Last Updated: 3/1/26
Travel and Fitness: How to Maintain Your Exercise Routine on the Road
With Spring Break upon us, now is a good time to consider your fitness goals and make plans to maintain your exercise frequency while traveling. Travel can create uncertainty and disrupt normal training schedules. For some, this becomes a reason to pause training altogether. The issue with that approach is not a missed workout here or there, but the cumulative effect of inactivity.
Studies have shown that as little as two weeks without exercise can significantly decrease fitness levels, often taking weeks to regain. For that reason, it is important to have a plan to stay active and simply maintain your fitness level while traveling. Let’s face it, if you return home without having taken a step backward in your training, that is a win.
Maintenance requires less than many people assume. According to our position statement on exercise frequency, two training sessions per week, spaced 48 to 72 hours apart, is sufficient to maintain fitness. These sessions do not need to be elaborate, but they should be structured to create an appropriate training stimulus.
Equipment Is Helpful, Not Essential
Access to a full training facility is helpful, but it is not necessary. Packing some resistance bands or a TRX will expand your toolbox, but even without equipment you can still get a very effective workout. Push-ups, planks, squatting variations and lunges can be performed in nearly any environment.
The key is understanding how to achieve the appropriate training stimulus and intensity with the time, equipment, and space available. Having ownership over how to apply the FITT principle, and how to manipulate training variables within it, gives you the tools to dial in your intensity regardless of the setting.
Adjust the Variables and Avoid “Cheap Intensity”
The FITT principle refers to Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type of exercise. While all four variables play a role in program design, understanding how to manipulate intensity is the most useful when equipment is limited.
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There are a number of ways to dial the intensity up or down without changing the exercise itself:
- Pace – How quickly you move through a training session or circuit.
- Volume – The total amount of work completed in a training session.
- Tempo – The speed at which a repetition is performed, or how long your muscles are under tension. Generally speaking, if the objective is to burn calories, exercises are performed at a faster tempo. If the objective is to increase strength, exercises are performed at a slower tempo.
By adjusting pace, volume, and tempo, you can recreate the level of intensity you would achieve under typical circumstances.
However, increasing intensity should not mean making the workout hard by any means possible. When equipment is limited, there can be a temptation to simply add excessive repetitions, rush through movements, or push to fatigue at the expense of form. We refer to this approach as “cheap intensity.”
Intensity alone does not make a workout effective. Quality of movement, thoughtful sequencing, and appropriate structure matter just as much, especially as fatigue increases. If movement quality declines significantly, the cost of the workout may outweigh the benefit.
Be Prepared
Travel is an inevitable and enjoyable part of life. With a clear plan and an understanding of how to manipulate training variables appropriately, while avoiding “cheap intensity”, you can remain consistent, preserve your progress, and return home ready to resume your normal training routine without having taken a step backward.
