When Nike—or one of the other shoe companies—first invented the “cross trainer” shoe, it sparked awareness in most of us that there were types of exercise beyond lifting weights and running. There was a sudden rush of weightlifters to the exercise bikes and aerobics classes, and a dramatic surge of beyond-aerobics group fitness classes offered at gyms around the country. In general, this increase in variety was good. Like many things, there is a trickle-down effect when it comes to exercise. Someone comes up with something new, it finds a small following among elite trainers and athletes, and gradually—if it’s effective (or appears to be)—it works its way down to the rest of us, until we’re all attending a fitness kickboxing class. With fitness, the cream falls.

Cross training is a necessity for most competitive athletes. Without a solid fitness base, it is impossible to effectively specialize for a sport. For example, let’s say you want to play soccer, but you’ve never seen a game. All you know is that you have to be able to dribble the ball with your foot, and kick it into a goal. You become the greatest dribbler and shooter who has ever dribbled and shot, and you get a spot on the team. It’s time for your first game, and suddenly it’s time to run. Defend. Cut. You need to be agile. You need to be quick. You need superior muscular endurance and cardiovascular fitness. You need powerful bursts of speed to break from defenders. Yet you possess none of these things, and within minutes your exceptional dribbling and shooting skills are worthless in the face of physical fatigue. You collapse on the bench and, as you watch the game from the sidelines, the necessity of a fitness base hits you with the force of a corner kick to the forehead.

As true as this is for soccer, it’s just as true for basketball, football, baseball, softball and tennis. Any sport. And for life. So what’s the best way to achieve this fitness base?

Throughout the course of a year, nearly every client at The Fitness Camp goes on vacation or travels for business, sometimes for a week or more. Too often, it’s in the midst of an eight-week workout cycle. Facilities at the destination are unknown or nonexistent, and time is minimal. Under these conditions, how can a traveler be assured of maintaining fitness or, in some cases, actually improving fitness during a vacation with no equipment and little time?

High Intensity Interval Training

Theories and applications of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can be found across the web and in fitness literature. The Fitness Camp’s application of HIIT is frequent, varied and progressive. In a future article I will cover HIIT theory and how it is implemented at The Fitness Camp. For now, I will focus on the advantage of HIIT in a travel setting: HIIT facilitates maximum results over minimal time.

The Fitness Camp’s favored HIIT protocol for a brief 1-2 week period is the Tabata interval. This interval calls for 20 seconds of maximal effort on the prescribed exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest. The 20/10 interval is repeated  until the exercise sequence is completed. Click here to read about the research behind Izumi Tabata’s interval protocol. In the case of The Fitness Camp’s hotel room workouts, sessions will last a minimum of four minutes to a maximum of 20 minutes.

The following one-week hotel room workout sequence takes advantage of Tabata’s research and the results it delivers, as well as a few other intervals, building one upon the other. Workout frequency is four days per week. All exercises can be done with no equipment.

As you can imagine, I receive a lot of questions regarding how to lose weight. Let me begin by saying what the type of exercise I endorse can, and cannot, do for you. Our workouts are designed with three goals in mind: 1) Developing Power (Load X Distance / Time), 2) Improving Athleticism (speed, balance, coordination) and 3) Burning Fat. Practically speaking, Power is usable strength. How quickly/easily can you move yourself or something else a predetermined distance? Athleticism is the ability to direct your newfound powers and use them in the name of good. And when most people talk about "losing weight," they really mean they want to look slimmer and, thus, be more confident in their bodies. So, in essence, that's what The Fitness Camp (TFC) is created for - to make you more powerful and athletic, and to help you look better naked. Three valid goals.

The Facts of Losing Weight

Taking into account the fact that no one knows anything for sure, to the best of anyone's current knowledge this is how gaining and losing weight works: If you consume more calories than you expend each day, over time you will GAIN weight. If you expend more calories than you consume each day, over time you will LOSE weight. Since most people who approach me with questions about weight are in the business of wanting to lose weight, I'm going to address that side of the coin.