How To Recreate Your Favorite Fitness Class In The Hotel Gym
Thanks to these expert tips, CrossFit, Pure Barre and Orangetheory fans can feel the burn anywhere, anytime
Finding time to exercise when you’re traveling on business is tough, even for the most dedicated workout warriors. And if you’re used to sweating it out in a class setting—with an instructor as your guide and personal cheerleader—venturing into a hotel gym solo can feel a little bit like landing on Mars. To make sure you know how to get moving come crunch time, we tapped trainers for tips on how to translate three of the most popular group fitness classes out there into DIY hotel gym workouts.
Set the bar high for your road fitness routine by using a simple exercise band for some Pure Barre-inspired workouts.
The class: Pure Barre
Why you love it: Devotees flock to barre classes to sculpt leg and glute muscles with a low-impact workout that burns hundreds of calories in the process. If you’re racing to the top of your professional field, this is the perfect way to keep your stems in tiptop shape.
How to do it solo: After stretching and completing a five-minute warmup, certified personal trainer and fitness competitor Julie Lohre recommends moving through each of these three exercises, completing four sets of 15 to 20 reps on each leg. To add extra intensity, Lohre suggests tossing an exercise band into your suitcase and placing it around your ankles during each workout.
Set your timer for: 30 minutes
Side Leg Raise With Squats
- Stand with feet shoulder-with apart and exercise band around your ankles.
- Squat deeply, and as you rise up, straighten one leg and lift it out to the side.
- Squat back down deeply, and then rise up and repeat with the opposite leg.
Standing Glute Pulse
- Stand with exercise band around your ankles; then bring one foot backward six inches.
- Using your glute and hamstring muscles, lift the back foot up and off the ground by about one foot, continuing to lift for 20 reps.
Figure Four Dancer Single-Leg Squat
- Stand with feet together; then raise one foot and your hands while keeping your knee bent.
- While balancing on a single leg, squat down into a figure four stretch by placing the ankle of the raised leg across the front of your standing leg, just above the knee.
- With control and balance, stand back to the bent-knee standing position with your hands over your head. Slowly place raised foot on the ground.
Grab a pair of dumbbells and get your blood pumping, CrossFit-style.
The class: CrossFit
Why you love it: CrossFit is all about utilizing your body weight and squeezing in as many reps as possible (some use the acronym AMRAP to describe this method) during a short time frame—making it the perfect workout for hotel guests on the go.
How to do it solo: CrossFit Level One Trainer and CrossFit athlete of five years, Kyra Williams designed these two workouts to mimic what you’d see in any CrossFit gym. Set a timer for 20 minutes and get through as many rounds of one workout as possible before moving on to the next. (Each 20-minute workout should allow for at least four rounds.)
Set your timer for: 20 to 40 minutes
Cardio-focused CrossFit-inspired workout
- .25 mile run on the treadmill
- 20 pushups
- 20 situps
- 20 air squats
Strength-training CrossFit-inspired workout
- 15 dumbbell dead lifts (10 to 20 lbs.)
- 15 overhead presses
- 15 v-ups
- 15 dumbbell squats
- 15 dumbbell rows
Jump on the treadmill and mimic your Orangetheory cardio circuit class.
The class: Orangetheory
Why you love it: Traditional Orangetheory workouts are timed circuits of cardio followed by strength training. So many calories burned, so little time.
How to do it solo: To get the same burn, Chicago-based certified personal trainer Briana Moore recommends this calorie-torching, Orangetheory-inspired circuit of 10 minutes on the treadmill followed by 10 minutes of strength training.
Set your timer for: 20 minutes
10-minute treadmill workout
- 1-minute run at your regular running pace
- *Increase pace by 1.5 mph and run for two minutes
- *Increase pace by 1.0 mph and run for one minute
- *1-minute run at an all-out sprint (as fast as you can)
- 1-minute cool-down run at your average pace
- *These steps are completed twice.
10-minute strength training workout
- AMRAP (as many rounds as possible in a 10-minute time frame)
- 10 weighted reverse lunges per leg
- 10 weighted step-ups per leg
- 10 jump squats
- 10 straight-arm situps
No more excuses for letting work travel get in the way of your workouts. Let these DIY hotel gym workouts give you confidence to conquer the day ahead!
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