Business travel is a modern day reality, especially in the Middle East. There are many executives undertaking long haul flights on a weekly basis. This can cause problems and disruptions to your routine which in turn, can negatively effect health – if you allow it.
As a business executive you are a goal orientated individual and I believe you must look at your health in the same way your do as your business, with a profit and loss column.
Each day is either an investment day or an expenditure day. Investment days bring you closer to your health goal and expenditure days move you away from your goal. An expenditure day would be classed as not hitting your sleep target and overindulging on a business dinner.
In my years of working closely with high performance executives, I’ve always kept in mind the attention to detail as the key to successful programming. I like to approach planning with a personalized workout for each individual given their trip, goal, attitude and experience level.
It is important to remember why you are travelling. Your travelling for business, so the number one goal is to to be able to perform at your peak in the workplace. Your priority is not to complete an Olympic standard strength program.
When you have the luxury of a fully equipped world class gym you can take full advantage of some really elaborate training programs. However, when you travel, you have to assume the following:
So my solution is to base the training programming on the following:
It is my aim to remove as many barriers to exercise as possible. Time is usually a limiting factor so changing the mindset of what needs to be done is essential. If you think you should exercise for 60 mins and actually only make 45 mins, you mark it down as a personal fail mentally. When working with goal orientated individuals it is important to take all factors into consideration and program achievable goals. Achieving a goal is dopamine producing and many high flying business executives are dopamine animals. Setting an exercise time of 20 mins can create a positive winning mindset that will impact the rest of the day. This will be an early and consistent win for the client.
Jet lag can be a factor limiting performance, so it is important to capitalize on the 24 hour gym policy found in many hotels. For individuals who are slower to wake in the morning, I like to recommend the following workouts and approach as a way of super charging the day for high performance in business.
A 20 min Incline treadmill walk (or cycle) pre-breakfast can be a great way to help wake up the body and metabolism. Do not underestimate the power of something as small as this. An early morning walk will improve blood flow significantly and really wake up the body and the mind. It is also a perfect opportunity to answer Emails and get up to speed with World News, important aspects of most executives lifestyles.
If you do not have access to a gym then we can adopt the 15 mins, hotel room, metabolic primer based training program. This is to be completed before breakfast or before you head out for dinner in the evening. Scheduling this consistently is a fast and easy habit to adopt. Here is an example of a hotel room based metabolic primer workout.
To be completed in a circuit fashion with minimal rest between exercises. You can start at 2 rotations and move all the way up to 5 rotations if you’re more advance.
A1 – Push Ups (Full or on Knee’s)
A2 – Supine Glute Bridge
A3 – Prone Cobra
A4 – Bodyweight Squats or Alternating Lunges
A5 – Side Plank x both sides
Perform each exercise for 60 seconds before moving straight onto the next. When you have completed A5, take 2-4 mins rest and repeat 2-5 additional times.
This workout can be challenging for all strength and fitness levels.
Referred to as a right brain dominant workout, this style focuses on keeping training simple. This is great for when you are Jet Lagged and trying to focus on the upcoming meetings you have.
Typically a 5 star hotel gym will have a minimum of 6 fixed resistance machines at your disposal. They are great for really targeting muscles, not having to worry about stabilizing the weight. The machine dictates the movement which is perfect as we don’t want to engage the brain too much. IF you have to think, then we are not achieving our goal which is: To remove as many barriers to exercise as possible whilst also providing the body with a great workout.
The way I like to structure this is as follows: Walk into the gym and perform a 5-10 min steady state warm up on a piece of aerobic equipment (such as the Bike, Treadmill or Rower).
Then perform 1 x set of 12-15 reps on a machine. As soon as the set finishes you stand up and move immediately to the piece of equipment next to you. DO NOT think about exercise order. Complete 1 x set of the new exercise and keep repeating until you have used every single machine in the gym. You keep repeating this until you have reached your time goal, in our case it is 20 mins.
This can be an incredibly challenging workout for all fitness levels.
I hope this has removed a few potential barriers to exercising when you travel. Time is never a valid excuse so don’t let it become a part of your life. You wouldn’t accept it in the workplace so don’t accept it in your personal health.
D5 Head Coach
James Heagney
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