Working out while travelling in the Philippines

[traveller]

I'm traveling around parts of the Philippines for several weeks. Training consistently and keeping a reasonably healthy diet during this time has been rather difficult. In the capital, Manila, my hotel had a decent, fairly stylish modern gym and a few blocks away there was a Gold's Gym location that offered more weights than the hotel. I was disappointed not to see any decent sized bodybuilders at Gold's. One of the trainer's at the hotel gym, who was nicely put together, could probably compete in the lightweight division.

Further south on the island of Luzon in a small city full of colleges, my hotel, located within a local college, had a surprisingly decent gym consisting mainly of machines and a moderate collection of dumbbells. I cannot remember the manufacturer of the weight machines, but that same line of machines can be found at one of the high-end gyms in my area in the U.S. That college gym was part of an olympic-size swimming stadium that was built for an ASEAN swimming competition a few years ago. That sports complex looks very modern and somewhat futuristic. I have to admit it looks a bit out of place compared to the dwellings that surround the school's campus. While I do miss the varied equipment and quantity of weights at my home gyms, I enjoyed the high-tech cardio equipment with cable tv, and the clean, well-maintained equipment. The only drawback was the lack of air circulation in the gym because its air conditioning units were kept off. The gym was as hot and humid as the outside air; think of the weather in the Florida Keys during July without any breeze.

I'm now further south in a town on the island of Leyte where the heat and humidity make Manila weather seem balmy. I attempted to work out in what my hotel calls a gym which is really a storage room that contains some unused gym equipment which is barely enough to provide a good warm up before my main workout. The hotel staff, after some thought, recommended that I go to a nearby gym which I can reach by pedicab (i.e., a bicycle taxi contraption). The directions to the gym were rather vague, because the locals seem to know where things are located, not how to describe how to reach any particular location. Being out in the sticks prepared me for a rather basic gym that had geckos (or something similar) crawling here and there on the walls. The gym equipment consisted of a decline bench, some upright stationary bikes, several dumbbells (that were heavy enough for a warm up), a pull up station, a tricep/lat pulldown station and a few straight bars. This limited equipment was a bit better than what the hotel offered. I tried working out my arms and back for a while, but the smoke billowing from the nearby fires made the air unfit to breath. In this town, and in many other places, the trash isn't collected; it's burned in everyone's yard. I don't like breathing air I can see, so I fled the gym. I hope I can work out in the morning there without the smoke from burning garbage.

On a side note, you can buy Andriol and Proviron at local pharmacies outside the capital. These two items are produced locally in the Philippines but aren't the most desirable if other choices are available. I was told that everything else is imported. In the capital pharmacies may be more restrictive about what they sell to someone without a doctor's prescription. In the boondocks, you simply ask the pharmacist for whatever you want. If it's in stock, you can buy it. Manila has some classified ads that claim they can deliver other items at a high price (from the locals' point of view), but you don't really know if they're counterfeit.

--traveller

[SWMassMan]

i travel constantly for work too, and finding a good gym and buds to lift with is always a challenge. Looks like you went above and beyond in your efforts here.

Good to be among the biggest guys on the island, isn't it? ;-)

[traveller]

I don't mind being bigger than most if not all those I've seen in the local gym, but it's hard to fit into the pedicabs and jeepneys. I hate trying to fit into the space allocated for the typical local who's about 100 lbs. lighter and slimmer than I am. On a recent side trip to the provincial capital, I rented an air conditioned van that included a driver (around here car rental includes driver; American drivers on local roads would be hazardous to local inhabitants) for the 5-hour roundtrip drive. The public alternative in a jeepney that lacks air conditioning and personal space would be unpleasant for me to say the least.

Personally I prefer cool or cold weather because I can generate a lot of body heat. My partner, for example, uses me as a heater to warm up in bed during the winter; having cold feet pressed against mine can be mildly shocking if I'm not fully asleep. I sweat profusely in hot, humid weather. A thick layer of sweat on my skin makes me feel miserable especially if the air is still. I think, on a positive note, that the hot weather is helping me lean out. I guess my body is expending more energy than normal to cool me off when I work out in an open-air gym.

I'm so looking forward to returning to the capital in a few days, so that I can work out at a gym with 45 lb/20 kg plates. I haven't been able to bench press or squat for about a week and a half now. Variations of push-ups and single-legged squats without weights really don't do much for me. I've been emphasizing core conditioning exercises that my trainer taught me because they don't require weights.

--traveller

[garrix]

How much longer are you going to be there? I know there are some members of this board who are from the Philippines... and would certainly be familiar with bodybuilding there. Are you enjoying your trip?

[traveller]

I leave on Sunday. Despite my online gripes about lack of gym equipment and, depending upon the area, lack of strong air conditioning, I am enjoying my trip. I knew in advance that conveniences and services I have at home won't be available in many places I visit except in the capital, Manila. The things I learned about the different locales I visited will be useful for my next trip. There are loads of places I learned about during this trip that I want to visit over the next few years.

My strategy for my next visit is to select comfortable (i.e., posh) resorts I want to visit and use them as bases for day trips out into the countryside. I do love air conditioning and other modern conveniences. Dealing with heat, humidity, crazy driving habits and lots of local air pollution (e.g., dark, think, raw exhaust from motorized vehicles, burning trash or yard waste, and roadside cooking fires) during the day is tolerable when you have a nice, luxurious room to sleep, or cocoon, in at night. My tentative plan is to ship an offroad motorcycle to the Philippines, get out of Metro Manila as quickly as possible during non-rush hour traffic, and ride around to different islands via ferryboat. I'll give myself another year to learn about the feasibility of exporting a motorcycle to the Philippines and back, and drop shipping clothing and other items to different resorts in advance. I also have to research the ferry accommodations for the different ferry routes.

I love the fresh fruits that I can eat in the Philippines that I either cannot get in California, or cannot get fresh with any real flavor since they were shipped unripe. I love the local cuisine when prepared by a good cook. Tonight I had deep fried tilapia (fish), pancit bihon and pig that were delicious enough for me to thank the cook, but I do try to eat fried foods infrequently when possible.

One thing I regret about this trip is not going to a powerlifting gym in Ormoc, Leyte which is owned and run by a local physician who is a powerlifting enthusiast. It would have been great to train there instead of where I trained for about a week. I really do miss having a good variety free weights right now. The nice gym I trained in today only has dumbbells that go up to 50 lbs., and it did have several 45 lb. plates but they only could be used on a Smith machine because there is standalone bench for bench pressing or a cage for squatting; I don't like the Smith machine's fixed track.

Phew...what a mouthful.

-traveller