Improving strength while staying in a hotel can be a daunting task. In addition, it is easy to make excuses because of lack of equipment and give in and take some time off. Taking time off leads to the body feeling soft and flabby. Instead, do a few bodyweight workouts to have the body feeling better, maintain strength, and hold onto those lean gainz.

Before we dive into the bodyweight exercises that can be performed in a hotel to maintain that lean upper body strength, we want to point out that completing some banded external shoulder rotations using PowerLastic bands. It is a great way to warm up the upper body, upper back, and shoulders. It gets a little pump rolling into feeling pretty good.

We always forget how versatile push-ups are.

Go ahead and get a close grip. Pump out the reps to almost a full lockout. Just get a pump going to get the triceps feeling nice and swole. It is nothing crazy and is nothing fancy. Do this for four or five sets of fifteen to twenty-five reps.

This will provide a nice lead-in to the more explosive work. Realize when doing upper body bodyweight work, the big payoff comes from the explosive upper bodywork.

Now, the thyroxine will be rolling in the elbows, the shoulders feel nice and loose, and it is time to kick it into high gear.

A big key factor when training in a hotel room and doing bodyweight movements is to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. Do a lot of high reps with short rest to accomplish this.

This movement is freakin awesome and is explosive as hell. It is fast and dynamic and leads to a nice squeeze in the pecs. This will lead to a lot of tension.

Put a towel on a tiled floor. Have the hands wide. Explosively perform the push-up and simultaneously slide the hands into the center, below the face. As fatigue sets in, hold the tension under the face for a reasonable count before hitting the next repetition.

The key factor to bringing the hands together is to light up the pecs. The cool thing about focusing on the tension the rear-delts will start feeling it as well. The mind-muscle connection will become more activated to help give more pec activation and blowing up the bench press.

We recommend completing five sets of twelve to fifteen reps.

People say all the time that traveling and doing bodyweight movements will cause a loss in strength gainz. We call shenanigans.

Just remember when traveling, explosive work and overhead work will help maintain strength in the upper body.

This next movement is HARD.

We recommend putting a towel bunched up where the head will be making contact with the floor. Control the descent so the neck doesn’t suffer any absurd amounts of force when making contact with the ground. Kick up to a wall and begin performing the overhead bodyweight press.

We like to accumulate sixty reps of this movement. Ideally, we get there by performing five sets of twelve reps. Do this and no strength in the upper back, shoulders, or triceps will be lost. This will blow up the military press back at home and greatly assist stability in the bench press.

This first movement is super explosive. It is pretty hard.

Substitute clapping push-ups if the beds are too high to explode up to. Don’t make an excuse.

Get as many reps as possible over the course of four sets. Whatever it is, it will help finish the lock-out on the bench or throw stiff arms in a football game.

The Horst extension is an awesome tricep exercise. This movement will target the abs but lights the triceps up as well. The arms get smoked. To perform the movement find a desk or table in the hotel room. Grab the edge of the table and make sure the table is in a position where it will not tilt over and collapse but will support one’s body weight. From there lean the head-on into the desk or table, bending at the elbows. When the head can go no further, go ahead and extend the elbows to lockout and set those triceps ablaze. 

The key is to do a solid warm-up before utilizing the incredibly versatile push-up and all of its varieties to get a solid upper body workout that targets the back, pecs, and all the other muscles that make pressing and pulling actions accessible. The next key is to make sure the movements performed are explosive. By making the movements explosive, not only will strength increase while lacking weights, it will create a more dynamic mind-muscle connection for more powerful movements when able to return to the weight room back at home. Don’t let the hotel be a reason to make excuses for not exercising. Instead, use the creativity of the surroundings to continue making gainz.