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Fitness on the Road
People will ask, hey, before I listen to this guy, who is he, what has he done, what are his qualifications?
Who am I?
My name is Greg Daggett, I am a Certified Personal Trainer with the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), a Level 2 USATF certified distance running (endurance) coach and have run 32 marathons, including qualifying for the Boston Marathon 5 times. My Certified Personal Trainer qualifications including several specializations, in Weight Loss and Performance Training, TRX trainer certified. I am a disciple of Dr. Steven Gundry for nutritional information and gut health.
This not about becoming a marathon runner or a body builder. It’s not about becoming a “health nut” with so many restrictions and requirements on your life that it takes away joy and becomes hard to stick with.
This “beginner’s article” is about including a base level of fitness into your life as a full-time RV-er with the understanding that life is a balance between fun and effort put forth for good health. You can always become better committed to this beyond the base level as you choose and you will become even more fit. I could expand quite a bit on all the points that are outlines here.
Fitness is activity and nutrition together
This article provides a limited amount of information. In essence it is a high level summary, or, sort of like some bullet points for a good start. Constraints on allowances for the size of this article along with the fact that the depth of doing this as completely as possible involves a lot more relating of information than fits in this space. Perhaps future articles or a blog will be established. This has more “what to do” and not “why do you do it”. The “why” can require quite a bit of explanation. The idea here is that, with the space given, pointing you in a better direction towards health, including ideas about how to exercise without a lot of equipment.
Being on the road presents challenges. With long term or full time traveling, you have to take your brain out of “vacation mode”. In vacation mode, that’s where you are in a temporary mode of leaning toward food excesses and laziness. There’s no grass to cut, you sit around a lot, maybe drink more alcohol than usual, and probably eat more than you should. A one or two week binge of this on a vacation is forgivable. But when you are doing this as a lifestyle rather than a vacation, you need to step up your game and focus on good eating habits and at least a moderate level of exercise… With an occasional moment of “letting loose”.
General Health
These are things outside of exercise to take on as part of your way of life. It includes what to NOT put in your body.
• Shift from plastic to glass or stainless steel for anything that touches food or drinks.
• Stop taking NSAIDS unless being directed by your doctor. This means ibuprofen, sodium naproxen, and aspirin. Use acetaminophen (as directed) and natural substances such as white willow and boswellia
• Limit your consumption of alcohol to one drink per day. No, you can’t save up and binge drink later.
• Try and get 7-8 hours of sleep per day. Tip—the blue light coming off computer screens and phones makes your brain think it’s time to be awake.
• Stay away from Teflon coated cooking products.
• Smoking? Work on quitting. Seriously.
• Avoid using toothpastes, shampoos and soaps that contain parabens, triclosan, etc.
Nutrition
• Drink lots of water. Generally, this is about 130 ounces (approx. 16 cups) for men and 95 ounces (approx. 12 cups) for women.
• Take a multivitamin with minerals daily, unless you have some kind of allergy or reaction to supplements (if you do, do some research). For men, this is one without iron. Women can generally use some extra calcium, especially as they get older.
• In the grocery store avoid the aisles in the center of the store as much as possible. Packaged foods have lots of stuff you don’t want to eat, including often the contamination of the food from the packaging itself. Stick to the perimeter of the store for almost all of your food.
• Consume the right balance of fats, protein and carbohydrates. The amount of calories you consume needs to be matched to your activity level, and the balance of fats, protein and carbohydrates needs to be matched to your activity level and the intensity of activities. Your protein intake should be relatively constant with a minimum of .8 grams per kilogram of body weight (kilograms is pounds divided by 2.2). A general example is like this: a 200 pound person is 90.9 kilograms. Multiply 90.9 times .8 and you get 72.7 for the amount of grams of protein that person should have as a base level. One cup of chicken breast is 43 grams of protein. 4 ounces of steak is about 31 grams of protein. So that 200-pound person that consumes a half pound of steak is at 62 grams of protein, almost their complete requirement for a day. However, if you are very active you can go up to about 1.4 grams per kg of body weight. You should not daily exceed 2 grams per kg of body weight for protein. Fat consumption should limit saturated fats but not entirely and there are “good” fats and “bad” fats. Example: canola oil is a bad fat, hydrogenated oils of any kind are really bad, olive oil is a good fat, coconut oil is a good fat. If you have health conditions where your fat intake needs to be limited, consult your doctor, and do some research. Your fat consumption needs to be low if you are not active. If you do long endurance type exercises, your fat intake needs to be higher. You need carbohydrates but in forms like from vegetables and non-gmo grains. If you do fast, explosive type of activities your carbohydrate intake needs to be higher. Your refined sugar intake should be very low. Note: this is a nutshell, each person can have personalized details, for example in terms of amounts.
