Physiotherapist and personal trainer Em Esslemont shares her quick and easy workout ideas to do on your next holiday. She’s a fitness and food fanatic with the passion for helping others live a healthy lifestyle. She splits her time working on her health and fitness website, Wellbeing Worldwide and food blogging among many endeavors.
Physiotherapist and personal trainer Em Esslemont shares her quick and easy workout ideas to do on your next holiday. She’s a fitness and food fanatic with the passion for helping others live a healthy lifestyle. She splits her time working on her health and fitness website, Wellbeing Worldwide and food blogging among many endeavors.
Keep fit on your next holiday with these quick, easy workout ideas:
So you’re travelling overseas… to an exotic destination… and you don’t have access to a gym…. Problem? Doesn’t have to be, because your body is all you really need. A park bench, long stretch of beach, stairs or hills & your runners are a bonus.
1. The Full Body Blaster
6 exercises, 4 rounds, 45 seconds of work / 15 seconds recovery. That’s total of 24 minutes. Trust me it’s enough. Use your phone as a timer if you don’t have a stop watch but keep push hard in those 45 seconds, you should feel like you really need that 15 second recovery!
- Squat jumps
- Dips (using bench). Easier version is knees bent and harder version is knees straight.
- Burpees (chest to floor)
- Step ups (alternate legs each round)
- Push ups – To make harder, put your feet on the bench.
- Jumping lunges
Some other exercise ideas could be lateral bounds (sometimes known as skater jumps), bench/box jumps, skipping (if you have a rope), mountain climbers.
Pick your torture and get ready for a full body burn.
2. Beach Sprint
All you need is a stretch of soft sand. Sand running is a lot harder than road running. You adopt a slightly different technique and you will utilise muscles a little differently. Be ready for sore calves and hamstrings after this one!
Set out 4 markers with shoes, clothing etc about 15m apart. The furthest one away will be about 60m.
Suicides – Run up to the first marker, touch the ground and back to start line. Run to second market & back etc all the way to the 4th marker. Then work your way back down.
You will repeat this 3 times giving yourself a 2 minute recovery in-between. To make it harder drop to the ground at each marker. Yes it’s boring, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. A quick swim in the ocean after and you will have earnt those sunset cocktails!
3. Hotel Room Hit Out
This one is designed to be done in your hotel room! It’s a pyramid of exercises. Starting with 20 reps of each, then 15, 10 and 5. If you want to go for longer you can work back up to 20.
You will do a combination of body weight exercises and some weights using luggage to help you. Fill a back pack with some heavy items (books, shoes, toiletries bag), you shoulder be able to get it to 5-10kg with ease. You can now use it for squats and some upper body exercises.
You need to pick 8 exercises. See below for some ideas but if you have some favourites then be sure to add them in, you are only limited by your imagination.
Do 20 repetitions of each exercise. Your recovery is a 1 minute plank before starting 15 repetitions of each and plank recovery. Continue with 10 reps and 5 reps.
- Squats (using the backpack as weight)
- Push ups (boys you can make these clap pushups or decline pushups)
- Shoulder press (using the backpack as weight)
- Glute Bridge – Place your feet on a bench / table. Push down through your feet and lift your bottom up off the floor. Slowly lower back to the floor. To make it more difficult place the backpack on the front of your hips or do it as a single leg exercise.
- Burpees (chest to floor)
- Reverse Lunges (using backpack as weight) – Step backwards with one leg and lower into lunge position, bring leg forward to start position and repeat on the same leg. Do 20 on one side and change legs.
- Dips
- Jumping lunges
- Mountain climbers
- Sit ups
4. The Scenic Long Run
One of my absolute favourite ways to exercise when travelling is to head out for a run around the city. It’s best done early in the morning to avoid dealing with crowds. Do a little research as often there are some amazing coastal runs or runs up to lookouts over the city which can be a pretty cool way to sightsee. For example in Hawaii the Diamond Head Lookout run was the perfect Saturday fitness session and it all ended with an amazing meal at the local farmers markets. If you’re not one for road running, pick a long stretch of beach and away you go!
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