Travel Fitness Tip: Don’t Sweat Missing a Workout on Travel Days

When you have a dedicated fitness regimen rolling along unobstructed, nothing can seem more disruptive than suddenly having to break routine for travel. Not only does it mean missing a workout or maybe even several, but travel often involves a lot of sitting and eating garbage road-food.

I certainly understand how that goes. Up until a few days ago I was living in a little coastal town in southern Mexico where I was hitting the gym five or six times a week, running on the beach every day (what an ass-kicker, btw), swimming constantly, and eating a delicious high-protein, low-calorie diet of almost exclusively seafood.

Then suddenly all of that was thrown out the window when it came time to travel to my next destination. It felt like a week of my life became dedicated to nothing but sitting on planes, lazing around airports eating trash food, and checking in and out of Airbnbs. What a bummer. When you’re making some solid progress with your fitness, a forced interruption is the last thing you want.

But while every fitness-enthusiast knows that consistency is key to reaching one’s goals, don’t sweat it when you have to miss workouts for travel days.

Here’s why:

• Stress isn’t going to help.

In fact, it’s going to hurt by driving up your cortisol levels, which will slow the muscle recovery you could have enjoyed during your forced break.

• Taking a break is necessary.

As long as you’re not mucking it up with a bunch of cortisol, rest days are essential to your progress. Remember—you don’t gain muscle in the gym. You gain it while recovering someplace else.

I’ve gone back to the gym after longer travel-breaks and found that the extra recovery time helped revitalize me for better, harder training sessions. So take the break for what it is—an opportunity to recover and grow.

• Travel is a workout.

Long travel days are anything but effortless.

You end up walking (and if you’re running late, speed walking) through miles of airport terminal. You’re carrying bags and lifting things in and out of overhead compartments. You get lost trying to find your hotel in Barcelona, and all of the sudden you’re putting in your steps wandering up and down las Ramblas with a backpack and a suitcase.

My point is that for all the sitting you’ll do on the plane, you’re also getting in your fair share of activity.

Bottom line—no one likes to have their workout routine interrupted, but you shouldn’t beat yourself up when travel makes you miss a day or two here and there. The key is that once you get to your destination, you find ways of getting back on track—eat well, use the hotel gym, perform bodyweight exercises, go for a run or a long walk, or whatever.

If you bookend your travel days with fitness, the less-active, less-healthy interim isn’t going to have much of an impact on your progress.

So don’t sweat it, and enjoy your trip.