Body Maintenance While You Are Overseas

Ever felt like taking a vacation but having that nagging fear you will lose all your hard earned muscles? You are not alone. Many regular gym goers and endorphins junkies feel that they would come back from vacations smaller, weaker and lighter. But is this true? Will you lose your muscles without training for a week or 2?

Muscles exist for a reason. They are dense fibers developed as an adaptation after sessions of stimulation in the gym to assist in the lifting of heavier weights next time you go back there. So, stimulation does help you to maintain and develop greater muscularity through time. This also explains why people are concerned that they will go back to looking scrawny or feeling weak after a long vacation of lesser activity.

My take to this is: Stop worrying! There are in fact benefits to taking a vacation that goes beyond just the shopping gains.

Joints recovery

If you hit the gym 5 times a week, training a body part twice a week with the goal of a personal best in every session you are in fact putting your joints under a great deal of stress. You are after all, human and a reasonable practice is to follow a period of unloading from the increasing intensity week after week. This not only allows your body to heal but also allows you to come back stronger. Assuming a scenario when you are not on vacation, it would still be beneficial after a long season of cranking things up in every training session to taper down the volume and resistance to allow your body to recover.

Allowing any overuse injuries to heal

Whether it is bad form or just a bad day, there are times you might just let things slip a little in the gym. A moment or inattention might result in a strained tendon or lack of warm up leading to pulled muscles. Because of the sheer dogged determination I know many of you have, you continue to train through your injuries, opting instead to tape up that joint or putting on the topical cream rather than letting your body heal. No surprise that pharmacies are selling Ketoprofen in the form of Fastum Gel like hot cakes. Therefore, vacations are good opportunities to allow your guilty conscience a structured understanding that hey – it’s time to rest and heal. And for sure, a healed injury will allow you to come back lifting heavier weights with less grimacing of teeth.

Gaining a fresher perspective on life

Admit it. Singapore is a competitive society. You go to work early in the morning, enter your office, check your emails and sit through meetings after exhausting meetings. Come late afternoon, you still have to finish your daily work load. And after work, because you are so committed you find your legs walking towards the direction of the gym. And with grunts of pent out frustrations you cranked out that personal best of 200kg ass-to-ground squat or of it’s a chest day, that 3 plates per side bench, leaving others with their jaw agape.

Alright, exaggeration here but doing this 5 days a week every week and every month will tire anyone out. Go away and come back fresher, less stressed and rejuvenated. Psychologically you will also feel better about yourself. You have earned your time away. Stop being so self-punishing.

I’m sure some of you are thinking – but you haven’t answered the question of whether I will lose my mass while away. It is a valid concern. Of course you don’t want your hard earned muscularity to disappear. So the answer will depend on how long you are away and what kind of vacationing you are doing. A week or two of rest will in fact be good for your body and people have said they have come back feeling better and stronger but longer than that, because of the lesser stimulation the muscles received, there could be a loss of muscularity but not drastic like what most people fear. Also if you have decided to do lots of cardio such as trekking and hiking in your trips, you would also come back leaner which is not necessarily a bad thing.

So here are some ways to ensure that your overseas trip helps maintain mass.

Maintain a consistent diet

If you have been eating 4 to 6 meals a day in Singapore, don’t stop once you are vacationing. It is ok to let your guard down a little but opt for healthier alternatives such snacking on fruits in between meals. Instead of fried food all the time, you can consider grilled meat.

Bring along your supplements

Protein, whey protein and some meal replacement powder comes in travel pack forms. So you could use these as a quick boost of energy or recovery after a long day of walking or hiking. All these will contribute in some way to enhance your metabolism.

Bodyweight exercises

There are bodyweight exercises that you can do while vacationing. There are so many different types of pushups that work different parts of your chest, arms and upper body in general. Crunches that work your abs, obliques and bodyweight Hindu squats that work the legs. You might even come back with greater muscular endurance have a new level of accomplishments in the gym.

Conclusion

Book that flight of yours, go away for a while and come back stronger, healthier and fresher. The gym will always be here but treasured moments on your own or with good company that you might have overseas are precious.