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Holiday Atrophy


Mike

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I'm away overseas shortly for a while (nearly 6 weeks) and am unlikely be able to train at all whilst im away, perhaps once or twice if i'm lucky, and that will be in hotel gyms.

Going to SE Asia and with the food there can be hard to get decent meals and travelling isn't really that good for eating regularly.

Any tips on how not to lose lots of weight. Thought about taking protein powders with me but thought if I get pulled up in customs by some non-english-speaking vietnamese communist customs officer I might come off a little worse for wear. You know, bringing in containers of powder...

Thanks

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Will you be moving around alot during your 6 week stint? You can try looking up gyms on the internet. Most hotels have FA weight equipment - but you could do some challenging BW exercises (like The McGuyver Workout) or take some resistance bands with you..

Have you done some research on whats acceptable in customs in the countries you're heading to?

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mate, similar thing has just finished with me moving to the UK. had 8 weeks off completely, diet turned to custard too. It's really hard to get back into it and frustrating because my lifts have decreased so much. not sure what you should do, maybe just accept and call it a recovery period?

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Burpees, lots and lots of burpees, 400 burpees.

Don't do 1000 sit ups a day, you'll get a small midsection like Gwen Stefani. (then in a few years you'll have such huge abs and obliques that you'll have a gut even with low bodyfat, like Britney)

Sorry, I'm being dumb tonight.

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I'd suggest over-reaching a bit. That is, workout out again before fully recovering. Franco Columbo used to do this before going away for a couple weeks, he would overtrain for a couple weeks, and then recover for a couple weeks. Go to t-nation.com and read the super accumulation program for ideas. Do single leg calf raisers, single leg squats (look up pistols), plyometric lunges, jumping squats, push up variations with a back pack full of stuff on your back, hand stand push ups, pull ups on a door, and isometric muscle tensing. Something is definitely better than nothing. You'll get in good condition and be ready to hit the gym when you get back.

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I'm off to countries in which I prbably wont have much access to gyms - india and 3rd world asia etc. Think I'm just gonna have to give in and get used to getting skinny again

Did you not read what I said? You don't have to lift "weights" to maintain muscle. Can you do over 30 single leg squats in a row? Can you do thousands of push ups on one and two hands like the guy I posted a picture of? (he has world records for doing like 5000 push ups) His triceps aren't exactly skinny are they? I'm going to assume you can't, which means you could do with a bit of improving in the bodyweight exercises department. If you can, well good on you, your probably in the top few percent of people in the world when it comes to general fitness and strength endurance.

That bald guy is Matt Furey, he's pretty big for a guy who doesn't do weights. Heaps of old time bodybuilders did nothing but bodyweight exercises and isometrics. Go to sandowplus.co.uk heaps of massive old school bodybuilders just pullings chains, doing push ups, chin ups, and squats. http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition ... sintro.htm (there is a pic of john peterson, who is the author of some isometric training books, he built his body by doing nothing but isometrics)

Look at gymnasts, most of them train by doing bodyweight exercises like pull ups, rings etc. (photo of andreas wecker who trains mostly with bodyweight pulling and static holds, I had a mate who was 3rd in NZ gymnastics, he could do a hundred chin ups easy, he had massive lats, biceps, and abs).

Don't let going to another country be an excuse to be lazy with your training.

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  • 1 month later...

Well I've just got back from o/seas and...

Lost 7 kgs in 5 1/2 weeks and have got a little fatter. I'm guessing I lost about 9 or 10 kg of muscle due to the rubbish diet and eating 3 times a day max. Fucken hot too so that didnt help.

Anyway back to the gym tomorrow morning to see how weak i've got.

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Yeah, gotta understand - Delhi belly +Bangkok belly + only eating twice a day quite often and it being between 30 and 40 pretty much all the time. Perhaps it wouldnt have been so bad if it wasnt for getting sick?

I'm naturally really skinny too and quite tall so weight just melts off me. Went to the gym today and am so unfit and weak.

Anyway, back into it.

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Yeah it was a combination of alot of things, and whilst I did get some quality advice - it's pretty hard to action some of that stuff when your away and actually doing stuff all the time, spending nights on buses and in dorms etc.

Anyway - no worries - will be interesting to see how long it takes to put that weight etc back on.

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