Strength Training While Traveling

Maintaining Strength and Muscle Mass

During 2017 I traveled through Thailand for a month. It was a tremendous experience, but after two weeks I started missing heavy lifting. The few gyms I could find didn't have barbells to train full body exercises with. 

Once I left the big cities, gyms became a rare sight to behold. Then at one hostel, I met a guy from Sweden who had brought gymnastic rings on his journey and hung them from a tree branch. He was doing pull ups, dips, front levers and all other kind of fun body weight exercises. I got angry at myself that I didn't bring gymnastic rings in my backpack.

If you are on the road, finding a gym with a barbell and power rack should be your number one goal. Sadly there are situations in which this is not an option, so what do you do, to not loose your squat, bench press and deadlift gains ?

Well the good news it, that maintaining strength is much easier than building it. So if you manage to train once a week, you won’t loose your gains.

If you travel for longer and want to make progress, you need to invest some brain power and find creative solutions. Your frequency needs to be as high as usual (3-4x/week) and the exercises selection should be specific to your goals.

It is less of a challenge to maintain muscle, than it is to maintain strength, because for muscle you just need to train close to failure, but for strength you need higher intensities. In the long run, maintained muscle will lead you back to your old strength levels.

The Big Three - Body Weight Edition

To train the big three while travelling your need two pieces of equipment, push up handles and gymnastic rings. You should also have some base strength and not be a novice at barbell training anymore.

The following ideas are geared towards Powerlifters who want to replace the squat, bench press and deadlift with body weight exercises while traveling.

Handles, rings and human weigh are the Powerlifters travel kit.

Squat Replacements

The barbell squat is a great exercise to strengthen the legs, so how do you replace such a heavy exercise with body weight lifts ? You have two options.

Option one is the partner squat. For that you load a friend on your back in a fireman’s carry position and do a buddy squat. If you are strong and your friend is light, do pause squats for high reps. I once had a client who worked his way up to paused partner squats for sets of 10 with a 90kg person. After two months he came back to the gym and hit a new PR on his barbell squat.

If you are very strong and partner squats are too easy, option two is the walking lunge with a partner on your back. Even if you squat 200kg, a 70-80kg person is more than enough weight to do high rep walking lunges.

Bench Press Replacements

Ring dips are a decent option. They train similar muscles to the bench press and if you’re heavy, they’re pretty difficult. Once they become too easy, try paused dips for sets of 10, you’ll be surprised how hard they are.

Another option is the uneven push up or archer push up. For this exercise I prever push up handles, to spare the wrists. Handles are cheap and compact to carry. Choose a medium grip width with a neutral hand position (knuckles facing out not forward), this will protect your shoulders. Now lower into the push up, but lean more towards one side. After each rep switch sides.

This way you’re doing an assisted one arm push up and create more intensity, without the need for additional weight. The straighter and further out your helping arm is, the harder the main arm has to work. The hardest level is a one arm push up without assistance from the other hand.

If you weigh 100kg, you would press 65kg in a one arm push up. When you can do 10 reps of this, you would need an 180kg bench press until the lift becomes too easy.

Another good bench press replacement are partner push ups. Just have a friend lay on your back with his back while keeping the feet on the ground for balance. This will increase the weight pushed tremendously and works great, even if you friend is lighter than you.

Deadlift Replacements

To train your upper back and grip strength, the chin up on gymnastic rings is your best bet when traveling. In my experience people who are strong at chin ups are also decent at deadlifts, so there is some carryover.

If chin ups are too easy, you can always to archer chin ups, where you pull with one arm, while the other one stays straight, which are basically an assisted one arm chin up. That way the intensity is much higher, without the need for additional weight. Your can hang the rings from any beam or tree branch and do them anywhere in the world. Rings are also cheap and light in weight.

To actually simulate a barbell deadlift you can do the ring deadlift. I invented this lift and have not seen it anywhere else, so welcome to the secret. To do a ring deadlift stand on the straps and pull on the rings for five seconds.

This is an isometric deadlift, since the straps won’t change in length. Therefore you need to pull from three different positions, hands at mid shin level, hands below knees and hands above knees. This way you train the full range of motion of a deadlift with isometrics and should have some carryover to the barbell version.

I can say from my own experience, that a client who only did the ring deadlift for two months, did not loose any strength on his barbell deadlift.

Summary

Even without a gym strength training while traveling is possible, you just need gymnastic rings, push up handles and human weight. Then you can train replacements of the squat, bench press and deadlift to maintain your muscle and strength.

Coach Georg