This past week didn’t go anything like I had planned. Sunday I flew to San Jose to attend VizThink, planned to be home Wednesday night, train clients, and hold a Z workshop yesterday. Instead, I ended up re-routing my travel, missing almost all of the conference, and heading to southern Texas for a memorial service for my grandfather and clean out his house. So, instead of three days of travel, with a business trip on the back end, it means I won’t be home for almost three weeks. Yikes!

My training schedule had been erratic at best BEFORE the travel, which I already knew wasn’t acceptable. So, time to use this break in my everyday life to rechunk a few things and create some new habits. As Kathy said to me today, motivation is simply the choice between two possible outcomes. And, of course, she was right.

So, I’m in a hotel for the next 10 days with NO training equipment (and the hotel gym is unusable). What options does a girl have? Turns out — TONS!

For reps and sets, I’m just doing the number that I can do with perfect form (no point in getting good at doing something wrong).

1. Pistols. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it’s basically a one-legged squat (extend the other leg out in front of you). I can’t do a bodyweight pistol, so I put one hand on the nightstand for balance and to assist. Be sure to keep your head up and maintain long spine.
2. Push-ups.  Long spine, head in neutral, hands under your shoulders with the upper arms along your ribcage as you go down. I don’t care if you are on your toes or knees (or even up against a wall) as long as you maintain your form.
3. Leg raises. Lie on your back,
4. Cross crawls. This a parkour training move — think crawling on hands and feet (instead of hands and knees). Left hand/right foot then right hand/left foot. Forward and backward across the hotel room floor. It’s the backward that always kills me!
5. Squats. Find a nice, wide comfortable stance. Long spine, maintain the small arch in the low back.
6. Tabata. In this case, tabata squats. The tabata protocol is just 4 minutes long, but those 4 minutes are deceptively hard. 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off (so 8 rounds). If you are using bodyweight, I prefer squats, but burpees can work as well.
7. Burpees. As long as we are on the subject, another great bodyweight exercise that my clients HATE. Again, deceptively hard.

If you are worried about the floor cleanliness, use a towel or two and skip the cross-crawls.

Let me know what your travel training protocol is!!!