I spent six weeks driving from Pennsylvania to California in an attempt to explore America. In Los Angeles, I sold my car and belongings and bought a one-way ticket to Bangkok, Thailand, where I currently live and have lived for the past year and a half. From this hub in Southeast Asia I’ve been able to travel throughout Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and next week, Bangladesh. You’re reading the Performance Menu, so it’s likely that we share a passion for training. But whether for work or pleasure, many of us spend a considerable amount of our time away from the comforts of home and away from the gyms we know so well. While being a fitness fanatic and a culture vulture does have some perks, the fusion crushed me to powder at times. It still does every now and then. But sometimes, only sometimes, I’m able to make tea out of that powder. Here are some lessons I’ve learned about training while traveling.


Improvise

Here is what your mantra needs to be: “I am in and out of control. I am in and out of control.” No matter the situation you find yourself in – whether you’re stuck in a hotel or not even remotely close to a gym – you are both in and out of control. Always be prepared to scrap whatever workout you thought you were going to do for the day. When all is stable and consistent in life, sure, Wednesday can be deadlift day. But not anymore. And the sooner you can break the mindset of stability, the easier it’ll be when shit is totally different than you expected.


Like Tic-Tac-Toe, when there is one X against you, do not wallow in it. Spend your energy finding the counter O. You’re stuck in your hotel for the night, how heavy are the desks? There’s no gym, is there a well-lit area in the hotel’s parking lot? Before you travel, play around with exercises around your house. You’ll be surprised at your own creativity, and this will carry peace over to those frustrated days when you have the perfect routine written in your notebook but can’t do a damn rep of it.


Sell Yourself

Do you have a blog or are you a certified fitness professional of any sort? If so, drop all of this onto the counter when you enter into a new gym. (Note: This advice comes from a budget traveler.) You’ll be surprised at how many gym owners will be willing to let you train for free in exchange for writing a good article about your experience there. My favorite of all the gyms that allowed this was Jack’s Gym in Newark, Delaware. I was broke at the moment, but desperate for a good workout and Jack hooked me up. I saw the small sign in the small plaza. I never imagined the gym would turn out to be an elite training facility for kickboxers. After telling Jack my story and him pulling my website up on his phone, he personally wrapped my hands and invited me to stay for both the beginner and advanced training sessions. Three hours later I was totally smoked, happy as all get out and I’d made some friends in the process. Why wouldn’t I want to write about that experience?

Beds

Beds are great training devices. Seriously. At the end of the day, regardless of where in the world you are traveling, there’s a good chance you’ll finish your day in a bed of some sort. Some lift 6-8 inches just at the base (great for partial deadlifts) while others will allow you to get full reps in. Dips, incline pushups, bodyweight squats, lunges, one-footed balancing drills, pistol squats, planks, yoga poses, handstands and even solo Brazilian jiu-jitsu drills can all be done and/or made more difficult thanks to having a bed. When I’ve been on the road while preparing for my mixed martial arts fights, I’ve actually pushed the mattress up against the wall and threw striking combinations for hours. You gotta do what you gotta do. (Note: So far I’ve claimed to be a fitness fanatic, a culture vulture, a budget traveler and an MMA fighter. A “hotel preservationist” I am not.)

BYOF

Though times are getting better, what with Subways everywhere and even Wendy’s having a half-way decent chicken salad now, traveling doesn’t often cater to the health conscious. Bring Your Own Food. For many of my travels, I was able to stock up beforehand on nutrient dense foods with long shelf lives. Raw trail mixes were infinitely clutch – I’ve taken some on my carry-on baggage and I’ve stuffed them into the crevice of my glove box when my car was packed to the brim with books and lamps and television sets and dumbbells. It’s so easy on long trips to give in to eating garbage food because you’re hungry and there’s nothing else. Believe me, I’ve been there too many times. So do what you can so that “there’s nothing else” doesn’t happen. Though he’s admitted to using steroids, the professional wrestler named “The Ultimate Warrior” once told me during a conversation that when he worked for the WWF (now the WWE), he’d spend 340+ days on the road. He took a can opener wherever he went and for days at a time his major meal was tuna. When times get tough, the tough get a can opener. It worked for me as well.

No Tame, No Gain.

“Exercise ego” is a concept that has really stood out to me while traveling through Southeast Asia. Frankly put, the majority of people here do not give one iota what they look like while working out. Right now, in the parking lot of the Tesco Lotus grocery story across the street from where I live, I can hear the pulse of techno music. Fifty or sixty Thai men, women and children are all out doing group aerobics together. The instructor is on top of a weathered wooden platform dancing away. Total strangers walk in off the streets with jeans on and no idea what they are doing. They begin to flail their arms and look totally awkward when they’re around those who know the choreographed routine. But the cool thing is this: nobody cares. Total newbies next to seasoned pros. Sixty-year-old women next to five-year-old boys. All are dancing and getting their workout in for the day. While there is certainly more judgment in the States regarding how you look and what you’re wearing, take this as a learning experience. Tame your ego. Leave it at the door to the gym or hotel room or grocery store. Let training trump appearance. Let your health trump the judgment of others or the judgment of yourself.