Travel Shovelglove?

[madacebo]

Hey everyone,

I've been SGing for a while (say a year), and the few times I've had to travel I've just not really exercised (I just stretch out every day pretend that the long days and long meetings burn off all of the restaurant meals!). Work trips are starting to get longer and more frequent now, so I need a solution! What do you guys do when you need to travel?

Gyms aren't an option, partly because of the long days, partly because trips are short and in different countries so logistics are a hassle, but mainly because I don't like gyms. I often travel to my company's headquarters, and while I feel I've built a real rapport with my colleagues it's not at the point where I'd ask one of them to store a sledgehammer for me

So I'm imagining some kind of strong, lightweight plastic handle with an Aquabell or two attached to the end. I don't know if such a handle exists, though, and since I'm in South America at the moment I'm not sure I can get Aquabells (for a reasonable price) either. So... has anyone come up with a good portable SG? (All advice taken at my own risk of course!)

Thanks
madacebo
(Loving SG and No-S, soon to be forced into Weekend Luddite, having trouble with 2 Drinks a Day)

[JWL]

Hi there, I'd consider bodyweight exercises, something like Hindu Squats and Hindu Pushups. These require no equipment whatsoever and are very challenging.

[Jammin' Jan]

I agree with Freakwitch...bodyweight exercises are a good idea. Push-ups, triceps dips, crunches of various sorts, squats and lunges should give you a good equipment-free workout.

[carolejo]

This thread is also very interesting to me, with the amount of travel I have to do. Currently, I'm spending about 3 out of every 10 N days away from home.

I've found in the past that a skipping rope is easy and small to pack. I used to jump rope in the hotel carpark for 10 minutes every night, but I stopped doing this a couple of years back. I think I might restart it, as I find that easier to do than the bodyweight stuff. Somehow it helps me to have a focus object with which to exercise, besides which I've never been able to do a single pushup successfully, and the exercise is mentally bound up with tortuous school PE sessions...

Perhaps it's about time I reclaimed these things as my own. Afterall, I'm not 12 anymore, and nobody is standing over me, forcing me to attempt them whilst my classmates laugh.

C.

[gratefuldeb67]

My junior high coach was a major jerk! LOL....
Poor us!!!
LOL..

Yeah CJ! You can beat your own behind now!
And, know what???
At this point, I actually enjoy laughing at myself when I exercise!
It breaks up the deadly serious attitude and makes it fun...

Love,
Deb

,,,who had a great Yoga practice a little while ago...
Yay Yoga class!
Yay Larry..
Yay Me!!!

[carolejo]

Funny, isn't it..?! Here's me, generally a happy-go-lucky, confident sort who doesn't mind making a fool of herself by jumping up and down in a hotel carpark, yet I somehow don't want to do pressups in my own hotel room with nobody else watching...

Oh well. I guess some of us are just a little bit unhinged!

Go Deb! Your Yoga stuff seems to be going really well. I'm planning on finding out about the Yoga class that takes place just down the road from me and joining up this week if poss. Could be amusing, as I'll tie myself up in knots, I'm sure

C.

[gratefuldeb67]

Yay Carolejo!!!!
Let me know how it goes!!!
And remember to breathe through your nose!
(that rhymes )

Love,
Deb

[gratefuldeb67]

PS.. Hi Madacebo!!!
Como esta usted???
Te gusta el ShovelGlove! LOL ????

Es muy excellente que practicas los movimientos por mas que un ano!
Bravo!
Paz y Amor,
Deborah
(disculpa me por problemas con mi grammatica! Me enseno mi misma en Espanol! LOL...)

[Kevin]

I've been thinking of making a pair of "indian clubs" out of PVC pipe with a threaded fitting on one end so I can fill them with water. I'm imagining that a 1-1/2" pipe stepped down to a 3/4" inch handle would only have to be maybe 18" long to weigh five pounds full, and they'd weigh only ounces empty, and would cost less than $10 to make (assuming you have PVC glue). Five pound indian clubs could be used in-hotel-room to provide some serious exercise.

Or maybe just a pair of collapsible water jugs?

[carolejo]

Hey Kevin! That's a pretty cool idea. I might investigate it too, if you don't mind.

C.

[reinhard]

Madacebo,

Have you seen the original design document for shovelglove?

The idea was to make it portable. But travel was never much of an issue for me, and such a device would have been flimsy and unsatisfying and hard to make.

Here's what I do instead, excerpted from a previous post:

Even pre-9-11, sledgehammers and airplanes just didn't
mix. So what's a shovelglover to do when he flies on
vacation? This was the conundrum I had to face last
week.

