Hey there Muscles,

I'm on vacation this week... a last trip before baby number two arrives, and our wedding anniversary. The kind of week that's supposed to be about unplugging completely.

And yes, I still hit a workout.

The hotel gym was something else. A stationary bike that looked like it survived the 1970s, a treadmill positioned about two feet from a plain wall with one sad window for natural light that only a chihuahua could crawl through, and a rack of dumbbells that topped out at 50 pounds. That was it.

We got after it anyway (I shared some of my workouts from this week below).

Simple dumbbell work, chased a pump, moved well, felt human. Took maybe forty minutes. And I walked out of that basement feeling better than if I'd skipped it.

A Down Week Isn't a Step Back. It's a Reset.

Summer is here, and I know what happens. Vacations, family obligations, schedules that look nothing like they do in January. And somewhere in there, people make one of two mistakes:

1. They either try to maintain their full program and stress themselves out, or
2. They completely let go and spend two weeks undoing months of progress.

There's a better way.

Think of it as a coast week. You're not pushing. You're not chasing PRs. But you're not disappearing either. You're doing enough to keep the engine warm, protect what you've built, and come back ready to work when life normalizes.

Here's what that actually looks like:

• Two to three sessions of twenty to thirty minutes. Move well, get a pump, chase some blood flow. Dumbbells, bodyweight, a hotel bike from a previous decade... it doesn't matter.
• The goal isn't intensity. It's continuity.
• Keep your diet reasonably in check. You're on vacation, not a food competition. Enjoy yourself, eat real food, don't track every macro, but don't blow the whole thing up either.
• Hydration. Travel dehydrates you more than you think, and it's the easiest thing to control.
• If you can, take a nap. Get some extra sleep. Let your body do what it's been trying to do all year while you've been grinding.
• Let your mind decompress. Come back to your training with some hunger. That's not a loss. That's an investment.

Some of My Hotel Workouts from this Week...

The layout of these workouts was simple - get in there and hit the treadmill for a slow jog for ten minutes. Get the sweat going, feel the body warming up. Effort here was maybe a six or seven out of ten.

Then I hit the dumbbells. For each movement, the goal was 100 reps. I'd choose a weight I could do 20-30 reps unbroken (with good form and real intensity). Then I'd chip away at the remaining reps, resting the same number of seconds as reps remaining.

For example: 100 Bulgarian split squats with a 35lb dumbbell. I'm still sore three days later, by the way. I started with 30 reps, rested 70 seconds, then did 15 more. With 55 reps remaining, I rested 55 seconds. I kept going until my quads were quivering as I crossed the 100 rep line. Then I took two to three minutes to question my life choices, and attacked the other leg.

Day 1 - Upper

• ​Dumbbell Incline Bench Press​
• Dumbbell Incline Row - chest supported
• Dumbbell Lateral and Front Raise - this one I just did 100 total raises, and switched as needed.
• Dumbbell Skullcrushers

Day 2 - Lower, and Upper :)

• Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat - 100 per leg (do 100 reps on one leg, then do the other)
• Dumbbell Standing Calf Raise
• Dumbbell Shrug
• Dumbbell Spider Curl

Day 3 - More Upper (because my legs were smoked!)

• ​Dumbbell Flat Bench Press​
• ​Dumbbell Bent Over Row ​
• Dumbbell Overhead Triceps Extension
• Dumbbell Hammer and Palms Forward Curl - this one I just did 100 total raises, and switched as needed.
• Dumbbell Calf Raise

Planned vs. Unplanned

If this is a planned vacation, build it in. Give yourself permission to coast, enjoy where you are, and live a little. Just don't use vacation as an excuse to completely let loose... unless you're genuinely living a vacation lifestyle full time, in which case, we need to have a different conversation.

If life just got hectic and the down week is unplanned, keep hydration and diet locked in. Those two things are your anchor when everything else is chaos. Get in whatever movement you can, even if it's a twenty minute walk or a quick dumbbell circuit in a basement somewhere.

Either way, the goal is the same: don't be a slug, don't blow up what you've built, and get back on the horse when it's over.

The people who make the most progress over years aren't the ones who never missed a week. They're the ones who knew how to manage the weeks that didn't go according to plan and came back swinging.

That basement gym taught me nothing I didn't already know. But it reminded me of something worth sharing.

Stay strong, stay durable,

Mike

P.S. Next week we're back to the grind. If you want a simple program to come back to after your summer break, reply to this email... I'll point you in the right direction.

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