Workouts on the go!

Happy Hump Day! I love short weeks, Hump Day comes up before you know it. I can't believe it has been a full week since my last post - oops! I spent the long weekend [extended to include Thursday and Friday] in Chicago to celebrate my sister's graduation from medical school. I couldn't possibly be more proud and excited that my very own sister is an MD! WHOA! I'm pretty sure I was more emotional than her for the duration of the weekend. I'm ok with that. Crying at dinner? The new black. The whole family clan was back together for the weekend which was great, it is really hard to get all 5 [6 including bro-in-law] people in the same place at the same time now that we are all adults with independent lives, so I really enjoyed the weekend. Of course, as part of a celebratory weekend we consumed many many meals of amazing [calorie ridden, salty, fatty] food. I'm sure I was not alone in my eating habits for the Memorial Day weekend, it tends to be a weekend of barbeque, beer and ice cream.

Which leads to the topic of the day...working out on the GO! Vacation and travel tend to lend themselves to poor eating and exercise habits. My body can't physically handle more than 2 days without some form of exercise, so I tend to get creative and thought I would share with you my top three ideas:

1. RUN! The single best thing about running is it can happen anywhere, any time, with any weather, as long as your have your shoes [or no shoes if you prefer barefoot!]. Just look at a map or go exploring without one. It is an amazing way to see any city and it is a great workout. If you are staying at a hotel, you can ask the concierge about the best places to go for a run, there are usually some running paths and/or trails nearby.

2. Use whatever equipment is available. You've gotta love when you look at a hotel website and they describe their fitness room as 'state of the art, completely updated' and on and on. That is the same sort of marketing method as the descriptor 'charming' when looking for apartments, which means shitty, old, and overpriced. I walked into the hotel gym this weekend and there were two treadmills, a reclining bike [why do those even exist...?], a rack of dumbells from 5 to 50lbs, a cable machine, and medicine balls. All in a very small room. My reaction? This is PLENTY to get a great workout in! After a warmup on the treadmill, I used the dumbells for lunges, jump squats, squats, RDLs, moved to the cable machine for glute isolations, and to the medballs for core. I was sore for 3 days! Lesson? You don't need anything fancy to get a kickass workout in, just a bit of imagination and drive.

3. Explore the city. You can explore the city running, as mentioned above, or by walking, biking, rollerblading, scootering, really the options are endless. Please never ride a segway. Those are embarassing and I've never even been on one. Use your LEGS! My sister had the great idea of scheduling a bike tour of Chicago. The tour was put on by a boutique company and it was wonderful, so fun and adventurous with a funny tour guide. My bike's name was Brutus, we were a perfect pair. A recreational bike tour is something I never would have scheduled, I really enjoy intense exercise and have a hard time relaxing and doing something like cycling for fun. But I am SO glad we did it! The tour covered 7 miles in 3 hours [yes, I mean that, and yes, I can run 7 miles in 1 hour, but it wasn't about speed] and we saw all the great historical sites of downtown Chicago. Most of all, we laughed the whole time, and we spent 3 hours doing something active instead of sitting on our butts. Conclusion: just MOVE! It doesn't matter in what fashion or how fast, but just move and explore the city.

Next time you travel, realize there are endless options for staying active outside of your normal fitness routine. In fact, use it as an opportunity to get out of the norm and try something new!