I’m back on gym. Back back. It’s proper now. I’m watching Athlean-X videos and everything now. I’m buying bulk loads of Serious Mass. I’m not quite calorie counting, but I’m being extremely mindful of what I’m eating, and – most importantly – I’m making sure that my training plan is consistent and that I’m progressing my volume. There’s just one issue that stands in my way of hitting my (non-existent) goals and that’s the fact that I keep spending nights elsewhere.
Since the restrictions have lifted, I’ve lost count of how many nights I’ve had away from home. It’s crazy how much we missed this from being trapped for a year and a half. Although I’m trying to plan my rest days around these trips, we keep having situations where we change plans at the last minute and my training plans suffer.
While I keep planning to bang out some reps with resistance bands in my hotel room, it never seems to happen. If we’re with the kids while we’re away, we’re usually so tired that we end up going to bed early with them. If we’re away without the kids, it often ends up that me and Hollie are so preoccupied with other things that it slips my mind, and I just can’t keep letting it happen.
I’ve got to get my priorities in line. Right now we’re at about 70:30, with the majority of these nights away being work-related. With that ratio, I’ve got to make sure that I’m making good use of my time and not allow my fitness suffer just because I don’t happen to be in the right city at the time. So from now on, myself and Hollie have made the decision that, unless it’s not feasible, all hotel stays from now on will be ones that include gyms.
My first foray away with this in mind was at one of my most frequented out-of-Notts locations – the Crowne Plaza in Chester. Their facility is banging. Their gym equipment fulfils pretty much all of my needs, the place is spacious – with plenty of room for probably 10 people to do their thing without disrupting one another – and they’ve even got a pool!
I’ve written this pretty much as a warning to let everyone else that may use it that I’m about to become a regular, so please don’t hog the stepper.