Hotel Room Workouts for Business Travel

A hotel room has enough floor for a full-body session. Warm up for three minutes, then run this circuit three or four times with about a minute between rounds:

• Split squats, 8 to 12 each leg, back foot on the floor or on the edge of the bed to make it harder.
• Press-ups, 8 to 15, hands on the desk if the floor version is too hard.
• Single-leg hip bridges, 10 to 12 each side.
• Towel or band rows, 12 to 15, looped round a secure door handle only if it is solid.
• Plank, 30 to 45 seconds.

Without heavy weights, the way to make it harder is to slow each rep down, pause at the bottom, or cut the rest. It will not match a session at the club, and it does not need to. It keeps the habit and the strength ticking over until you are back.

Most hotel gyms have a rack of dumbbells, a bench and some cardio machines, which is enough for a proper full body dumbbell workout. Pick one movement per pattern and do three sets of 8 to 12: goblet squat, Romanian deadlift, dumbbell bench or floor press, one-arm row, and a split squat. Finish with a carry, walking a pair of dumbbells up and down the room, if there is space.

Hotel dumbbells often stop at a light weight. When they do, use the slower tempo and pauses from the room workout, or move to one-legged and one-armed versions, which make a light weight feel heavier. Log what you did so your coach can pick the block up from the right place when you return.

A long loop band and a small mini band weigh almost nothing and cover the pulling work a hotel room lacks. Useful resistance band exercises for travel are the band row, the pull-apart for the upper back, the banded overhead press, banded good mornings for the hips, and lateral walks with a mini band round the knees. Anchor a long band under your feet or round a solid, fixed object, never a door that could open towards you.

Your coach can write a band version of your normal sessions before the trip, so the movements you practise at 280 Bishopsgate carry on while you are away.

The NHS advice is to switch your sleep to the new time zone as quickly as possible, set an alarm rather than oversleep, avoid sleeping during the day, and get outside in daylight, because natural light helps your body clock adjust. It also notes that melatonin tablets are not recommended on the NHS for jet lag, because there is not enough evidence that they work.

Training fits that advice. A short session at the destination in the local morning or early afternoon, ideally outside or near a window, gives the day a shape. Keep it lighter than usual for the first day or two, because a poor night’s sleep makes heavy lifting feel harder and the effort is not worth the risk.

How long does jet lag last?

The NHS says jet lag usually improves within a few days as your body adjusts. For a short trip of 2 to 3 days it suggests you could try staying on home time instead. For a quick transatlantic trip, that can mean keeping London hours and training at the same London time you would at home.

Business trips are mostly restaurant meals, and the approach that survives is the same one that works for client dinners at home. Start each meal with the protein, fill the plate with vegetables, and decide in advance which meals get dessert or wine, rather than deciding at the table. Hotel breakfasts are the easiest win of the day: eggs, yoghurt, fruit and some bread or oats give you a protein-heavy start that makes the rest of the day easier.

Your coach sets a weekly calorie average for travel weeks rather than a daily one, so a long client dinner on Wednesday is absorbed by the lighter days around it.

Before the trip you agree a short travel template: how many sessions, which of the workouts above, and what the eating target is. It is deliberately less ambitious than a normal week, which is why it survives. Two short sessions and a lot of walking in a new city is a good travel week.

On your return the block carries on from where it was rather than restarting. A 12 week body transformation planned for someone who travels puts the heaviest training in the weeks at home and treats trips as planned maintenance weeks when they are long or across several time zones.

Body Transformation City of London connects people who work in the City with independent coaches at UNTIL Liverpool Street, 280 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4RB, about 6 minutes on foot from Liverpool Street station, where the Elizabeth line runs direct to Heathrow. The club opens from 06:00 on weekdays, so a session fits the morning before an afternoon flight.

Coaches who train clients there and publish their rates charge about £100 to £130 a session. Talk to a coach and UNTIL Health Concierge will reply to arrange an assessment, travel diary included.

For the lunches between trips, read high protein lunch ideas for work. Every guide is listed on the training guides page, and the City of London training glossary defines the terms.