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| Can you picture doing your workout in a hut? |
When choosing your fitness dvd there are some guidelines you should stick to, to make the dvd workable for your vacation.
1) You must make sure that little or no equipment is necessary to perform the workout. If there are a lot of free-weights, pull-up bars, stability balls, etc. required to perform the workout, you won't get anything done in the confines of your hotel room. If you can throw some exercise tubing in your bag or you don't mind 3 lb weights in your suitcase, that's an option, otherwise, this needs to be body weight friendly.
2) Time is of the essence. When you're on vacation, you're probably not going to have the time nor the desire to do a long workout. You want a workout that will be quick, intense, and effective. Nowadays, a lot of workouts are tailored towards this kind of time effective training, so you can decide to do a portion of the workout in as little as 20 minutes, or complete the whole thing in an hour. Vacations can be few and far between, so you don't want your workout to feel like it's cutting into precious holiday time.
3) Make sure you can perform the workout in a small space. Most fitness dvd's are created so you can perform the workout in your living room, but you still need to make sure that you aren't going to have to cover distance to perform the exercises provided. We're talking small hotel room. It needs to be travel friendly.
Here are my top 3 recommendations for fitness dvd's that cover all of the criteria listed above:
- Jillian Michaels: Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism-- This workout covers all three of the guidelines for a perfect fitness dvd. There is absolutely no equipment required, you can choose to do the full 45 minute workout, or break it up into time sensitive circuits, and you don't need a ton of space to do this workout. Done! Get it at amazon.com.
- Billy Blanks: Tae Bo--If you know me, you know I love Billy Blanks and I love Tae Bo. Billy has been kickin' it for 35+ years with this workout, and he's still cranking out new dvd's. You can actually find some of his videos on youtube, but be a sport and support by purchasing from his website. Most of his dvd's do not require any equipment, but some have been known to use "Billy Bands" so double check before purchasing. Even if the exercises do require bands, they can easily be packed in a suitcase, but a workout without equipment is preferable. Billy also offers short 30 minute workouts and in some of his newer workouts, you can break them down so they can be shorter or longer, depending on your time constraints.
- Jillian Michaels: Kickbox Fastfix--(yes, another Jillian gem) I recently blogged about this dvd and I'm pretty crazy about it. I used it a couple times as my workout of choice on a trip home to Chicago last week, and I was sweating my butt off in my hotel room. Since I downloaded it on itunes and I had my laptop with me, it was a piece of cake to get my workout in. Jillian breaks this 60 minute workout into three 20 minute workouts that are intense enough to be the one and only workout you need for the day. The only downside is the small amount of equipment that you need for the first workout that focuses on arms, but really, only a few exercises require hand weights, and you can fudge it without them. Or you can do what I did and focus on the last two workouts of the series where no equipment is required at all. It was still 40 minutes of high intensity fun, and I was wiped by the end of it.
