Hi, I will be taking a 14 h flight next week for work (flying from Singapore to France). I have adapted my LV plan for the travel period, and will have no scheduled rides during the week i’ll be working overseas.
The flight is at midnight and i really want to sleep while on the plane, which is scheduled to arrive at 7 am paris time.
To help sleep on the flight, do you think it would be wise to do a 1 h endurance workout on the morning before the flight?
Thanks!
I have traveled a lot internationally, especially before the pandemic. In my experience, doing workouts the day of the flight is not a good idea. It added unnecessary stress and robs your body some energy to cope with jet lag.
So instead, my strategy was to do sports when I arrived, provided it fit into the travel schedule. That’s especially true if I arrive in the morning and have to try to stay awake. Doing sports then worked well (some easy run).
I’ve often trained on the day of a flight. I actually find I sleep better that way and the OCD side of me also feels good about getting the workout in.
Different things work for different people but I wouldn’t let it hold you back. Certainly a 1 hour Endurance ride shouldn’t have too major an impact one way or another.
Perfect time to get a hard workout in in my opinion. If I’m going to travelling (particularly international), I know I won’t be doing any training for a period of time. Travel isn’t perfect recovery (lack of sleep, poor eating sometime, etc.), but it is typically time off the bike for me and I try to use it as recovery time.
It’s a low risk type of situation. Doing or not doing this one workout won’t make or break your plan. One workout can boost your HRV to help better cope with the flight and jet lag. At worst, this one workout will make you extra tired on arrival to Paris, but you will be tired anyway. Decisions, decisions…
If the flight leaves at midnight, I think your natural boy rhythms will help you sleep on the flight. Don’t think a 1 hr endurance workout earlier in the day is going to impact that much, either way.
Assuming you are flying in economy, the biggest question is whether you can sleep in an upright position for that long……that will probably be the determining factor.
thanks everyone for your replies. at this point, im still undecided but will of course think about it further. several points to add after seeing the replies:
I’m often this travelling for work and always try to squeeze in 90m pre flight. Never had any issues and actually helped me not feeling restless when sat down for an unnatural amount of time.
My other main regimen is to change my meal plan to the destination timezone to reduce jetlag. Works every time, just need to be disciplined and fast if necessary.
@minameisneo If you have enough time in your schedule that you can fully recover before heading to the airport l, there’s no harm in doing it IMO, but if you don’t sweat it.
I travel quite a lot, and find that working out on a travel day helps me to sleep during the flight. Makes me physically tired but mentally relaxed.
I also try to go run in every morning on business trips - it really helps with jet lag, and gives me a chance to see something else than airports, hotels and conference rooms.
Running is a great way to see a city when you travel….I have had some wonderful runs in Taiwan and China over the years.
Heading to Taipei this weekend and for the first time in 25+ years of traveling there, I am bringing a bike with me. We are staying in North Taipei and the hills are within a couple KM of our hotel. Really looking forward to finally riding out there.
Super interested to hear your experiences with this. Please post afterwards. Been close to 10 years since I’ve been to Taipei and never had a chance to bike there.
Will do…I mapped out an initial route on Strava that I hope is pretty good. Fair bit of climbing…
There is also a bike path that runs along the river that I can use to do an outdoor workout, if I want…but that would also be kinda boring, so I’ll likely stick to exploring the hills.
I think that depends a lot. It sounds like you are an experienced traveler. So am I. I. e. I don’t fret coming to an airport I have never been to. In fact, I have my favorite airports for transfers — and least favorite airports, too. I can pack things very quickly and only forgot something important once in the last 20 years. (I was under a lot of stress the week before and had to work until 2 am or so the day before the flight. I forgot to pack socks. As in at all. And I’d spend 4 weeks in Chile … Fortunately, those are easy to come by.)
But we shouldn’t forget that the act of traveling can mean a lot of anxiety for people who aren’t used to the act of traveling itself. When my sister came to visit me in Japan, just the trip stressed her out. Adding a workout to that is not great if that leaves you less time to triple check that you packed everything. Just something to consider, I think.
Wow…I cannot begin to describe how awesome this ride was. We are staying in Taipei North and it took me less than 1 KM to start climbing on secluded mountain roads. You’d never know you were so close to the largest city in Taiwan. Just spectacular…kinda upset I never bothered to do this before.
Looks amazing! Traffic ok? Looks nice and quiet on the one picture.
Almost none…an occasional car or scooter coming by. Most of the roads were small, narrow mountain roads, not much more than 1 1/2 lanes wide. Can’t believe these roads were so close to Taipei…just superb.
More rides to follow!
Airline pilot nearly 30 years now. International and domestic with 4 major airlines, 1 cargo airline/operator, 1 corporate and 1 commuter/regional airline.
I’ve found it very important to sleep well and wake up the day of travel with out an alarm clock. Get that last rem sleep later in the cycle. You might be surprised how hard it is to sleep (on a plane) coming off of bad sleep.
As for a ride I don’t think it matters unless it causes you to take a prolonged nap late in the afternoon.
Dress comfortable and cool. I use earplugs and mask. Don’t be afraid to ask flight attendants to cool it down. If you are sitting by a flight attendant seat by a door especially the entry doors(s) the area gets cold and the FA’s will either have limited control of the heat in certain zones and/or will ask the pilots to warm specific zones up. The zone by those doors can get warm in the middle of the flight. Depending on the experience of the pilot and/or the actual airframe the temperature control can be a bit of bracketing to find the right temp. More than I want to get into but, we can over adjust and forget about it until the FA calls up and tells us to cool it down. So annoying. Beware.
Plenty of opinions already posted, but the most poignant item I saw was to ride just so you’re in the right frame of mind… Roughly…
Ride your workouts as scheduled, but don’t skip an extra day of endurance just because you have a 14 hour plane ride. Sure, there’s a whole sleeping issue, but I can’t sleep WELL in an economy seat anyway, so if I just deal with any additional discomfort from either a hard workout or 90 minutes of spinnings… At least my drive to train won’t be the issues keeping me up.
I would worry about really stretching myself on the day of the flight, as I don’t want deep vein thrombosis to be a ME thing, but if I always ride 90 minutes of zone 2 on a Wednesday, I’d happily do it again.
I’ve just come back from a 2 week trip of Australasia for work and where possible, I’ve ridden, even on days when I was flying. I felt better for the fact that I managed to get a ride in. What I also do is to try and walk a minimum of 2km at the airport once I’m through security just to balance out the 14 hrs of being in a plane. And, I also treat myself to a delicious croissant from Bacha Coffe 
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