You finally made it! But now the real work starts – touring… There’s no doubt that every star ever interviewed will not deny the demands of touring.
While many may adore it and others live for it, the sheer enormity of moving from city to city, performing show after show, takes its toll on health.
In this article, we discuss the benefits of fitness on tour and when travelling in general.
Takeaways
- Why it’s critical to stay fit when travelling
- What that means to your busy schedule
- Ways you can stay fit when travelling or touring.
Benefits of Fitness for Bands
Functional Strength
Whether you are travelling or touring, functional fitness remains a top priority because it maintains your muscular-skeletal strength and prevents weakness from continually overusing movements.
You’ll see a lot of repetition when on holiday with walking or if you’re on tour and performing. Functional strength supports the primary levers around the body and provides good all-over conditioning.
Looking Good
Touring often means late nights and irregular food consumption, often high-fat meals in restaurants and hotels.
Exercise helps to maintain body weight and keeps you looking good, which is good for your self-esteem and for your fans.
General Health
It is well known that fitness helps maintain your body’s immune system, and when on tour, this is essential for avoiding cancellations, which can be costly to you and the production companies. So, taking health seriously and improving your fitness while on tour is very important.
Similarly, when travelling, it’s often for business or pleasure, and in both cases, being unwell will impact the outcome of the trip.
Maintaining Energy
Regular exercise helps maintain energy because it keeps the body functioning properly and ensures that all of the necessary energy exchanges occur correctly.
Someone who exercises regularly will find it easier to maintain their energy levels than someone who exercises frequently unless they’re overdoing it!
Where Is the Proof?
Fitness is not always easy, and not everyone enjoys it. Typically, people want to focus on other things, be it touring, business, or just enjoying their travels.
We see countless examples of bands using alcohol and drugs to supplement their lifestyles while completing gruelling schedules touring.
This was notably the reason for the infamous Black Sabbath rockstar Ozzy Osbourne’s exit in 1979. Drug abuse and alcoholism had a significant impact on Osborne’s physical and mental health, which is common knowledge and reported on wikipedia.org.
What is less widely reported is that the star does use a gym and trains to improve his physical strength, primarily to avoid becoming immobile. Proof that understanding health sooner would have limited longer-term health problems in later life.
Ozzy Osbourne “I’ve been working out every day,” the “Crazy Train” singer said. “I’m trying to get back on my feet.” – People.com
Also reported by Village Gym is the benefits of keeping fit while you travel, quote –
“There’s an array of benefits to keeping fit while travelling. Taking part in regular exercise whilst you are travelling boosts your energy levels, giving you the most out of your time away. Keeping active boosts your mood and clears your mind, allowing you to enjoy your new destination to the fullest.” – Village Gym
Why It’s Critical to Stay Fit when Travelling
As outlined above, staying fit while travelling helps maintain functional strength, is good for general health, maintains energy, and helps you look good.
We’ve seen evidence of lifestyle impact on rockstars like Ozzy Osbourne and explained why staying fit is important.
Here is a recap: Maintaining or actively training while travelling supports your immune system it improves your mood, clears your mind and allows you to enjoy what you’re doing to the fullest.
All of these things are essential when you are on a tour for months at a time. Clearing your mind and maintaining a good sense of self while keeping a close eye on your personal health will ensure that you do not go down the rabbit hole that could be detrimental to your health.
How Can You Stay Fit While Travelling?
The biggest issue will always be trying to find time while on tour or understanding the type of exercise to do, in the following paragraphs, we cover this.
Finding Time
This is often the biggest challenge when you miss a big tour, or travelling around. There are things that you can do to help yourself and this can include popular exercises such as running.
Running is effective because it provides high calorific expenditure, which is brilliant for maintaining weight. It is also really good for heart health and provides runners high.
It can be impractical to try and run at odd times of the day or in new places that you’re unfamiliar with, but it can also be a good thing because it means you won’t get bored.
Don’t be over-ambitious
Don’t be too ambitious. While this sounds detrimental, it’s the opposite. By being overambitious, you are less likely to continue to exercise and, therefore, miss the incremental benefits of regular exercise. So don’t try to do too much, but do enough to keep yourself engaged and to see the benefits.
Other things you can try may include the following;
Bodyweight exercises, push-ups, situps, mountain climbers, even star jumps.
Light equipment, a folded bench, and some hand weights could easily be transported and used by you and other team members. Kettlebells are also a significantly useful universal weight that is small and easy to bring with you on tour. According to Mirafit, even 10 kg dumbbells can be used for a variety of exercises.
Go and walk
Walking improves general fitness thanks to the use of larger muscles in your body, which are linked to skeletal strength, such as the back and legs.
This type of exercise will also improve your mood and heart health and provide you with a sense of location. After all, you’re on a tour. Go and see the places you visit, spend some time, even just an hour.
Final thoughts
We’ve explained why it’s critical to stay fit, along with the benefits of staying fit, and even provided a few examples of how you might stay fit while on tour.
We have used references and sourced quotes to support this article and provide some insights to remind you that fitness is important when you are travelling, especially when you are touring as a band.