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Gus's Barbell Club

Travel-Ready Workouts Even for the Ultra Beginner

By Gus

Our barbell club members travel just like anyone else! But they also now realize the value of training and want to keep the progress rolling until they’re back for the next session with a coach. What to do? And even more difficult: what if they’re still a beginner on they’re onramp?!

The Goal

When in less-than-ideal circumstances the goal should be to stay primed so that training can continue as usual as soon as you’re back to your primary gym.

Find a Gym with Barbells

The very best thing of course would be to find a gym in your travel location that has barbells and stick to your current program as best as possible. Since you’re likely under time constraints – you travelled for a reason after all – you may need to go down to one-lift-per-day or just do your last session’s warm-up sets. It’s still getting some work in and it’s the same stuff you do at home. Take a video of the last set of each movement and text it to your coach for a form check!

For the Ultra Beginner

If you are not yet confident performing the lifts without coach supervision, use this time as practice of the patterns and just use the empty bar! A typical squat session will have around 20 warm-up reps and 15 working reps. So if you get 30-45 reps of bodyweight and empty bar it’s good practice.

Movement Patterns

If you can’t get to a gym with barbells, it’s best to get any anxiety out of your brain and consider at least doing some work with natural movement patterns. We’re in the realm now of exercise not training – but this is infinitely better than nothing. Remember, the goal isn’t our best training, the goal is being ready when we can get back to it.

Common Patterns to Consider

  1. Hips below parallel (eg. squatting, lunging, sitting & standing)
  2. Lift objects from the floor
  3. Pressing overhead
  4. Carrying objects
  5. Body control (eg. push-ups, pull-ups)

Programming

Since we’re not training, you can mix and match these patterns as available and use a variety of objects. This is a good chance to add more time of just being “hot-sweat-tired” (HST) which Gus often prescribes at homework outside the gym. If you like cardio work, feel free to throw in a run or any equipment a hotel gym might have. But if you can pick two-to-three of those patterns and just do a bunch of them for HST, you’ll be all set.

Sample Workouts

Even ultra beginners that haven’t completed their on-ramp can do these workouts safely! You can’t mess it up: if any of the body control movements are too difficult, remove them and do the rest or swap in another movement you’re more comfortable with. The goal is to exercise and hit the movement patterns, and you’ll get back to training at home. Rotate through these everyday and you’ll be excited to quit the HST work and get back under the barbell.

Alpha

Pick a room or hallway with some walking space. For 10 minutes perform as many rounds of the following, working at a pace where you don’t stop:

1. At point A, Pick up a heavy(ish) object like a chair, suitcase, or child and carry it to Point B
2. Walking lunge from Point B to Point A
3. Perform 5 push-ups
4. Walking lunge from Point A to Point B
5. Then repeat 1-4 again, Move the object, lunge, push-ups, lunge for the whole ten minutes

Beta

Find an object you can hold with one hand. If you have a dumbbell or kettlebell, great! If you need to use a book or water bottle that’ll work! 

For 5 rounds, with the reps increasing every round:
5/6/7/8/9 reps goblet squats
10/12/14/16/18 reps single arm place the object your feet, lift (á la deadlift) then press over head, lower to your feet (á la deadlift recovery) and alternate hands
2/4/6/8/10 hold a plank, lift a hand to slide object to the other hand, then alternate 

The lighter the object, the faster you'll be able to complete it so try to ramp the intensity

Gamma

“Death by” is the ultimate HST protocol. Choose any movement that is lightweight/bodyweight to be done quickly, swapping to a new one every day. Common choices: bodyweight squats, push-ups, burpees, shuttle sprints (20m or so, or one tree to another).

To "death by" you'll need a timer app or a friend that will ring out every minute then continue.
In minute one, perform one rep then rest in the remaining time of that minute.
In minute two, perform two reps then rest in the remaining time.
In minute three, perform three reps then rest.
... and so on, continuing until you cannot complete the reps in under a minute and then your workout is complete. For example if in minute 11 you complete all 11 reps but then you have only a moment to rest, in minute 12 you may only be able to complete 8 reps in under a minute. Then you rest.

Ready to Train

If you found these travel-ready workouts but haven’t joined the club yet – once you’re back home we’d love to have you! Book a free “no sweat” intro for Gus’s Barbell Club to learn more. gus.coach/no-sweat-intro

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