I plugged ‘hotel gym workout’ into Google, and was met with an estimated fifty-million results. Which is great, my gratitude to Silicone Valley remains unwavering.

A lot of ‘travel’ fitness advice is bit around the concept of getting in effective workouts in under equipped hotel gyms, leaning into simple dumbbell workouts, high rep barbell complexes and using basic metabolic machinery found just about anywhere (I’m looking at you Concept2 rowing machine).

But in my experience (and this is an area in which I’ve accrued a lot of experience),  the vast majority of hotels you’re liable to find yourself in whether for business, or if you’re simply traveling on a budget, won’t have a gym at all.

You may be able to find one locally, you may travel with the odd piece of emergency equipment, you may not even object to the idea of getting outside for an upper body crushing calisthenics circuit at a nearby park.

But, if all of those ‘mays’ are amounting to zero, and you find yourself stuck squarely in your budget hotel room, or even the confines of your own living room, we have a full body workout that will challenge you from head to toe. Building a bigger chest, conditioned legs, and a set of lungs to match.

Keep this one in you back pocket, it may just be -

The Best Hotel Workout Ever.

You can begin with a warm-up of your choice, but we’re relying solely on our bodyweight and a steadily building intensity here, so if you’re pushed for time you’re more likely than not okay to go in cold on this one.

Start a running clock somewhere you can see, or use an interval timer on your phone.

You’re going to be working in an ‘EMOM’ or ‘every minute on the minute’ format, meaning at the beginning of each new minute you’ll perform the prescribed movements.

You’ve got three moves to memorise, the push-up the squat and the burpee.

The first two moves, you’re going to perform for a set number of reps at the top of each minute; 5 push-ups and 10 squats.

The burpees are going to get a bit trickier, after your final squat you’re going to drop immediately into a burpee. On the first minute you’ll complete only one, resting for the remainder of the minute, in your second minute you’ll perform your prescribed push-ups and squats, this time chasing them with two burpees, in the third minute your burpee count will be 3. Keep adding an additional burpee each minute, for as long as you can hold on.

This workout ends when you can either no longer fit the prescribed number of burpees into your 60 second window, or you throw in the cheap, hotel towel.

Make it to the ten minute mark? Congratulations, you just boxed off 50 push-ups, 100 squats and 55 burpees. Climbed the ladder all the way to 15? You just ate up 75 push-ups, 150 squats and a staggering 120 burpees- in just fifteen minutes.

The real trick here is keeping track of the final round you landed on, and using it as a ‘high score’ to beat each time you have to pull the pin on this workout, ensuring real, measurable progress.

Happy travels…

THE MOVES

1. Push-up x 5

Drop into a strong plank position, with your core tight and hands shoulder width apart, bend your elbows to bring your chest to the floor. Keep your elbows close to your body as you push back up explosively.

2. Squat x 10

Stand with your torso upright and your hands on your head, drop your hips back to sink into a deep squat. Hold for a second, before pressing through your heels to stand up, repeat.

3. Burpee x 1,2,3,4…etc.

After your final squat, immediately place both hands on the floor between your feet. Jump your feet back into the top of a press-up and lower your chest to the ground. Straighten your arms and hop your feet forwards, before jumping into the air with hands on head.