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Best bodyweight exercises for travel: 7 hotel-room moves and a sample week

No gym. No kit. A bed, a chair, a backpack and the floor. Seven moves that travel with you.

By Susmit Jalan, coach at Online Fitness Worldwide.

A trip doesn't have to stop your training. It changes the kit. That's all.

WHO asks adults for muscle-strengthening work on all major muscle groups, 2 or more days a week.[1] A hotel room covers that.

Travel days mean long sitting: airports, flights, meetings. WHO says replacing sitting with activity of any intensity, even light, has health benefits.[1] Stand up. Walk the terminal.

You need a bed or a sturdy chair, a backpack, and enough floor to lie down. Twenty to thirty minutes.

The 7 best bodyweight exercises for travel

  1. Rear-foot-elevated split squat

    Why
    The big leg move with no weight. One leg does the work of two, so bodyweight gets hard fast. ACSM's advice includes one-sided exercises next to two-sided ones.[2]
    How
    Back foot on the bed or a sturdy chair behind you. Lower straight down until the back knee is near the floor. Push up through the front foot. Hold the wall if you need to. New to it? Start as a split squat with both feet on the floor. Raise the back foot only when the front knee tracks over your foot at a mid-range depth. Go only as deep as stays comfortable: the back knee near the floor is the goal, not the start. Whatever holds your back foot must be sturdy and must not slide.
    Dose
    2 to 3 sets of 8 to 12 each leg. Too easy? Take 3 seconds on the way down, or wear the backpack.

  2. Push-up, raised then floor

    Why
    Your bench press on the road. In a small 8-week trial in 18 young men, push-ups set up to match 40% of bench-press max gave similar muscle and strength gains to bench pressing at that load.[3] In 30 experienced lifters, band-loaded push-ups matched the bench press for strength over 5 weeks.[4] Small studies. Still, push-ups are real training.
    How
    Hands on the desk or bed edge to start. Body in one line, head to heels. Lower your chest to your hands. Press away. Then move to the floor. Then feet up on the bed.
    Dose
    2 to 3 sets of 8 to 15. Easy at 15? Make the angle harder, not the set longer.

  3. Single-leg Romanian deadlift

    Why
    The hinge: hamstrings and glutes, plus balance. Standing on one leg makes bodyweight enough for most people.
    How
    Stand on one leg, a hand on the wall. Soft knee. Push the hips back and let the free leg rise behind you. Back long. Stop when the hamstring pulls. Stand by squeezing the glute.
    Dose
    2 to 3 sets of 8 to 12 each side. Hold the backpack in the free hand to load it.

  4. Backpack row

    Why
    The pull. Bodyweight plans skip it, and the back pays. WHO's advice covers all major muscle groups, and that includes the back.[1] A packed bag is your dumbbell.
    How
    Fill the backpack: water bottles, shoes, a laptop in its sleeve. One hand and one knee on the bed. Back flat. Pull the bag to your hip, elbow close. Pause. Lower slowly.
    Dose
    2 to 3 sets of 10 to 15 each side. Light bag? Pause 2 seconds at the top.

  5. Pike push-up

    Why
    The overhead push without a weight. Hips high puts more of your body over the hands.
    How
    Start in a push-up. Walk your feet in and lift the hips, so you look like an upside-down V. Bend the elbows and lower the top of your head towards the floor, a little in front of your hands. Press back up.
    Dose
    2 sets of 6 to 10. Too hard? Do it with hands on the bed. Skip it if pressing overhead hurts.

  6. Side plank

    Why
    Your trunk, from the side. It holds you upright when you carry a suitcase through an airport.
    How
    Lie on your side, elbow under the shoulder. Lift the hips so the body is one straight line. Knees bent to start. Legs straight when that's easy. Breathe.
    Dose
    2 to 3 holds of 20 to 30 seconds each side.

  7. Stair climbs or on-the-spot intervals

    Why
    The conditioning. In a 6-week trial, sedentary young adults (12 per group) climbed 60 steps hard, 3 times a day with 1 to 4 hours between, 3 days a week. Their fitness (peak oxygen uptake) went up. The gain was modest.[7] Most hotels have a stairwell.
    How
    Climb the stairs briskly, hand near the rail. Walk down. No stairwell? High knees or fast step-ups on the spot. Hard enough to breathe heavily, not so hard your form goes.
    Dose
    3 to 5 climbs, or 5 to 8 rounds of 20 seconds hard, 40 seconds easy.

Is bodyweight enough? And how little keeps your gains?

Make it harder, not longer. ACSM's starting point is a load you can lift 8 to 12 times; when you beat the target by 1 to 2 reps, add 2 to 10%.[2] With no weights, you change the lever instead: raised push-up to floor, two legs to one, slower lowering, a heavier bag.

