Hey everybody, Kris Stokes from Custom Fitness Personal Training Studio where your health comes first. I have just gotten in from what was supposed to be a five hour travel day. I was flying and we had some pretty high winds and then flights didn’t quite go as planned. So as we went through the process of the day, what should have been five hours, ended up taking us 12 hours to get to our destination and I’m just now getting to the hotel.
But, in that process, it made me think, “You know, vacation time’s are always around us. I’ve got a lot of clients who travel all the time for work, but I also know a lot of people who go out of town for a vacation whether that’s during the springtime for spring break or it’s during the summer.” And I thought, “You know, what better way to give people some help today, then to sit down and talk with you about ways that you can stay active while you’re on an airport delay.” This probably wouldn’t apply quite so much to the car, unless you just need to get up and walk around, all those kinds of things.
But, you’re at the airport and you got a delay that day. Anything can happen, right? And so what was happening with us was that every time that our plane was scheduled to depart, we’d all kind of get up close to the counter, nobody would show up. And so, then we’d find out a little while later our plane got delayed another 40 minutes. And six hours of that just kind of wears on you. So up and down, up and down. For me, I can’t handle all that. Just sitting all the time just drives me nuts and my body doesn’t feel very good right now. I am so tight, so tired. But I just want to be able to move a little bit.
So, thinking about that, what can be done during your delay to help the process so that you don’t feel quite as bad when you get there? I will come back with another video on how to stretch out after you get to your destination. So during a flying delay, the first step is walking. Right? Take steps. As many as you can. Walk up and down throughout the airport. If you can find stairs, go walk some stairs. It’s great to get the blood flowing and it just kind of takes you out of that normal, you know, back and forth pace.
Working On Posture
Most people these days, or at least most of the people I saw in the airport have backpacks with their personal item or a large purse of something, that’s great. A lot of people have their bags checked. For me, I carry everything with me for several reasons, but I do carry everything with me. So if it’s a backpack, that’s great. It’s weighing you down evenly. If it’s a one-sided suitcase or a duffle bag or something, usually if it’s a duffle bag, I’ll still go ahead and put it on as a backpack just to even out the weight for longer stays, but if it’s one-sided, I just make sure that I do kind of what you consider a farmer carrying a chicken. Where you hold the weight on one side and then you try to stabilize the body so you’re not leaning to the side to hold that item, but you’re stabilizing the body. That’s actually going to help to build strength through your core, through your legs, everything. So that’s a great thing. Just remember to switch sides every now and then. Don’t just not switch sides because that’s your weaker side. So be sure to switch sides and get that part where you’re carrying on the other side as well.
All right. Second thing that you can work on while you’re at the airport on a layover is you can either be doing this while you’re walking or while you’re sitting or while you’re standing, but you can work on your posture. So what do I mean by that? Well whenever I see all these people carrying these bags, especially backpacks, they tend to be in this forward position, their knees tend to be locked out, and if they’re holding anything else heavy, then they’re just kind of awkwardly holding that. They may be holding it off to the side, like I say or something awkward.
Work That Core!
So working on your posture is huge. Shoulders pulled back, open the chest, push the head back like you were back against a wall. It might feel a little funny, but you’re really not going to look that odd doing it. The other key is to bend those knees. Get them soft. If you need to, do a few knee bends just to kind of feel where you’re at, but don’t let those knees lock back. Once you do, those joints are supporting you rather than the muscles. So we want to be sure and bend those knees, pull the shoulders back, press the head back, get nice and open through the body, and support that weight of all the excess that you’re carrying, ie. suitcase, purse, backpack, whatever it may be. Support your weight properly with a straight column and you will feel much less fatigued and more energized whenever you are able to move rather than feeling worn out and run down.
All right, so the next one that you can work on during an airport delay is your core engagement. Something we should all be working on anyways, right? But how would you do that? Well you’re not going to lay down on the floor and start doing crunches. What you are going to do is work on engaging your core. So remember that number one, engagement does not mean sucking in. You’re not trying to get taller. What you’re trying to do is feel like your abs are contracting as though you’re coughing or sneezing. So, you know, not that the people next to you at the airport want to hear that, but go ahead and cough. Feel the stomach muscles squeeze, right? So feel that pull in.
So what we’re going to do to engage that is you’re going to take, at home, you don’t have to do it with your hands at the airport, but you know, at home to get in good practice of it, you place both hands here on your belly and I’ll go ahead and pull my shirt back this way so you can see. But both your hands and you’re just going to relax your belly. And then as you squeeze, you’re going to pretend like there’s an elevator and you’re just going to squeeze in a little by a little by a little. And so, you’re about seven to eight floors in, if you will. And then release it out little by little by little. So it’s like a horizontal elevator. Think Willy Wonka, right?
So it’s going side to side. You’re squeezing a little tighter, a little tighter, a little tighter. And when you think that you’ve squeezed as far as you can go, you can probably go a little bit more. I’ve seen it done many times. So you just want to practice that engagement. Now you’re going to have to be sitting up tall, so you start working on your posture at the same time. But we do want to work on that engagement, make sure that we’re getting the core engaged so that it can fire properly to carry all the extra weight.
So I know for myself, I travel with a lot of food due to food allergies and things. And I carry, really, I try to be as minimal as I can, but I’m still going to carry my bands. I’m still going to make sure I’ve got everything that I need. A laptop, those kinds of things. And so, my bag is pretty darn heavy. So if my core is not engaged, my back is going to be killing me by the end of the day. So, really need to have that tummy in tight. Have great posture with it.
Time To Stretch
All right. So number four, what can we do? We can stretch. So, a lot of times, you’re going to end up sitting down; so I’m just going to show you a couple of seated stretches here. So there’s many more that you can do, but this is just to get you started. Feet together, knees together, hand on the outside of the knee. And we’re going to go and turn the back. Now, you don’t just turn in bad posture, right? We got to sit up really tall, open the chest, and turn to the side. And each inhale, we breathe in tall and as we exhale, twist just a little further. You can hold that anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute and it will feel great. Make sure you do the other side as well, but be sure that this doesn’t happen right here that your knees don’t start to fall apart. We want to keep them together. That’s just going to help to stabilize and give your body more support.
All right, stretch number two is to be able to do a seated pigeon. Sounds a lot scarier than it is, I promise. So we’re going to take one ankle, cross it over the other knee. Easy enough, right? We’re going to sit up tall, hold the shin, flex that foot back, put your toes to your shin. That’s just going to protect your knee. And then all you’re going to do is think about that really tall flat back that you have and take your belly you have and forward it over your shin. So you’re not going to round to get there, you’re just going to keep extended and keep that belly pulled in so that as you’re reaching, you’re going to feel that in the leg that’s on top through that hip. It’s going to feel great. It’s going to be a good stretch. Just going to kind of combat the sitting and the non-moving during your layover and even the sitting while you’re on your flight.
For each of our clients, we provide that custom service that, if they’re training with us already, then we provide those vacation workouts. And then some people come in for a one-off deal. And we can do that too, but we do like to be able to help you through those tough times when you think, “What am I going to do until I can get to the hotel gym?” Or, “How am I going to work out whenever I’m on vacation?” So if that’s something you’ve been interested in, feel free to give us a call.
Hope you have a great day!