Healthy Travel Tips: Hotel Room Workouts to Try

Hotel Room Workouts You Should Try

Beautiful beaches. Picturesque backdrops of historical locations and cities that feel plucked out of time. Rich cultural meals to enjoy and drinks on which to indulge.

Sound familiar? Whether you’re a veteran traveler or someone who’s just starting their globetrotting adventures, it’s easy to lose yourself in the decadence of wherever you’re visiting.

You can easily forget your morning routine, and start packing on the pounds. This may not sound like a big deal, but if you’re trying to Getaway Well, exercise and wellness shouldn’t come as an afterthought.

With that in mind, we’ve put together some useful hotel room workouts that you can adopt at almost any hotel.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re staying at a hostel in Europe or a lavish Resort in Maui, these exercises are sure to help you burn off some of your indulgences as you travel.

Getting Your Workout Space Ready

You might be wondering how we can make suggestions that will apply to every hotel room when hotel rooms vary so dramatically from location to location.

The truth is these hotel room workouts are designed to be universal, which is why space is something we always try to take into consideration.

Because of this, getting your workout space ready is less about finding space and more about making space. Don’t be afraid to reorganize the furniture in your hotel room a little within reason – the bed isn’t going anywhere, so don’t even try.

Is there a seating area with a desk? See if you can move the chairs out of the way, or onto the bed or balcony (if you have one). If there isn’t enough room to move the furniture around, don’t worry. Just take the time to ensure your workout space has enough room to accommodate your stretching and movements.

The last thing you want to do is accidentally bang yourself on a piece of furniture, while you’re focused on your exercises. It’s a great way to ruin a good workout, or worse, it could result in an injury that impacts the rest of your trip.

Useful Exercises for Your Hotel Room Workouts

Now that you’ve made room for your hotel room workout, let’s talk about some exercises you should try:

Lateral Movement Exercises 

Often used to strengthen joints and work the stabilizer muscles in our bodies, lateral movement exercises allow us to improve our coordinated movement, as well as our balance.

This is a great alternative to many other types of exercises, which focus largely on linear motions. Adding this into your hotel room workouts is a great way to keep things interesting and expand on the versatility of your exercise repertoire.

Lateral movement exercises typically involve side-to-side movements. Side lunges are a popular lateral movement exercise, as they are an essential part of a good leg workout.

Horizontal Push Exercises 

Horizontal push exercises are used to strengthen the pectoral muscles of the chest, as well as learn to stabilize the muscles of your core.

The most recognizable horizontal push exercise would be push-ups, which almost everyone has done at some point during their fitness journey.

You can take these horizontal push exercises to the next level by increasing the intensity of these movements.

For example, you could try explosive push-ups, which are similar in form to regular push-ups. The difference is that you ‘explode’ upwards as hard as you can each time you push yourself back up.

The important thing to remember if you’re going to try explosive push-ups is that your form shouldn’t suffer because of your intense movements. Your spine needs to remain in a straight line, otherwise, the exercise won’t be as effective. Also, you could hurt yourself.

Start with regular push-ups. Work your way up to explosive push-ups, once you’re used to this hotel room workout and want to add a little bit of spice into the mix.

Pull Exercises

Used for building muscle mass in the upper body, pull exercises come in many shapes and forms.

At the gym, you’ll often see people doing pull-ups on a bar. That’s a great example of a pull exercise.

Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that you aren’t going to have a pull-up bar to use for your hotel room workouts (DON’T use the shower curtain rod, it will end badly), so we need to think a little bit more outside the box.

Try taking a single dumbbell or kettlebell with you, if you have the room. If you can’t bring any weights with you, you can always substitute with something heavy you might have with you or nearby.

For travel spots with lots of rocky areas nearby, a medium-sized stone that you can comfortably hold in one hand will work well for bicep curls.

Once you have something heavy enough to use, you’re ready to start your pull exercises.

Push and pull exercises have a lot of benefits when you use them together, so it’s a great idea to work both of these into your hotel room workouts.

Drop Squat Exercises 

Drop squat exercises sound more complicated than they are.

Unlike a normal squat, you don’t start drop squat exercises with your feet slightly further apart than the width of your shoulders, with your feet turned outwards.

Instead, you start with your feet in the center and then jump outwards to put your feet in the proper position, as you lower into the squat. Then, you jump back up into your starting position, with your feet and legs together.

Drop squat exercises mostly target the quads, as well as offer benefits for your hamstrings, glutes, and outer thighs.

Just be careful if you’re going to do some drop squat exercises. Make sure you stretch thoroughly before starting your hotel room workout, so you don’t pull any muscles.

It might even be a good idea to do a few regular squats before you start to drop squat exercises, to warm up those lower-body muscles and help prevent strains.

Hip Hinge Exercises 

Hip hinge exercises focus on working the posterior chain muscles, which make up muscles in your legs, as well as around your spine.

When you’re doing hip hinge exercises, your goal should be to keep your spine as neutral as possible. This means you’ll be relying on your core strength to make sure your form stays secure.

If you’re someone who experiences sciatic nerve pain, hip hinge exercises could be a great way to reduce your pain or to reduce your chances of experiencing sciatic nerve pain, for anyone at a higher risk of developing sciatic problems.

Resistance bands are a great tool to have if you’re planning on working hip hinge exercises into your hotel room workouts.

One popular hip hinge exercise is to stand on the resistance band and pull it up over the back of your shoulders. Then, bend your knees and lean forward with your upper body, while keeping your hips in place and spine straight.

Functional Core Exercises

Functional core exercises are different from regular core-focused movements because these movements are relevant to the activities that you would normally perform in a day. They can also be relevant to the types of gym workouts that you do, or any sports that you may play regularly.

Because these are functional core exercises, they’re designed to target all the core muscle groups – particularly the abs and muscles around your midsection.

A common mistake many people make with strengthening their cores is that they believe sit-ups and crunches are enough. However, if you’re trying to do functional core exercises, rather than just building general core strength, you may not achieve the results you’re looking for.

If you’re looking to shrink your love handles, in addition to doing functional core exercises, we’d suggest trying side planks. Perform these in 20-second intervals, if you’re looking for the best results.

Unique Full-Body Exercises

We’ve talked about a lot of different types of workouts today. Push and pull exercises, exercises to target your upper body and your lower body respectively. But what about unique full-body workouts?

Despite what you might think, there are lots of unique full-body workouts that don’t require any equipment.

Take ‘Burpees’ for instance. This strangely named, “The unique full-body workout” involves moving your whole body from a vertical position to a horizontal position, and then back to your original position, as quickly as possible.

Commonly used among athletes, this is an incredible exercise for cardio, and it works the majority of the major muscle groups at the same time.

A few sets of Burpees, and you’re going to work up a sweat. Just be mindful of the space required for this unique full-body exercise. You won’t have a good day after your workout if you smash your head off of a table trying to bring up your heart rate.

Getaway Well with Our Hotel Room Workouts

As you can see, there are an incredible variety of easy-to-do exercises that will work well for your hotel room workouts, no matter where you might be staying.

We care about your health as much as your comfort, which is why when you’re planning to travel, you can always rely on us to have helpful tips you can use to improve your travel experiences by injecting wellness and self-care into them.

So, grab your workout gear, your meditation cushion, and get ready to Getaway Well.