The very next week following my move from Virginia Beach to Dallas, my parents planned a family vacation aboard a cruise ship for 7 days. While the timing was not ideal, I would not have passed up this opportunity to spend time with my parents, siblings, nephew and of course my sweet MacKenzie. During our lives we will experience many stressful times, and I know what you’re thinking….How can a 7 day Caribbean Cruise be a stressful time? Well the cruise itself wasn’t the stressful part. The stressful part was that it was during a huge transition in my life.
Let me explain so that it all makes since:
First week of June, I packed up my home and stayed with friends here and there until my daughter’s school let out. Sunday, June 15th my 10 year old daughter and I loaded up the car and began our drive. Nine hours in the car on day one, then we got the chance to see and stay the night with my good friend and colleague Delaine Ross in Atlanta. Monday, June 16th got in a quick workout at Conditions Gym and then back on the road for 13 hours (became 14 hours as we had a bit of car trouble). Tuesday, June 17th we got the keys to our new home and had to put the car back in the shop. Wednesday, June 18th spent the day with family waiting for the moving truck to arrive. I spent the next two days unloading boxes and laying the flooring for my garage gym. Friday, June 20th as soon as I got my car back from the dealership MacKenzie and I began our 4 hour drive south to my parent’s home. Let me tell you it was like pulling teeth to get her to get in the car for another road trip so soon. And to add to the stress level, while driving my dad called and ask “Are you ready for another LONG road trip?” then proceeded to tell me that the flights didn’t look good and we might have to drive from Texas to Florida. So now I have a child about to lose it….crying “I’m not going on the cruise, I just want to go home”. Long story short..we ended up making a flight to a different city in Florida and only had to drive the last two hours.
Now that you understand the reason for my stress, I will move on……
During stressful transitions in our lives we have choices:
- Allow the stress to affect our priorities negatively
- Make a few adjustments & plan to meet our priorities
I choose to keep fitness my priority by planning ahead. By doing so, I can allow for a break in my strength training without being completely lazy for a week away from my equipment. This would be a “planned periodization”. Rather that hope the ship has equipment that I would use, I planned my workouts around a few tools that would only take up minimal space in my luggage.
I decided on a jump rope and my abs wheel. The rest of my training would be bodyweight. This plan allowed for a daily brief training session. Each session was about 15-20 minutes in length which allowed my vacation to still feel like a relaxing break before returning to Dallas to unpack my new home and prepare for my next out of state workshop a week later.
**I will be posting all the training sessions in detail to my COACHING CORNER soon. Each Training session will also have a vacation tip.
You have options for these sessions 1. Save them and use them on your next vacation or 2. use them now and add additional rounds/reps to increase your training time.
You will also see on several sessions I also worked with my surroundings to have other equipment, ex. ship rafters used for HLR or Hollow Holds. This ended up adding additional challenges as the rafters were narrow, so it added grip work to my sessions since I could only hold on with my fingertips.
I hope you visit my Coaching Corner and realize that you do not have to give up your training while you travel. Plan ahead or if you decide to rest the full week…well that’s okay also!
Hope you enjoy each of these training sessions. 🙂
And get to relax on a vacation soon.
** highly recommned visting, Bahamas, St. Thomas, San Juan and Grand Turk…they were all so beautiful!