• Cut back on sugar. Way back.
• Go organic and eliminate GMO foods.
• Avoid farm-raised seafood (opt for wild-caught) and grain fed meat (think 100% grass-fed, pasture raised, etc.).
• Manage your lectin intake! Lectins are naturally occurring substances in plants that protect the plant from predators, and should be avoided. Some have higher levels than others.
– Foods you should avoid, drastically limit, or prepare with high heat because of lectins. It is so important to basic health dealing with your gut and your immune system. I urge you to do some more research on this. Here’s a few important ones. There are many more.
► Seeds and skins of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash family, potatoes and rice unless pressure cooked, canola oil, hydrogenated oils (look at the ingredient labels!), beans and cow milk that is not from grass fed cows.
– There are foods that are lectin free or very low and can have nutrition that feeds the good bacteria in your gut. Some of them are:
► Asparagus, walnuts, avocados, coconut, grass fed beef, wild caught seafood, extra-virgin olive oil, olives, flaxseeds, pecans, pistachios, sweet potato, goat milk, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, lettuce, mushrooms, beets, pasture raised poultry, eggs from free-range chickens.
Physical Fitness
Before you begin any exercise program, or elevate your exercise levels, you must make sure you are healthy enough for exercise. This is especially true if you are currently a “couch potato”.
A starting point is to complete the NASM Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q) below.
Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q)
| YES | NO | |
| Has your doctor ever said that you have a heart condition and that you should only perform physical activity recommended by a doctor? | ||
| Do you feel pain in your chest when you perform physical activity? | ||
| In the past month, have you had chest pain when you were not performing any physical activity? | ||
| Do you lose your balance because of dizziness or do you ever lose consciousness? | ||
| Do you have a bone or joint problem that could be made worse by a change in your physical activity? | ||
| Is your doctor currently prescribing any medication for your blood pressure or for a heart condition? | ||
| Do you know of any other reason why you should not engage in physical activity? |
If you have answered YES to one or more of the above questions, consult your physician before engaging in physical activity. Tell you physician which questions you answered YES to. After medical evaluation, seek advice from your physician on what type of activity is suitable for your current condition.
If you are a smoker, do not engage in rigorous physical activity until you have checked with your doctor.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends for adults 150 minutes (2.5 hours) per week of moderate intensity aerobic exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic exercise or a combination of both, at a minimum, spread throughout the week. Children and adolescents ages 6 through 17 years should do 60 minutes (1 hour) or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily and should include vigorous-intensity physical activity on at least 3 days a week.
Moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity means you’re working hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat. One way to tell if it’s a moderate-intensity aerobic activity is that you’ll be able to talk, but not sing the words to your favorite song. Unless you are jogging through the course, golfing is not moderate intensity exercise, for example. (If you are breaking a sweat playing golf due to the activity level, you should consult with a doctor!)
This amount and intensity of exercise is not only for better heart health, but also to reduce chances of many illnesses, and to improve the quality of your life and how you feel at rest.
Exercise while full-time traveling can be challenging but it is not impossible. But don’t jump into a level of intensity that is significantly greater than your current state. Begin gradually, increase as you are able and occasionally “cut back” for a week to allow time for recovery and repair.
Exercises for Aerobic fitness
Remember, moderate intensity is required and that is as continuous as possible and breaking a sweat.
