Fitness gear for road trips

I always have a terrible time remembering to exercise while on the road. I don’t usually stay at hotels with exercise rooms, making it even trickier to work out. If I don’t work out at all, though, I get stiff and sore and start to feel really slothy and yucky after a couple of days. So I’m putting together the Bluepoof RoadTrip Gym.

Here’s what I’ve assembled so far:

Resistance bands. I got hooked on resistance bands way back when I was in physical therapy for my forearm tendonitis — they’re a great way to work muscles if you’re rehabilitating or, say, don’t have room for dumbbells in your saddlebags. Don’t bother with the ones with handles on them — that just takes up space in your luggage. Therabands are just the flat sheets of latex of varying strengths, so they literally take up zero space. The heavier ones are impressively strong, too — loop one over the top of a door and you can get a nice pump going by doing pulldowns. Some brands of resistance bands come with a little workout guide, otherwise a Google search can give you some ideas right away.

FitDeck. I ordered one of these after reading about it in Adventure magazine. Is it worth $20? Dunno, but I’m willing to give it a shot. The premise is that the FitDeck contains 52 cards, each showing a different exercise that can be performed with no equipment. There are upper, mid, lower, and full body exercises in the deck. I thought it sounded like a good idea for me since I can never remember anything more exciting than push-ups and sit-ups when I’m sitting around my hotel room at night. The FitDeck is exactly the same size as a deck of playing cards — very portable.

I don’t tend to do a lot of cardio on the road, since I often ride until after dark; I’m not about to go jogging alone at night in a strange town. If my hotel’s on the ground floor, I’ll do some jumping jacks and jog in place (I’m kind enough not to do that while on an upper floor 😉 ).

Since you all did so well with the “pet peeves” entry, let’s hear your tricks for staying in shape on the road.