Question about workouts while on vacation.

shopgirl

Cathlete
Okay, this is kind of a stupid question, but here goes... next week we go on vacation for 10 days. I am going someplace without a fitness room, just a lake and golfing. I figure I can alternate running and walking for cardio, and push-ups and ab work for upper body, but am wondering if the lack of heavier weight training will set me back.

Has anybody had any success with not losing their training momentum by going on vacation?

On the other hand, I have been so exhausted with my workouts the past couple of weeks. This morning I really struggled with Low Max; something that I have been able to do pretty easily up until a week ago. Do you think that is a sign of overtraining and maybe I should take it easy on my vacation?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Shopgirl
 
You could always do walking lunges around the lake or golf course. ;)

In 10 days, even if you didn't exercise once during your vacation, you wouldn't lose a lot of strength. You'd probably feel a little weaker, but it wouldn't be like starting all over from scratch or anything. If you're feeling burned out, it might be good to make this vacation more of a rest period for you - do light activities like walking or golf (if you play). But that's up to you, and you should gage it by how you feel. How nice that you get that long 10-day vacation! :)
 
I go away every year to an island on a lake in NH. It is wilderness and running/walking is possible but sometimes makes me nervous b/c of the rocks and branches. There is kayaking, swimming, canoeing, etc. and to get anywhere, you walk (although the island is not *huge*). I basically workout really hard until I get there and then rest that week. Sometimes I will bring a walkman to walk/jog and each day I do something active like kayaking or canoeing, but I don't bring weights or do abs, etc.

Especially where you are tiring out during workouts and wondering about overtraining, I would say to go ahead and take it easy on your vacation. It sounds like you will be active and playing golf whiel you are there. In truth, you might feel a little impact but you will get a nice rest during vacation and you can pick it up when you get home and overcome that week's absence quite easily.

Have a great trip!
 
I say: forget forcing yourself to do any scheduled fitness activities on your holiday. take the time off. Sleep late, go for long, lazy walks (not power walks), drink a bottle of wine by the lake. Enjoy yourself. it sounds like your body could really do with the time off. Take it and feel no guilt about it at all. You've earned it.

Clare
 
Shopgirl,

I take off from exercising while I'm on vacation :) It's never been a negative experience. I've actually lost weight and had more strength when I start again. Hard to believe but it's true :)
 
Timely thread. I'm leaving tomorrow for two weeks. We're visiting my DH's dad in Florida and his mom who lives in Georgia. So, we'll be doing a lot of driving. Last year when we were gone that long the thought of not working out, just sitting around eating, drove me nuts. I brought along the Slim Series and other workouts that required little equipment. The year before I took with me Cathe's vacation workout, which I downloaded from this site. I'm planning on bringing her vacation workout with me this time, if I can find it. As I remember it required just a couple sets of weights. A lot of the exercises were done with your own body weight.

If I find it I'll post the link.
 
I go away twice a year for 5 days each. I take my 5 days as rest and just walk and stretch on vacation. It's really the only total time off I take each year so I figure it's okay. When I return, the first workout is a little tough, but I take it easy and I'm fine in a couple of days.
 
Thank you all for your help. I feel a little less guilty about going on vacation now.

(Did I forget to mention, the place we are going to has an all-you-can-eat ice cream sundae bar) :9

Ahh - love vacations!

- Shopgirl :)
 
If you got a resistance band take it with you, there is a ton of upper body and leg work you can do with one, and if you either tie it off really short or have heavy resistance one, it could match your weights. And the best thing is it doesn't weigh much or take up much space, I always take band with me on vactions, as it's so easy to pack, and there are over 100 different exercises you can do with it. So it will even allow you to work every single muscle you normally do.

But 10 days is the start of losing the muscle you have built, as long as your active and do some good hard work you shouldn't lose much, though.

Good luck have fun and stay way from that ice cream sundae bar. I know how tempting it is though when your on vacation and have to walk by one of those every time you enter or leave the hotel. I finally had to break down and allow myself a small dish, basically had about 10 bites of ice cream and that really helped with the craving, and it didn't kill my diet or calorie intake for the day too badly.

Also I should mention if you've overtained and take time off, like this you'll crash, ie when you get back you'll be about able to do half of what you were doing, if you haven't been overtraining you won't really experince any negative effects, a bit weaker but in a week you'll be back to where ever you were. If you feel like you've been overtraining do take something with you and then decrease your exercise slowly, this will keep you from crashing and getting a couple days off without coming back and wondering what happened to your body.

My football players love to over train then crash over a holiday, and then they can't do anything. I think I must be speaking some other language when I tell them to workout over a holiday and decrease their exercise slowly. They either just flop down, or work so hard that they burn themselves out before they come back. That and the partying and beer doesn't really help either. Though I've had a hard time not say what the heck did you do? When I hand a 6 foot 9 football player a 20 lb dumbbell and he can't get it up in the air. Especailly when the week before he was benching 250 lbs, without a problem. And yes if you really over train you can crash that hard. So listen to your body and everything its telling you, because when you crash from my own experience you won't feel it until you put in your normal workout and can't do what you normally can do. But you can feel it before you take that break, you kind of feel a little burned out, or you have this exercise high and you can keep going and going and it doesn't bother you, but your basically running on that high everytime you workout. That's where it will get you. It's hard to explain because for everyone it's different, but just really ask yourself in your workout how tough is it, are you really pushing yourself to do this, or if its only moderately hard?

Kit
 

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