

30 seconds rest

5. Switch Jump Lunges (1min) - Get into a lunge position with your right foot forward and left foot back and flexed bringing your bent left knee as close to the ground as possible. Switch jump your left foot forward and then bring your right leg back in a controlled manner to dip low into a lunge. Keep jump switching between the legs. Great exercise for a low impact cardio cross training movement.

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And there you have it, 2 great cardio workouts to keep you looking and feeling great through the holiday season. Give them a try and let me know what you think about them!