"Making Time for Active Rest
Hey folks! This is Claire from The Ascent Blog coming to you while Elizabeth is at the beach! Jealous of her vacation? Me too!
Before Elizabeth left for the beach, she posted on my wall and asked for some suggestions for travel workouts. I started thinking about sit-ups, squats, lunges, push-ups, and other bodyweight movements that were easy to string together… but then I stopped. Why not just let a vacation be a vacation, even from working out?
Don't get me wrong--as a CrossFitter, I love dropping in at new CrossFit gyms when I travel. I also personally find exercise to generally be enjoyable (did I just say that? yikes), so the thought of NOT working out for a whole week while on vacation sounds like a bummer. But I also think that vacation should be a time for branching out and just being active, instead of worrying about getting your "workout" in for the day.
Sometimes you need to give your brain a break from the calculations and the stress of every day life (and every day workouts)… but that doesn't always mean that your body needs a break, too! Being on vacation gives you a chance to explore a new place by bike, sprint down the beach just to scare a group of seagulls, spend a few minutes being ok with being the adult on the monkey bars, or even just go for long walks. In my mind, those things definitely count as exercise--and even though they might not contribute directly to your specific fitness goals, I think that they can be even more valuable than hitting a PR or working on your hill sprints, because they bring you back to the root of WHY being in shape is fun. Because let's be honest, how much fun does it really sound to be doing Burpees or worrying about rep schemes while you should be hiking up a cliff so you can jump back off into the ocean, or hanging onto a tube for dear life as you're whipped around behind a speed boat?
One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to go surfing. And not because I am awesome at surfing--actually, I suck at it. I can barely stand up on a surfboard, and when I do, it's for about one millisecond before I am back in the water, swallowing the next wave that's crashing down on my face. I can only spend about 15 or 20 minutes surfing at a time because otherwise it sort of turns into drowning. But I still love it, because it always means one thing: I am on vacation!
I also absolutely love going to Moab, Utah, which is a very hot desert with the Colorado River running right down the middle. And even though it isn't technically "working out," I never feel more deserving of a cheeseburger and a milkshake than after a long day watching my fiancee rock climb.
Do you feel the need to work out in a gym on your vacations? What is your favorite thing to do when you're on vacation that keeps you active but isn't necessarily "working out"? "
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