How To Workout In Your Hotel Room

Getting a workout in can be difficult even with a membership that gives you access to every piece of equipment you could ever dream of. Things get increasingly harder when you are on the road travelling.

You might be lucky enough to get a hotel with a decent gym where you can nip down for a quick workout. Yea, the equipment might suck or be limited, but it will tie you over. What if there is no gym at all, what then? You could call it quits, and wait until you are back home, but if you are genuinely dedicated, you can find a way to get a workout in. Some exercise is always better than none.

Hotel Room Exercises

There will be no big bench presses or deadlifts going on but that still doesn't mean that you cant get a sweat up or even a pump. It might be harder than you think, especially if you have the right attitude. Below are some of the best exercises you can do in the confines of your hotel room, assuming you don't have any equipment available. Some are obvious, others you might not have thought of.

Chair Dips

You have a chair you have a gym. Maybe it is just a chair actually. Anway. Unless you are in the worst hotel room in the world, you will have a chair which can be used to do dips. If you do enough reps of these you can really get the triceps burning.

Desk Rows

Probably one of the more creative ones if your hotel has a desk or table. This is a hotel take on an inverted row. Obviously, be careful and do some assessment on the durability of the desk before you start getting in the reps or you might have some extra charges on the credit card at checkout.

Decline Push Up

The standard push up is so universally known as a do-anywhere exercise, there isn't much value in including it in this list. I am sure you know you can do pushups on the floor. However, variations such as a decline push-up using things like a bed or a chair are a useful alternative that can be done in hotel rooms. The concept would be the same as the below, except you'd be using the bed to put your feet on as opposed to the bench.

Body Weight Squats

Now onto the legs. Legs are considerably more difficult to train in the confines of a hotel room with bodyweight only. This mainly comes down to the fact that they are much stronger than the muscles in your upper body. There are options though. The first one being the bodyweight squat. While these will be nothing compared to a squat with any weight on it, if you do enough reps and use supersets and circuits with other leg exercises, you should be able to get a decent burn.

Frog Pumps (Hip Raises)

One of the best glute exercises in its own right is the frog pump. While it may look strange, it really makes the glutes work and does really well in higher rep ranges. Perfect for a hotel room floor.

Here is a version with a dumbbell, but the same principles apply with bodyweight.

Forward and Reverse Bodyweight Lunges

Bodyweight lunges are another great lower half option for a hotel room. They come in both the reverse and forward variations and again, if you do enough of them, you can get a real burn happening.

Burpees (CrossFit)

Burpees. Everyone knows about them, yet few do them. An allover bodyweight killer that is sure to get the heart rate up. There are a few versions of this, but the CrossFit is probably the best. The caution here is careful not to make annoy the neighbours underneath you.

Reverse Crunch

Abs are by far the easiest muscle group to exercise in the confines of a hotel room. The majority of abdominal training is traditionally done using bodyweight only which leave you many options. One is the reverse crunch which is less common than say, a traditional crunch. This can be done by grabbing the corner of the bed as opposed to the side of the squat rack, as demonstrated in the below video.

The Bicycle Crunch

Including another ab exercise for good measure, the bicycle crunch. Bicycle crunches, due to the fact they require twisting, also work the obliques as well as the abdominals.

Incline Push Up

As mentioned before, the standard push-up is little to easy to include in a list like this. In addition to the decline push-up, you can also add-in the decline push-up using a chair instead of the bench as used in the video below.

Putting It All Together

Now the above provides examples of what exercises can be done, but how do you structure those into a workout? There are a few ways of doing this.
If you are someone that typically trains muscle groups in splits (which is most people), then you are going to have to give that up if you want a decent workout in a hotel room. The reason for this being, that there simply aren't enough exercises to do a full workout on a single muscle group, or even two (like back and arms for example). You will have to opt for full-body workouts.

One of the best ways of linking the exercises together and maximising the intensity of bodyweight is to throw them into a circuit. Not only will a circuit really get the blood pumping, but it will be time-efficient too. No one wants to be working out for two hours in a hotel room. For example:

Do as many sets as possible in six minutes of the circuits:

Circut A:

12-20 x Decline Push-Ups
10-20 x Burpees
10-20 x Chair Dips
10-20 x Squats

Wait two minutes:

Circuit B:

15-30 x Frog pumps
10-20 x Desk Rows
10-20 x Bicycle crunches
10-20 x Lunges (forward or reverse).

Wait two minutes, and repeat one more time (do another round of A and B).

Obviously the above is just an example. You can change in any of the other exercises listed above or time different time constraints, add more rest etc, However, I would recommend structuring it so all body parts are getting hit.

Next time you travel and find yourself in a hotel with no gym, the above might give you some inspiration to get your workout in.

-Bucky