Travel Gym: Strength and Conditioning on the Go
Keeping up with the oh so important strength work required to be a robust athlete while traveling around the globe can seem like a mission destined for failure, no matter what intentions you start out with. It needn't though, because with the gear available today even the lightest traveller can take just one or two items that make a full body workout possible in any setting - and if you've carted even one small piece of gear halfway around the world, it's a lot easier to find the motivation to use it! I have refined and tested many different gear combinations to create the best travel gym for me, and the one I have going now seems to be working in terms of keeping it interesting enough to want to use it, and actually keeping me strong.
The 'Adjustment Period' of Running.
The way I see it, running is like the opposite of a relationship. When you start out with a new partner, you enter the honeymoon period filled with love and excitement and immediately get rose coloured glasses firmly planted over your eyes. It seems like everything is blissfully perfect, until somewhere along the path cracks start to show. With running on the other hand, there's no way around the fact that in many ways the start sucks. Not only is breathing scarily difficult, sweat more abundant, and heart rates sky high; but you get to become reacquainted with the pain of muscles microtearing and fixing themselves on a daily basis. For me, this has meant waking up being unable to walk without the pressure and pain in my calves forcing me into a robot shuffle for the first 5 minutes of the day. Navigating stairs has once again become a mission of sweet talking my quads and hamstrings into moving as they are designed to, and I am drop-dead tired most nights.
Motivation vs Determination
The reason I made this distinction is that I realised motivation is a fickle thing. We applaud people for being motivated, saying they are go-getters and high achievers because they have high levels of 'motivation'. But over a year, month, week, day, or even a single workout, motivation waxes and wanes. If we always relied on motivation to get things done, what happens when you don't sleep well, feel a little sick, an easier offer pops up, and motivation for something that is usually high has bottomed out? This is where if the task is high priority, determination steps in.
That first run back after injury.
The first 30 seconds felt like I was a baby girraffe taking my first steps, and at least in my mind must have looked like it. Then, with each successive 30 second run I found my stride, grew in confidence, and by the third rep the tears were coming. I was running. After 105 days without one of the things I love most in life, I was back. The walks became me just trying to compose myself between bouts of running, and I knew I was getting faster and faster but I was so, damn, happy. Nothing was hurting. Despite the foreigness of it all again, I felt strong, and capable. Everything I love about the movement was reawakening in me.