Strength Training at Home: The Forced Hotel Gym Scenario

This week we hit the road with Zack Allison and his Strength Training at Home Series. Coach Zack discusses The Forced Hotel Gym Scenario for those of us who travel regularly or will be on the road for Christmas. You can check out part one in the series here where he goes over the most common home gym amenities and activities. Be sure to stay tuned for more tips on gym workouts you can do at home, with or without equipment.

Most of us have been there. You’re at a conference, or your flight got canceled, or just traveling for a work trip. You wake up, walk past the lousy, empty looking hotel gym on the way to breakfast. You proceed to make your own waffle or slop some formerly powdered eggs into your pie hole. It doesn’t have to be this way. From article part 1 of this series you have some good ideas of how to workout in an equipmentless scenario. Even the most sparse hotel gym is closer to a modest home gym including; dumbbells, maybe some sort of cable machine, a treadmill, some weight balls. I highly recommend hitting this gym in the morning as post conference or work beers are frequent, you’ll be the fittest and least guilty person in the conference if you already did your daily workout. Below is a workout that you can perform in a vast majority of hotel gyms. You can do this as a circuit with 1-2 reps for the whole thing or you can do each workout one at a time. Nothing is really specifically designed in order but beware of the squat, lunge, deadlift sequence all at once. 

Warm up –  At least 10 minutes. Treadmill, 20 minute swim (if available) elliptical. 

• Dumbbell squats or goblet squat with dumbbell 
• Dumbell rows on bench 
• Weighted lunges 
• Dumbbell deadlifts 
• Triceps extension overhead with dumbbell 
• Dumbbell curls 
• Planks
• Russian twists with dumbbell or weight ball 
• Extra extension leg raise on bench 
• Standing oblique crunches with dumbbell

Advancing this workout 

• Increasing weight with dumbbells in above movements – Hotels usually go up to 30-40 lbs in dumbbells. 
• Adding an aerobic or anaerobic treadmill sprints in between lifts. 

Zack Allison is a Level 1 USAC coach with Source Endurance and races professionally with his wife on their Bike Sports gravel team. Zack specializes in road, gravel, mtb, and cx, coaching, as well as bike fitting and blood lactate testing. You can schedule an appointment to meet with Zack in his fit studio located in Brave New Wheel here in Fort Collins.

Zack on Instagram: @zacharylallison