How do you maintain or gain strength and muscle when your traveling?
First off if you program ahead of time well enough for trips then you can deload during a short trip like i did here on my trip to Paris but sometimes trips take longer then expected or they end up in the middle of your program maybe because of spontaneous decisions to take off on an adventure or last minute changes to your plan. If the problem you run into is program design in general then I'll hopefully cover that in a future article but this one here is about how to fit in some volume to maintain stimulus and drive development with limited/zero availability to the right equipment.
Back To The Basics
When training for powerbuilding I'd say the Pillars of progress are Sufficient Recovery, Effective Volume & Peak Contraction. Recovery being the prime driver of growth or more literally the thing that makes you grow because training breaks the muscles down which means recovery should be priority one. Without good recovery you're wasting your time beating yourself into the ground so maybe taking this trip as a planned deload would've been the smartest course of action and if you know your body then maybe a sudden drop in volume and frequency wouldn't hurt and perhaps you'll find your body supercompensate and get your out of that rut you've been in. However if you're set on training then keep in mind you'll need to maintain the stresses of travel you didn't account for and how they could affect your sleep, diet and mental health. For example flights, different food options for wherever you're going and the overstimulating experience of going on adventure somewhere new can all create stresses the body isn't used to having to recover and adapt from and that can affect your ability to recover to your normal volume levels so just consider how you may want to reduce your frequency giving an extra day off before and after your flights/travel days.
The next two things to keep in mind is really just effectiveness and given that you're traveling you will probably want to keep your workouts shorter and get just enough work in to either match your previous volume or to just maintain and so i suggest cutting out accessory volume if you're traveling for less then 6 weeks and just trying to maintain and if you have to drive hypertrophy then taking advantage of "muscle mind" connection and making the muscle reach peak contraction holding each rep at the most contracted point (when muscle is shortest ie top of bicep curl, leg fully extended for leg extension, etc).
Some Supplement Movement Ideas
Just a few ideas of replacements for compounds and main accessory movements if you're at a hotel gym or don't have a good gym nearby to use. Variations are the obvious so these are just some extra ideas
Bench- Smith machine
Squat- Kettlebell Squats, Pistol squats,
Deadlift- Kettlebell swings, one legged hip hinge, goodmornings
Overhead Press- lateral raise
Barbell Rows- Inverse Rows
Chest- Plate squeezes (can be done without), Flyes, Wide grip explosive push-ups
Back- Inverse Rows, Pull-ups
Tris- close grip push-ups, overhead dumbbell tri extension
Biceps- preacher curls
Quads- leg extensions, wall sits
Hams- goodmornings
Delts- lateral raises
Bodyweight Exercises
Pause Air Squats, Widegrip Full ROM push-ups/Close grip Push-ups, Glute Bridges, Pull-ups/Chinups, handstand push-ups, Planks & Deadbugs
This is all you really need to drive volume if you don't have access to any gyms its essentially calisthenics. A couple of caveats would be for pull-ups/chinups you need a bar or something maybe from a playground, tree limbs and goal posts which are pretty much everywhere and handstand push-ups can be hard if you cant handstand or get dizzy but these exercises can give great pumps and drive hypertrophy if done right especially if you don't use them or you're untrained.
One good way of getting effective volume with bodyweight exercises is to superset 2 or 3 for example a set of push-ups, pull-ups and pause air squats taking each set 1-3 reps until failure. It'll accumulate so much lactate acid acting as metabolite training and giving you a great pump in your quads, arms, chest and back. With 5 cycles of that you'll hit your body hard enough to drive some effective volume if done 3-4 times a week well take into consideration your previous stimulus and volume landmarks for maintenance and what is effective.
Just some tips and thoughts about staying on the gain train while going out and exploring the world because it's nice to have a life outside the gym but guilt of missing workouts plagues us all.
-Mr Wolf
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