Light can work. A review of 21 studies found similar muscle growth with light and heavy loads when sets went to failure. Heavy loads built more maximal strength.[5] So bodyweight keeps and grows muscle. It has a ceiling for top-end strength. That was a study condition, not an instruction. Training alone, stop each set with 1 to 3 reps in reserve.

A trip won't undo your work. In one trial, adults trained 3 days a week for 16 weeks, then cut back for 32 weeks to one-third or one-ninth of that training. Both doses kept muscle size in the young adults (20 to 35), but not in the older adults (60 to 75). Strength was largely kept even by the group that stopped training, with only a small drop at the end.[6]

So on a short trip, one or two solid sessions a week holds most of what you built. If you are older, do a bit more, not less.

A sample travel week

Sample only. Not a prescription. Adjust it to your body, your history and your trip.

  • Travel day: walk the terminal instead of sitting at the gate. On a long flight, stand and move when the crew allows.
  • Day 2 (A, 25 minutes): 5-minute warm-up, then split squat, push-up, backpack row, side plank. 2 to 3 rounds.
  • Day 3: walk the city. One or two stair climbs if your day allows.
  • Day 4 (B, 25 minutes): warm-up, then single-leg Romanian deadlift, pike push-up, backpack row, stair or on-the-spot intervals.
  • Day 5: rest, or an easy walk.
  • Day 6 (A again): add a rep, or a harder version, where the last session felt easy.
  • Day 7: travel home. Back to your usual week.

Want it coached live, wherever you are?

Iron Hour is strength and conditioning, coached live. 60 minutes, 1:1. Set-up at minute 0: we put the phone or laptop where I can see all of you. Warm-up from minute 4. The primary lift starts at minute 14. Accessories at 28. Cool-down at 50.

It works in a hotel room, with whatever the room has. The plan changes to fit the trip, from what we see on the call.

Coming back after time off? Return is 45 minutes, 12 alternate-day sessions a month. Lean Reset is 20 sessions a month, 1:1. Open Floor is a small group.

Coached live on Google Meet, Zoom or FaceTime. In Hindi or English. On IST: Dubai is 1½ hours behind, Singapore 2½ hours ahead. Not sure yet? Start with a 30-minute consultation. It is a conversation, not training. Booking holds a time. The fee is agreed directly.

See the programsAsk on WhatsApp (opens in a new tab)

Before you start

General information, not medical advice. ACSM's screening model says: if you are inactive, have no symptoms and no known heart, metabolic or kidney disease, you can start light to moderate exercise without medical clearance and build up gradually. If you have one of those conditions, or symptoms such as chest pain, unusual breathlessness or dizziness, get medical clearance first.[8] In the room: use a chair without wheels, against a wall. Check the floor isn't slippery. Hold the rail on stairs. If you have had a blood clot, or your doctor has warned you about clots, ask them about long flights before you travel. Stop if you feel sharp pain, and get advice first if you have a joint problem, are pregnant or have recently given birth.

ASCA Level 1 (strength and conditioning) and ACE (anatomy and biomechanics). These are credentials held by the coach. Neither body endorses this business or this article.

Sources

  1. [1] World Health Organization. WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Geneva: WHO; 2020. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240015128 (opens in a new tab)
  2. [2] American College of Sports Medicine. Position stand: Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2009;41(3):687–708. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0b013e3181915670 (opens in a new tab)
  3. [3] Kikuchi N, Nakazato K. Low-load bench press and push-up induce similar muscle hypertrophy and strength gain. J Exerc Sci Fit. 2017;15(1):37–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesf.2017.06.003 (opens in a new tab)
  4. [4] Calatayud J, Borreani S, Colado JC, Martin F, Tella V, Andersen LL. Bench press and push-up at comparable levels of muscle activity results in similar strength gains. J Strength Cond Res. 2015;29(1):246–253. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000000589 (opens in a new tab)
  5. [5] Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Strength and hypertrophy adaptations between low- vs. high-load resistance training: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Strength Cond Res. 2017;31(12):3508–3523. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002200 (opens in a new tab)
  6. [6] Bickel CS, Cross JM, Bamman MM. Exercise dosing to retain resistance training adaptations in young and older adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011;43(7):1177–1187. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0b013e318207c15d (opens in a new tab)
  7. [7] Jenkins EM, Nairn LN, Skelly LE, Little JP, Gibala MJ. Do stair climbing exercise "snacks" improve cardiorespiratory fitness? Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2019;44(6):681–684. https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2018-0675 (opens in a new tab)
  8. [8] Riebe D, Franklin BA, Thompson PD, et al. Updating ACSM's recommendations for exercise preparticipation health screening. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2015;47(11):2473–2479. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000000664 (opens in a new tab)