Berries, Squats and Polka Dots: Hotel Room Mini Workouts

I was in Berlin recently for a week to present at a conference. I've been really lucky while doing my PhD to have had the opportunity to go to three conferences in different countries; the first was in Copenhagen, the second in Tampere (Finland) and the third was in Berlin. I really enjoyed the conference and I got a few days to see the city as well which was fantastic! There was one aspect of going away for work that I was a little worried about and that was absolutely undoing any improvements I had made in terms of diet and fitness while I was away. When I went to Berlin, I had only been trying to get into a routine of exercising and eating right for about 3 or 4 weeks so I knew that if I was going to spend the week eating what I wanted and doing no exercise it would be really difficult to get back into the swing of things when I came home! After all, this wasn't a holiday, it was for work.

I can imagine that it must be difficult to maintain a healthy diet and regular exercise when you have to travel for work so I have decided to post about the workouts I would do in my hotel room whenever I got a spare 20-30 minutes to make sure I stayed focused. I found it very hard to find time to exercise while I was away so my aim was to pack as much into as little time as possible so that any exercise I did do was short but effective. I have included them here as images; if you plan to travel soon and you don't want to put your workouts on hold, I hope that you find this post helpful!! They are also a fantastic addition to finish a workout session, even if you aren't travelling. For any arm workouts that require weights just buy two 2l bottles of water; you can use them as weights and to stay hydrated!

I have given an approximate time for each workout. I used to do to 50-40-30-20-10 workout before I had a shower and I think that's a routine I'm going to try to keep!

Tabata is a very short high-intensity workout so it is ideal when you are stuck for time. Depending on how much time you have you can either pick two or four exercises and repeat each set of a pair of exercises four times.

AMRAP - As many rounds as possible is like a Crossfit workout. Try beat your score every day you are away! You can increase or decrease the time limit depending on how much time you have to exercise.