FROM "FITNESS FOR TRAVELERS," COURTESY OF COVEY MEDIA
	The one-legged lunge, done off a hotel-room bed, is a great workout for the front and back of the thigh as well as the buttocks.

One thing that's not so easy to rationalize: the argument that it's impossible to work out while on the road.

"Whatever equipment you have, whether it's great equipment or not, however much or little time you have, whatever shape you're in — there is no excuse," says Suzanne Schlosberg, author of "Fitness for Travelers: The Ultimate Workout Guide for the Road" ($14, Houghton Mifflin).

A Los Angeles writer who is a contributing editor to Shape magazine and co-author of "Fitness for Dummies," Schlosberg admits that she, too, gets lazy when she travels, which helped her come up with what she calls the top five travel workout obstacles:
 

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1) "I don't have time."

2) "I'm too jet-lagged."

3) "I'm too tired."

4) "There's no equipment."

5) "I don't have the motivation."

Sound familiar? They're not all that different from the excuses we make at home. The obstacles are just magnified when you're traveling, Schlosberg says.

She offers suggestions to counter each of them, from working while working out (reading reports while on a stationary bicycle), to choosing a quiet hotel room with lightproof curtains, to planning and crossing off workouts like business appointments.

One strategy that deals with several of those obstacles is paring down your workout schedule.

"I don't think people realize how much exercise is necessary to maintain your fitness," Schlosberg says. "It's the intensity that matters, not how much time you put in. For strength training, 10 minutes, twice a week, can do it, as long as you use the same intensity." Recent research has found that workout novices can make significant gains in just 15 10-minute sessions of exercise each week. Plus, for most people on vacation, "Your goal is not to increase your fitness but to maintain where you are."

Schlosberg presents a general guide to strength and cardio workouts using conventional hotel equipment. When that's not available, she likes jumping rope, climbing stairs and doing calisthenics. She offers workouts using stretchy bands or your own body weight with the furniture in your hotel room, and gives hints on how to train when the pool is too small for swimming laps. (For each workout, she collaborated with a different trainer from the American Council on Exercise.)

A chapter on "Eating on the Fly" includes her warnings and picks among fast food. Wendy's wins her overall vote, for its salad bar (with reduced-fat or fat-free dressing) as well as its chili, baked potatoes and pita sandwiches.

Schlosberg includes information on exercise facilities at major hotel chains, guest-pass policies at national club chains, and workout facilities near and massage services in major airports.

I agree with Schlosberg that, besides your own legs, travel workout equipment doesn't get much easier than those flat, stretchy bands, which are inexpensive, weigh practically nothing, take up less room than a pair of socks and can be used for as many strength-training exercises as you can think up.

Such bands can be found at many sporting-goods stores. (For the nearest dealer of one popular brand, Thera-Band, call 800-321-2135.) Some other books with band or tubing workouts: "The Great Stretch Tubing Handbook" by Michael Jespersen and Andre Noel Potvin ($8.95, 888-221-8833; www.productivefitness.com); "Tamilee Webb's Original Rubber Band Workout Book" ($11.95; includes two resistance bands; 800-737-1825; www.naturaljourneys.com) and "Get Stronger by Stretching" by Noa Spector-Flock ($24.95, includes one Thera-Band; 888-232-4444; www.trafford.com).

And when all those ideas just don't pan out, if you've been exercising regularly you can always fall back on one of my favorite approaches to vacation exercise: Take time off from working out.