For many, air travel is a stressful and unhealthy experience, but not for me. I like drama and excitement as much as the next man but not during air travel!
What I do is get to the airport 3-4 hours early. First thing I do is see if there is an earlier flight I can catch, often there is. Sometimes they charge a bit to hop the earlier flight, worth every penny. A crowded middle seat on a flight leaving right NOW is infinitely better than the proverbial two birds in the bush – a nice aisle or emergency row seat on a later flight. Any time I have passed up the earlier flight for a better seat, I have regretted it. Often that later flight gets cancelled or delayed then you realky kick yourself for being seat-greedy.
So what happens when I arrive 3hrs early and I cant do standby on an earlier flight? Why I exercise of course! Travel days involve lots of sitting so top priority is cardio. I do laps around the airport power walking. You can also have fun pretending you are a stressed out traveller running to catch a flight but folks catch on after your third or fourth lap around the airport. Airports are a great place to people watch, enjoy it!! So after I do my cardio, stretching is next priority. Ten or fifteen minutes of hamstring stretches helps a lot before doing a marathon sitting session on an airplane. Next up, crunches for abs. By the way, yes, people DO think Im weird. I just plop down on the floor at some sparcely populated gate waiting area and do my exercises. If you are self-concious, feel free to wear a shirt while you exercise. As you can see, I still dont own any shirts. Dont bother being discrete, help start an airport fitness trend! Those are the important exercises I like doing before boarding a flight. If I still have extra time, Ill do pushups too. You will be amazed how much more pleasant flying is when you board the plane totally exhausted. Now just a word of warning. As much as I love pullups, do NOT do them at the airport! The TSA is understandibly edgy these days and anywhere you could do pullups would look very suspicious indeed. Unless you want to spend the afternoon in an airless, smoky, TSA questioning room answering lots of questions, please skip the pullups.
Some folks workout at home before their flight then have an incredibly stressful ordeal racing to the airport, getting stuck in traffic, waiting in long check-in lines, waiting in mile-long TSA security lines and then missing or barely making their flight. Who needs that kind of drama and stress??? Not me! I get to the airport early and excercise there! Stop thinking of airports as some dreadful place to be avoided, they aren’t! Airports can be fun, its all in your attitude and preparation.