I do a fair amount of work-related travel.  One thing I’ve learned over the past year or so of doing regular CF workouts is that there are a whole host of challenges and temptations for the travelling Cross Fit athlete.  The most obvious challenge is the nature of travel itself: up early to the airport, sit in a confined space getting dehydrated, sleep deprivation in crappy hotel beds, jet lag.  Couple that with the fact that most hotels these days are sandwiched between TGI Fridays and Chili’s and travel, whether for work or pleasure, has to potential to drive your diet, your performance, and any gains you’ve made, straight into the toilet. And lets face it…any hotel that claims to have a fitness center is just plain lying to you.  A broken eliptical and some out-of-order cable machine have very little to do with fitness.

There are plenty of places online to lookup travel WODs to keep you going in your hotel room and in most cases the only things required are your regular workout clothes and maybe a jump-rope if you want to get really creative.  Here’s a list to get you started in your hotel room, but a google search will reveal pages and pages of compiled lists of options.

Travel WODs for the solo CF-er away from home are neat, but I like the community in the gym and I also like variety.  Thankfully, there is a trend in the CF community whereby most boxes will allow travellers to attend workouts while they are in town.  I love this option as I work in a small box that is still acquiring equipment and I enjoy being challenged by workouts I wouldn’t typically be exposed to.  I recently took advantage of this custom and dropped in on the nice folks at CrossFit Asheville. Shanna and Corey Duvall run an excellent facility and have created a very welcoming community of athletes that were encouraging and happy to have me in.  Randy Kite was about as enthusiastic a coach as you’ll find at a 5am WOD.  I was definitely challenged and was coached and given input just like any other regular client.  It was an awesome experience to work with them and I’ll definintely go back on future road trips as long as they’ll have me.  Shanna has a very cool programming technique that I’ll discuss in a different post.

The etiquette:

a) Typically when you’re visiting someone else’s box, you’ll want to contact them in advance of your arrival to let them know you’re coming and find out about any liability forms, local customs regarding workouts, etc. BE HONEST ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE LEVEL!

b) Always advance schedule your attendance at a WOD.  I typically try to do this in a way that does not affect their normal clientele.  For example, if the 5 pm WOD is typically full, I’ll shoot for a more sparsely attented time slot. Typically this means I wind up in a 5 am WOD but I’m an early bird anyway.

c) When you get there, ask questions if you’re not sure about something.  There’s no better way to piss someone off or come off as rude than to walk around like you own the place and know how they do things. This should be common sense but just be smart and considerate.

d) The typical etiquette during a visit is to make some sort of a contribution to the box.  Some places may have a predefined fee that they charge for drop-in visits while other places may ask you to buy a shirt or make a donation.  I like to have a CF shirt from all the places I visit so I typically buy a shirt or two. NEVER complain or negotiate…you’re a guest.

e) If the box turns you down or otherwise is unwilling to have you in, for gosh sakes thank them for their time, wish them luck, and SHUT UP.  It’s their box and they’re free to run it how they want.  Complaining about it just spreads ill will.  This has only happened once in all my phone calling and emailing around so it is rare.

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