Traveler's Fitness -- Especially Gray-Haired Travelers
2006
Being Fit for Travel & Staying That Way
Maintaining one's level of fitness when traveling is a
huge challenge, especially if your adventure doesn't have sports built into it.
As bike travelers, we know that our mode of travel gives us a good
cardio-vascular workout but it is otherwise limited to building leg strength
over a fairly small range of motion. Cycling woefully neglects building general
upper body strength and does nothing to maintain flexibility.
Being aging travelers (55 years old) makes the short-comings
of our sport even more apparent. As I age I am being convinced that, unlike in
my youth, I now only have strength and flexibility in my body where I actively
use those attributes. I can no longer engage in a new activity and assume that my body has
what it needs to perform well unless I have trained for it. That realization has
made addressing cycling's shortcomings while we travel even more important.
My mind that is always striving to find ways to be more
thorough and more
efficient has generated an assortment of activities to support us as gray-haired travelers. These
exercises are targeted towards the
unexpected physical tasks that confront one when traveling, like running to catch a
train, lugging heavy luggage farther than expected, using a squat toilet, and climbing up and down awkwardly
spaced stairs or rocky paths. They also fill in the general strength gaps left
by cycling. Here's the short list of exercises that we include in our
regime both at home and when traveling.
Sit-Ups and Push-Ups
Sit-ups and push-ups are old standbys that I still use
for upper body strength and core stability (torso strength). I do my
sit-ups with my low back kept flat on the floor and my push-ups with my
hands and elbows under my shoulders to make them more intense.
If you can't do full
push-ups, do them from your knees but don't stick your buttocks out from the
plane of your torso. Even
better: be on your toes and flat like a board with your body but elevate your
hands on a wall, bench, or table. As you get stronger, slowly decrease the height of
your hand support until you are on the floor. And holding the push-up position
with straight arms for a minute or 2 without pumping the arms is a
very efficient strengthener too.
Jumping Rope
You don't actually have to
carry a jump rope with you, though it is more fun. "Virtual" jump rope in which
you bounce on your feet and swivel your wrists like you are jumping rope is just
as effective as using a rope. And the virtual form has the
advantage of not getting your rope muddy or inadvertently nailing a light
fixture.
As a courtesy to others, we rarely jump rope indoors,
especially if the floor below us is occupied. Instead we do our jumping with
real or imagined rope outdoors in parks or on secluded corner of hotel grounds.
Jumping rope is excellent for bone density, something that
non-pounding activities like cycling and swimming contribute little too. Routine
experience with the
jarring motion also keeps one's aging body acclimated to harsher movements so
you are less likely to sustain an injury when a similar 'thud' happens
unexpectedly. And if you have more discipline with jumping rope than we do, it's
a great way to get aerobic exercise. We however usually do a couple hundred
jumps for our bone density and leave it at that.
Stairs
Stairs are usually a very available way to slip more
exercise into your day, whether it's taking the stairs in the hotel instead of
the elevator, or running up and down grand outdoor staircases of buildings or
parking structures. In hotels with 5 or more flights that aren't too prominent,
we'll even run-up and down them for 10-20 minutes at a time just for the
workout if we aren't biking.
We also discovered that "doing doubles" or stairs
2-at-a-time, both up and down, is even better. "Doing doubles" (with one or both
hands lightly on the railings) is a great way to add variety to the repetition
of doing so many flights of stairs
and to strengthen different muscles. Introduce stairs gradually into your routine
however, to insure that your knees are up to the strain of the unfamiliar angles
and forces.
Doing doubles as you go up keeps your strength and flexibility
tuned for awkward big steps onto buses and at archeological sites, as well as
intensifying the aerobic effect. And I think doing doubles downwards is a
superb bit of insurance for aging bodies. The motion of dropping down farther
and more forward than one's usual gait challenges your stability in a healthy
way. Being able to maintain one's balance in this unusual situation pays
off when you might otherwise take a dive from a stumble or misjudged step.
Once you develop a habit of using stairs for fitness, you do
start to notice that choice ones aren't always available. If that's the case,
look for
anything steep to briskly walk up for a little extra cardio-vascular
exercise. The steeper the better for your
fitness work.
