How to stay in shape when you go on holiday...

Going on holiday is supposed to help you get away from the stress and hassle of daily life. But, if you're someone who finds it hard to function without your exercise "fix," a holiday often creates a whole new set of problems.

When a hotel says it has "a gym," you never know if they mean a proper gym, or a couple of pink dumbbells and a rusty old Life Fitness Life Cycle® from 1978. If you're someone who takes an "all or nothing" approach to exercise, it's hard to find the motivation to train in this kind of environment.

Finding the time to exercise can also be difficult, especially if there's a lot of stuff that you want to see and do while you're away. Because of this, some people avoid exercise completely while they're on holiday, vowing to "start fresh" when they get back.

Whenever I tried this in the past, I found it really hard to get back into my exercise routine when I returned from holiday. So, what I do now is cut right back on the frequency and volume of my workouts.

Although I often get told that 20 minutes of exercise two or three times a week "isn't worth it," the truth is that it takes a lot less exercise to stay in shape than it does to get there in the first place.

Some evidence for this comes from a study that tracked a group of 12 subjects taking part in an aerobic exercise program [1]. The program involved cycling and running for 40 minutes, six days each week. The average increase in aerobic fitness after 10 weeks of training was 20-25%.

Subjects were then assigned to one of two groups, and continued to exercise for a further 15 weeks. Group one trained at the same intensity and duration on four days of the week. The second group trained at the same intensity and duration only twice each week.

The researchers found that VO2max—a marker of aerobic fitness—remained the same in both groups. This was despite the fact that group two was only training twice each week. In short, the frequency of aerobic exercise needed to maintain your fitness is less than that required to improve it.

It also takes a lot less work to maintain the muscle you have than it takes to build it from scratch.

Researchers from Australia's Southern Cross University took a group of 27 men with up to four years of training experience, and assigned them to one of three groups [2]. Subjects in each group trained using a low (three sets per muscle group per week), medium (six sets per muscle group per week) or high (12 sets per muscle group per week) training volume.

Despite the fact that group one did only three sets per muscle group per week, the results show "no significant between-group differences" in muscle size or strength (although there was a trend toward greater gains in the high-volume group).

Although I don't believe that such a low volume of exercise is the best way to build muscle, it can be used to maintain the muscle you already have.

When I went to California a couple of years ago, I had a great workout on Muscle Beach consisting of pull-ups supersetted with dips, followed by a few sprint intervals on the beach (you can see a few of my holiday photographs here).

The pull-ups and dips worked most of the muscles in my upper body, while the sprint intervals worked my legs and also took care of my cardiovascular fitness.

Even though the workout took me less than 20 minutes, it helped me stay in shape during the two weeks I was away. Plus, it also stopped me feeling so guilty about all the junk I was eating.

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References
1. Hickson, R.C., & Rosenkoetter, M.A. (1981). Reduced training frequencies and maintenance of increased aerobic power. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 13, 13-16
2. Ostrowksi, K.J., Wilson, G.J., Weatherby, R., Murphy, P.W., & Lyttle, A.D. (1997). The effect of weight training volume on hormonal output and muscular size and function. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 11, 148-154