VACATION WORKOUTS
August 23, 2018
Pittsburgh Fitness Project
Vacation workouts. It’s almost the end of summer, but some of yinz may be going out of town sometime soon. Especially since Labor Day is around the corner. Can you believe it’s almost September already?! Whenever you go on vacation it’s really easy to make excuses when it comes to diet and workouts. “There wasn’t much equipment.” “We did a lot of walking.” “I didn’t feel like it.” It may seem hard to believe, but it is definitely possible to get your workouts in while you are on vacation. Read this article before you go out of town and you’ll be all set workout wise before your next vacation!
Some of the excuses I listed have some validation. Maybe you have been working out really hard for a minimum of 3 months in a row and really need to give your body a break from lifting weights. In that scenario you’ll be fine taking some time off. Then you may be extremely tired (or hungover, let’s be real,) and lifting some weights over your head may not be a good idea. But if you just “didn’t feel like it”, well, that excuse I can’t accept. Now, I’m giving you a fair warning. These workouts are as challenging as they are short. Even though all of these workouts take less than 30 minutes guaranteed, they will be hard. The good news is that they don’t require any equipment! Also, they are LESS than 30 minutes. So seriously, stop making excuses n’at!
VACATION WORKOUTS: LEGS
Let’s start with lunges. Pick 3-4 of your favorite songs, get a little warmup in, and see if you can do lunges for 10 minutes straight. If you don’t think you can, work up to it. Take a breather, shake your legs out, and keep going until time is up. If you have never tried this, try doing reverse lunges first. A reverse lunge is where you step back and lunge. This is instead of stepping in front of you. Trust me, you’ll thank me later. You can play around with this by changing your lunge variation. You could also change the speed. Or even try standing on a small step and lunge from there. This workout is a great test of strength, endurance, and balance. This is so simple yet so brutal!
Another option for these kinds of leg vacation workouts is doing the same thing, but with squats. Challenge yourself and see how many squats you can get in 10 minutes. Keep track of this record and try to beat it next time!
Last workout starts by getting a timer ready. When you press start, do 30 seconds of jump squats, 30 seconds of squats, then hold the bottom of a squat for 30 seconds. Do all three straight through without taking a break. This takes a minute and a half total. Do this 3-5 times for a full workout with a minimum of 2 minutes rest between sets. I have been doing this as a finisher for years and it still kicks my butt. I’ve only recently been able to bump up the time for each interval. Make each squat count and use a mirror to check your form when you are holding the bottom of a squat! And get a laugh from the pained expression on your face!
UPPER BODY WORKOUTS
Okay friends, it’s time for upper body vacation workouts. Let’s start with the Texas pushup challenge. Doo one pushup, stand up. Two pushups standup. Three pushups standup. And so on until you make it to ten pushups. This one may seem easy, but gosh this is really hard. If you have come to my classes long enough you may have tried this one before at THE END of my class. You’d be amazed at how far you go when you do this fresh. If you can finish it, make it harder by going higher than ten. This should go without saying, but make each pushup count! If you aren’t absolutely fried by this, then do it for a couple rounds with a minimum of two minutes rest between sets. By the way, if you make it to ten reps, that’s 55 pushups! One last thing, make sure you are getting right back into your pushups after you stand up. Stand up means “stand up,” not stand around.
Next, think of every pushup variation you’ve ever tried. Trust me, there are more than 100 before you add weight or an incline. If you can’t do one, put your hands on a bench or edge of your comfy hotel bed and do pushups there. For those of you that can do a pushup, watch a random YouTube video on pushup variations. Or think about the kinds you’ve tried and see how many reps you can get of each!
TOTAL BODY WORKOUTS:
Don’t hate me for these sets of vacation workouts. Try to do as many burpees as you can in 10-30 minutes. Don’t cheat yourself. Make each one count.
Download a Tabata timer app. Adjust the settings so you are doing work for 20 seconds, resting for 10 seconds. Set it for 8 rounds. When you go through all rounds, that will be 4 minutes. Pick a random upper body exercise (plank variations work really well here,) and a random lower body exercise. Alternate between these two and for some of you, that may be a workout in itself. If not, repeat either the 2 exercises you chose for 3-5 rounds or pick other random upper/lower body exercises to do for the other rounds. Be conservative on this.
There will be a time in some of these Tabata intervals where you are contemplating life and wondering why the “H-E” double Penguin hockeys sticks you are doing this. If you are really crazy, pick just one exercise and do it for the full 8 rounds.
AFTER VACATION IS OVER
I hope everybody gives at least one of these vacation workouts a chance next time you go away. And that you don’t feel quite as guilty drinking and eating as much as you want after doing one of these brutal workouts! If you do these, you probably won’t feel quite as terrible when you return either! Or like you lost all your strength over the course of a week! For those of you that are new around here, make sure to check out our weekly class schedule. And for those of you looking for more specialized and focused classes, come on in and check out our new Power Hour Program! And remember you can always train with me!
Happy Exercising!