Squats
Deep knee bends or squats were a banned exercise in my
youth as they could damage the knees. Of course, some of us squat in our daily
activities as a way to bend over without sticking our rear-ends out and millions
of people in the world spent hours every day squatting. The trick is to do them
correctly.
For most people, being very precise about keeping their knees
lined up over their toes, rather than letting the knees drift inwards, is all
that it takes to spare the knees. If you keep the knees in line, you'll also
notice that your feet won't roll inwards. And why bother? Well, being confronted with squat toilets
quickly makes one a believer as often there is nothing in sight that you want to
touch with your hands to assist you. And I think squats are a good counter to
the limited range of motion inherent in cycling and in most people's daily lives. The extreme range of motion
also takes one beyond what you experience in doing stairs.
I find that just doing 10 squats at a time a few times a week
is enough to keep my legs primed for a variety of situations. I do them very
slowly, especially coming back up. Rather than drop down and bounce right back
up, extend the challenge by being very controlled in both lowering yourself down
and lifting up. For something more difficult, keep your head centered over your buttocks, like a ballet dancer doing
a
full plié. That alignment (rather than
letting the head and chest pitch forward) will challenge even more underused muscles. And of
course, if you haven't done a full squat for ages, just do 1, then wait a couple
of days before doing another so your body has a chance to register any important
complaints.
Balance Beam
Simulating walking on a balance beam, with your eyes closed,
will help sharpen your balance. Balance relies on 3 elements, with one being proprioception,
a special kind of spatial awareness involving your muscles. Walking along the
grout line or a crack in a floor like you were on a tight rope is a safe and easy way to tune-up your
balance. Do it a couple of times with your eyes open, then try it with your eyes
closed.
After we got so we could track in a straight line for a dozen
or more steps with our eyes closed, we took it outdoors to a curb that was only 1" high.
Our success with walking on this slightly raised curb with our eyes closed increased from abysmal to
respectable after only a few
attempts. It's a good little game to play with yourself a couple of times a
month to keep your balance skills tip-top.
Running
Even if you aren't a runner, consider running at least a
block or 2 every now and then just so can if you need to. It's one of those
abilities that we take for granted that will slip away from you as you age if you
don't do it occasionally.
Exercise Bands
In 2006 we confronted our cycling-related upper body
weakness. I was intent on buying several elastic exercise bands but the $20-30 prices
per band in the
store available to us was a turn-off. We went over to the bike repair corner in
the same Italian store and walked out with a free, defunct, bike inner tube. I kept the continuous
circle quality of the tire but cut it into 2 separate circles, 1 twice the width
of the other. That gave us 2 exercises bands with 2 different degrees of
resistance.
We loop 1 end of a band around a railing, post, or picnic
table and start pumping an arm in as many directions as we can find that creates
an interesting sensation of effort in our muscles. We don't worry about being
systematic but instead go for a playful variety. We work our muscles with the
bands overhead and behind us, as well as in more usual positions in front of our
bodies. Most evenings after we've
done some band work, I'll feel the effects in my upper back muscles.
These free exercise bands have the advantage of being expendable and easily replaceable. If you run out of room in your luggage, then pitch them with no remorse. And remember, they could be used as an emergency strap to hold together an ailing suitcase.
Use Whatever You Can Find
About once a year we stay in a hotel with an exercise room
and we take advantage of the equipment offered--though sometimes we skip the
stationery bike. We each have a pair of sport shorts and tank top in our
wardrobe that we usually wear when hand washing our riding clothes and they
become our workout wear. People may stare, but we use our sandals instead
of sport shoes in the fitness room.
In the northern Central European countries we sometimes find
playground equipment we can use for a little strength work. Bill has reclaimed
his 1 chin-up and I am working hard to be able to do even one. We jump at the
opportunity to use any such equipment to work on our upper body strength that is
so underused in cycling.
When Not Traveling
When at home, we take advantage of our greater
opportunities to keep our aging bodies symmetrical and versatile. We are devoted
consumers of massage therapy, especially sports massage. Our success in
sustaining our cyclotouring for years is largely because of the improvements in
our musculature from the prior years of yoga and massage, including what those disciplines have
taught us about our specific vulnerabilities and how to remedy
them ourselves when things are amiss. In addition to massage therapists and yoga
teachers, physical therapists are wonderful resources for untangling problems
that interfere with your sports or general comfort in your body.