Traveling
I had intended to blog fairly frequently while being on the road for the past 2½ months. Unfortunately, I only posted one new blog and a few videos here and there on my YouTube channel. It made for very long days with the distance between some of the banks I was delivering to each day.
I’ve actually been back home for just over a month now, with another week trip to visit family in Connecticut thrown in there as well. Being away from home certainly takes away from the motivation to work out. While I was traveling for work, the lack of following an exercise program didn’t hurt me too badly due to the fact that the work I was doing was pretty physical as well.
The job consisted of assembling and delivering these brochure displays to branches of Wells Fargo banks. Every single branch got a “promoter”, which is a freestanding, two-sided magnetic sign that would be placed just inside the branch doors so it’s basically in the customer’s face as soon as they walk in the door. There were 4 pieces to this sign – a base, the post, and each side of the sign facing. It would take me about 2-3 minutes to open the box and take each piece out. I would then hold the base while securing it to the post with 4 bolts. The base alone weighs about 50 lbs. Once that’s done, I would simply stand it up, and slide the magnetic facings of the sign into the post. Those were about 15 lbs. each. Finally, I would put that on the hand truck and wheel the assembly inside. Total weight was around 75-80 lbs. Total assembly time was about 7-8 minutes. I averaged 5-6 stops per day. So, that alone created some quick, easy workouts each day.
There were three other types of signs – Home Mortgage kiosks, Investment kiosks, and Teller Queue kiosks. All three are very similar, with the Teller Queue being the simplest. The difference with these was that the post was a 40 lb. piece of pressed wood (as opposed to hollow aluminum for the promoters). Then, a black background was attached to the post to be able to attach the acrylic graphics holders (basically, a frame to hold the promotional posters for the bank). These 3 different types of kiosks weighed roughly 130 lbs. – give or take 5 lbs.
With each fixture that had to be assembled, there was a pallet full of the posts and a box with all the hardware, including the base. These boxes each weigh about 75-80 lbs. Lifting, moving, then transferring each piece from the box to the fixture was quite the workout each day. As I mentioned earlier, 5-6 stops per day, and about 80% of the branches got more than just a promoter.
There were 234 total branches, 186 Teller Queue kiosks, 40 Investment kiosks, and 11 Home Mortgage kiosks. In addition to this, I also had to pick up old kiosks. These were aluminum and steel, roughly 40 lbs. each, and not quite as easy to transport to the truck on a hand truck. The job called for a total of 347 returns. Many times, I had to end up throwing these into the back of the trailer from the side door once there got to be too much garbage in the back and I couldn’t open the back door any longer.
My whole point in bringing up all these details is to show that I didn’t necessarily miss out on workouts, since the work was physically taxing. Another reason I wasn’t following an actual workout program was a shoulder injury I had suffered about 2 weeks prior to leaving out on the road. About a month and a half into the job, I was able to start doing some of my Beachbody workouts again. The first one I tried was from Insanity: the Asylum. I had also brought a few dumbbells, pushup stands, my resistance band.
If you have a laptop, or portable dvd player, you can still workout in a hotel. Most hotels nowadays have a workout room with equipment you can use to work up a good sweat. Generally, though, there’s plenty of room available in the hotel room itself that you’re able to perform the majority of the moves from each workout. If not, there are always modified moves, which Beachbody is notorious for showing. They do this to be able to reach a broader audience. Lord knows P90X would have been impossible for me as my first program if it weren’t for this fact.
Bottom line, if you’re traveling and you’re wanting to get a workout in, Beachbody’s workout programs are still the best option – especially when you’re in an area that you may not be too familiar with, or not at all. In addition, whether it’s for work, or pleasure, you generally have much more time available to get a workout in while traveling than you would if you were at home on your normal hectic schedule. There’s always an option that will work and get your heart rate up and make you break a sweat.
If you’d like to explore these options, leave a comment, or click the email icon, or click the “contact” link at the top of this page. I’d love to help you achieve your own health and fitness goals!