Honestly, my plan was just to skip exercise
completely, lie on the beach and relax for 7 days. But
I got antsy. I'm so used to my 14 minutes every
weekday that I had to do something. The economy hotel
we were staying at didn't have much of a gym, so I
didn't really have any props. But I figured the spirit
of shovelglove: imagination, resourcefulness, and
schedualistically insignificant time would be enough.
So for 14 minutes each day, I did whatever exercises I
could think of to perform in the limited confines of
our hotel room, from pushups to situps, to backpack
curls and sack hoists, to the "wall of pain." Not
nearly as much fun as swinging a sledgehammer, but not
a bad workout. By the end of the 14 minutes I was
pretty winded, and couldn't do a single pushup or
situp more. I think this represents a new zen-like
level of shovelglove mastery: shovelgloveless
shovelglove, shovelglove of the spirit.

Be that as it may, it's nice to be home swinging
actual steel again!

Reinhard

[gratefuldeb67]

Hey Reinhard,
That original Shovelglove design looks like you have three donuts on a stick!
LOL...

That would just make me hungry!

Love,
Deb

[madacebo]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the excellent advice.

I tried hindu squats and pushups for a session this week and really enjoyed them. Those, then some of the "regular" no-equipment exercises, plus a jump rope (great idea, a piece of rope is so... shovelglove), I'm sure I can get a good weeklong-trip solution together.

Now for the longer trip solution- I just moved into the place I'll be living for the next 5 months. I've discovered that it doesn't really have any SG-friendly spaces, plus I'm having trouble finding an 8-lb sledge (not time for 12 yet!). Reinhard, that design doc is awesome, I can't believe I missed it on the site. That's really what I was thinking of when I posted. Given my limited engineering skills, though, Kevin's idea sounds like the way to go. I have a cousin who's a master of PVC (he can make a plastic digeridoo that actually sounds good) so if he and I come up with something cool I'll share it here.

Saludos

[gratefuldeb67]

I have a cousin who's a master of PVC (he can make a plastic digeridoo that actually sounds good) so if he and I come up with something cool I'll share it here.

My friend Simon made a great sounding didge out of pvc...
It's a "Slide" didge! LOL..
You can play in multiple keys, and it's light to carry..
Just get pvc in two different diameters and then glue strips of thick fabric to the end of the inner pipe so it creates a seal.... Then you can slide up and down with it! LOL...

Have fun!
Peace and Love,
Deb

[gratefuldeb67]

I have a cousin who's a master of PVC (he can make a plastic digeridoo that actually sounds good) so if he and I come up with something cool I'll share it here.

My friend Simon made a great sounding didge out of pvc...
It's a "Slide" didge! LOL..
You can play in multiple keys, and it's light to carry..
Just get pvc in two different diameters and then glue strips of thick fabric to the end of the inner pipe so it creates a seal.... Then you can slide up and down with it! LOL...

Have fun!
Peace and Love,
Deb

For soundclips of my friend!
www.naturebeat-music.com
Enjoy

[Sixty]

So what's a shovelglover to do when he flies on vacation?

Reinhard - I hate to think of you frantically throwing around furniture and shovelgloving the mini-bar when you're on vacation just in order to get a decent workout.

Are you familiar with Dynaband? It's a gizmo that rolls up to the size of a tube of toothpaste when you travel. Unrolled, the Dynaband is about 2 yards long - it looks a bit like toilet paper made out of a rubbery inner-tube-like material. Weighs nothing, costs virtually nothing (maybe $10?) and can give you a great workout.

Here's what it looks like:

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=1 ... tnG=Search

I was on vacation last week, and did 14 minutes of dynabanding every morning - movements like "start the lawnmower", "shoot the arrow", "lift the bucket" and things like that. Seems to be a very good vacation filler for Shovelglove, and doesn't take up any space in my luggage.

When I got home, I found that the dynaband had really boosted my ability to do chin-ups, which seemed effortless after the vacation.

Dynabands come in different thicknesses - from light to heavy. I use the heavy-duty gold one which is guaranteed to give you muscle burn.

Sixty

[reinhard]

Thanks for the information, sixty! That device certainly does look practical.

But I kind of enjoy working with the resources at hand. It's fun! A bit of an intellectual challenge. And of course, I don't get nearly enough vacation for this to be much of an issue

Reinhard

[Sixty]

But I kind of enjoy working with the resources at hand.

That makes sense, especially since the key idea is really to do some (any!) kind of workout routine for 14 minutes five days a week.

On the other hand, it's pretty handy to have something with you that is so small, convenient and guaranteed to give you a good workout when you're on the road.

Sixty

PS: Here are some of the exercises you can do with a Dynaband:
http://www.praeventivsport.at/heimtrain ... aband.html
http://www.fwonline.com/exg01.htm