Did you know that muscle starts to atrophy after just one week of rest?!?!?!

NOW, HANG ON, let me finish! Every once in a while, it does a body good to take a week off, but can you imagine if one week, turns into two weeks, which turns into three weeks, then months and years. You could lose pounds of muscle in a short time period!

And guess what, at some point during our 30’s, we lose muscle mass and function. Physically inactive people can lose as much as 3-5% muscle mass every decade. Even in you are active, you’ll still have some muscle loss.

PLUS…It’s easy to get out of a habit! Hello vacation and the weeks following! And it’s way harder to get back into the habit!

Does your workout have to be hours on end while you’re away on vacation? Nope, not at all, keep it simple.

You don’t need much equipment and ANY amount of time you can devote is better than nothing whatsoever.

Check out the video below for simple exercises done with one dumbbell.

You can set yourself a timer (I use an app called Seconds Pro) and if all you have is a very light weight, try to max out your number of repetitions during your work time and rest very little.

If you have heavier weights, you may want to group an upper body exercise with a lower body exercise and do 3 to 4 sets of anywhere from 8-15 repetitions. Again, the heavier the weights, the less repetitions you will do at one time. The goal being to make the last several repetitions challenging.

For example:

Do three to four sets of 8-15 reps.

1A goblet squat
1B 2 point row

2A dumbbell clean
2B Overhead Press or Press from the ground (floor press)

3A Step up right
3B Step up left

Another example would be to set it up as a circuit, such as 40 seconds of work, 20 seconds of rest(or any interval that would work for you) and do as many rounds as you have time to fit in.

Or do 8-15 reps of each and complete as many rounds as possible for the allotted time you have to devote!

1A goblet squat
1B 2 point row, switch sides halfway
1C dumbbell clean, switch sides halfway
1D Overhead Press or Press from the ground, switch sides halfway
1E Step up right
1F Step up left

At the very least, try not to be a complete slug on vacation. It’s always a great idea to compliment your normal routine with something different, for instance, walking on the beach, riding a bike, paddleboarding or kayaking, going for a hike, etc.

Any time you move your body versus staying sedentary is a good thing!

So, here you go…a simple workout with little equipment required!
Click below for the video that details the exercises to do!