Use these hotel-room friendly yoga poses and fit travel tips to stay healthy and de-stress when on the road.
Whether you are a dancer, a football player, or a business traveler, you should incorporate yoga into your fitness routine. A single pose can work more muscles in your body than a day at the gym, and the peaceful ambiance of a proper yoga session will be just what you need to start your day or finish it. Yoga accessories are easy to transport if you’re on the road, and yoga is the perfect in-room exercise ritual that business travelers can easily fit into a packed schedule.
Before you start yoga, consider your environment. Even if your hotel room is tight, you will only ever need space the length of your body. Clear some space (nobody uses that random table and chair anyway), and clear your mind. The unwinding nature of yoga makes it a great exercise to wake up to, but it can be just as rewarding at the end of a long day. Either way, with these simple poses, you will work your legs, abs, arms, back muscles and more without leaving the hotel room.
Warrior II
Any Warrior pose is a wonderful start to your routine. In this position, your legs and hips get the most from the workout, though you use your abs and shoulders as well in order to maintain an upright position. While you are posing, try to think of stacking your body parts one on top of the other. Your hips should be directly on top of your legs, your back on top of your hips, your shoulder on top of your upper back, and your head on top of your shoulders. Running through this checklist in your mind should prevent you from hunching over.
For more leg work and flexibility, take Warrior II into a Lunge.
Plank
Plank Pose can be tough if you have never done yoga or haven’t been consistent with your routine, but that’s how you know that it is an effective pose. The longer you resist the urge to collapse, the stronger your arms and wrists will become. Plank pose strengthens your core as well. To add variety to your yoga routine, try a Knee Up Plank. When you tuck your leg up while holding a Plank, you are increasing your arms and core workout, not to mention adding the challenge of maintaining balance.
After Plank, Downward Facing Dog is a great pose to follow with, as it gives you a bit of a break by redistributing your weight between your legs and arms. Or you can continue to torture yourself by going into a Low Plank.
Upward Facing Dog
Upward Facing Dog, or Up Dog, is commonly confused with Cobra (though Cobra is a good preceding pose). One key difference to note is that in Up Dog, your wrists should be beneath your shoulders, not extended in front of you on an angle. In a proper Up Dog pose, you will use your arms to push your hips and knees off of the floor. For this reason, this pose will tone your arms and stretch your back.
As with any yoga pose, to keep Up Dog fresh, you can increase the time that you hold the position as it becomes easier to maintain. Keep track of time by counting your breaths or counting the beats of the background music. It is significantly less stressful than keeping time on a real clock.
Bridge
At first glance, Bridge looks handy for your back, but it can also work wonders on your glutes and hamstrings. The muscular diversity of yoga is incredible, and this pose is no exception. To get the most out of Bridge pose, think about lifting your hips up as high as possible and holding them there. As with everything in yoga, be sure to exhale when want to you push yourself further into the pose.
If you want a challenge, try alternating between pulsing your hips and holding the pose. You will feel the burn with Bridge, and it feels amazing.
Plow
Stretch it out! This one isn’t as awkward to hold as it looks, and your spine will love it. Use your arms to steady yourself (you don’t want to flip over!) and enjoy the stretch. If your feet don’t quite touch the floor behind you when you hold Plow pose, that’s okay. At any given moment in yoga, you are toning several muscles and loosening multiple kinks, even if you’re not doing it to the same extent as the person in the picture.
Tips for De-Stressing during Yoga
The benefits of yoga during business travel not only help you stay fit, but decrease stress as well. To increase the anxiety-reducing effects of this activity, try to keep your routine calm and fluid. For example, do not abruptly change from one pose to another, but rather make the transitions between poses as smooth as possible. Lunge is a natural transition from Warrior II to Plank, and you will pass through Low Plank on your way into the ground for an Upward Facing Dog. The more natural the motion is between yoga poses, the more at peace you will be during your routine.
In order to further de-stress during yoga, be sure to focus all of your energy on what you are physically doing. If you are holding Warrior II and worrying about work, chances are you will hunch forward or your arms will fall from parallel and you won’t even notice. To maximize your yoga experience, clear your mind and focus on the pose. Business travel can cause a ton of anxiety and take a toll on your health, and yoga is the perfect workout on the road for loosening up and killing multiple muscle-birds with one pose.
Business Travel Life
Business Travel Life is an online resource supporting the road warrior lifestyle. We give business travelers the tools they need to maintain their wellness and productivity when traveling. The topics we cover include business travel tips, travel workouts, healthy travel hacks, travel products, general travel tips, and industry trends. Our goal is to make business travel a healthier experience – and to make healthy travel practices more accessible to all road warriors.
Business Travel Life is not a licensed medical care provider and represents that it has no expertise in diagnosing, examining, or treating medical conditions of any kind, or in determining the effect of any specific exercise on a medical condition. You should understand that when participating in any exercise or exercise program, there is the possibility of physical injury. If you engage in this exercise or exercise program, you agree that you do so at your own risk, are voluntarily participating in these activities, assume all risk of injury to yourself, and agree to release and discharge Business Travel Life from any and all claims or causes of action, known or unknown, arising out of Business Travel Life’s negligence.