Without Equipment
• Walking briskly (your speed should approach that of jogging)
• Hiking on hilly terrain
• Jogging
• Swimming
• Calisthenics such as Jumping jacks, burpees, skipping.
With equipment as available
• Bicycling
• Skating
• Cross Country skiing (continuous intensity)
• Rowing (canoe, kayak, paddleboard) with a continuous intensity
• Playing sports like tennis, basketball, volleyball
Exercises for Anaerobic fitness
These are short duration bursts done repeatedly with short breaks in between each burst.
• Sprinting short distances
• Tennis played aggressively
• Resistance training with weights or stretch bands at a fast pace with light weights
Balance Training
It might seem like a simple thing, and when you are younger easy to ignore, but as you age your ability to balance becomes reduced without efforts to work on it. As people age, tripping, falling becomes more prevalent due to lack of balance. Balance training not only strengthens your entire kinetic chain (ankles, legs, core, etc.), it also trains your vestibular system (this lies within your ears).
As always, exercises need to start from the very easy and progress to more advanced challenging ones over time.
Simply standing on one foot, raise the other. Make slow movements with the raised leg and arms to change your center of gravity. Then try it while you are moving your head in circles. Then with head stationary, try it with your eyes closed. Then, eyes closed and head moving in circles. Then try it doing all of that but another activity like brushing your teeth.
From just the singe foot on the floor you can progress the challenge but standing on something that is less stable, like a pillow. You can progress to standing on something that is off the ground slightly but narrower than your foot. You can add in a crouch.
Other exercises such as kneeling on all fours then raising up one limb and keeping it off the ground, moving it around. If you know what a ‘plank’ is, then a side plank where you lift one leg can be very challenging.
Walking around in your bare feet is great for balance training.
Doing exercises like planks increase strength in your core area and this helps a lot with balance ability.
Using a TRX Trainer device can include exercises that challenge your balance.
Strength Training
If strength training is done with a quick enough tempo, then the time spent can be counted as moderate intensity exercise, i.e., breaking a sweat. But you can only count the time actually performing a movement (not the rest periods between sets for example).
Strength training is important for lots of reasons. If you don’t have any equipment you can do body-weight exercises. Some items that you have in regular use around the campsite can be used for some exercises, like doing arm curls with a pail or pails of water.
Without equipment
• Pushups
• Plank exercises
• Horizontal “biking”
• Walking lunges
• Body weight squats
• Calf raises – toe of foot / feet raised on something like a curb.
With equipment
• TRX Trainer
• Stretch bands
Circuit Training
This is a method that incorporates a mixture of aerobic, anaerobic and strength training. You mix things together in repeated cycles. An example would be to start with a jog, do some strength training exercises, run a few sprints, run up and down some hills, do some ab exercises, do some jogging….
Flexibility Training
Just want to mention that full-range stretching should only be done on warmed up muscle so after exercise. Sure, it’s okay to do some light stretching prior to anything else, but the range of motion should be somewhat limited. It’s also important to note that it is tight muscles that should be stretched, not muscles that are already loose. One area that most people suffer from being tight is the hip flexors (that crease where your legs meet your torso in front). This comes from sitting—that area shortens and becomes tight. Women that wear high heels a lot develop calf issues.
Combination Training
Some exercised combine aspects, such as balance and strength.
• “Get off the floor”. Simply get down on the floor in any position and get yourself back up to standing. Use various positions and techniques. If you’re young this will be ridiculously easy but as you age you will see the challenge in it. Good beginner exercise.
• “Crouch to sit”. Basically a movement like you’re going to sit on the couch but before your thighs come parallel to the ground you stand back up.
• Balance and strength training can be combined by doing various things like standing on one leg while doing an arm exercise.
Without a gym, it is still possible to become fit using body-weight exercises and if it fits your budget, purchasing some lightweight, easy to transport equipment.
Yoga
Yoga is great for balance, strength and flexibility with meditation is good for being peaceful.
One final note. Everyone is different in terms of health conditions, allergies and so forth. If you are unsure of your situation or experience bad reactions from anything you need to consult your doctor.