San Pedro De Atacama, Chile: 1,000 Reps, 7,875 Feet High

After hiking Villarrica Volcano, I was excited to get out of the cool mountain weather and find some sun and heat. I chose to head north in Chile to the desert of San Pedro De Atacama. The tiny town near the borders of Bolivia and Argentina is known as a hippie oasis with crazy natural topography and good

music. I stayed at the Atacama Adventure Wellness & Ecolodge for four nights and I was pleasantly surprised. It was pricier than your average hostel, but accommodations were few and far between in town and I could not find anyone on Couchsurfing that was willing to host me. The lodge itself was beautiful and the rooms were great. It is, however, a bit difficult to find the lodge from the bus station and is about a 15 minute walk from the town itself. Luckily, the lodge does have bikes that you can take at no charge into town and around the area as you explore.

It was a struggle to find any sort of gym to workout at so I decided to get creative. One of my best friends from Chicago, Cole Shubert, will be woofing on a farm in Colombia for 3 months and he asked me to come up with a body weight workout program for him during his time on the farm. I figure that I cannot create a workout and not do it myself. I know that to be taken seriously I have to be able to do the workouts that I come up with! So, I decided to take on my “Road to Hell: 1,000 Rep Inferno” workout. Let me tell you it was way easier to write this workout down then actually do it! If it wasn’t hard enough, I chose to do it during the hottest part of the day at 1PM when it was 25C (80F) in the driest place on Earth with the added twist that San Pedro is at 2,400 Meters

 (7,875 Feet) above sea level. I wanted to show that I could have taken any one of these facts and turned it into an excuse, but I still got the work done. As I started the workout, I could feel my lungs burning and the thin air made controlling my breath during exercises more difficult. The workout took me longer to finish because I took more breaks and made sure I stayed well hydrated. I recommend having at least 1 liter of water with you and some BCAA’s before and after to rehydrate you. I completed the workout in 1 hour and 15 minutes, but on average it should take anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on your rep range and how many rest periods you take. I completed the workout on a small, shady section of the lodge. The exercise can be done virtually anywhere and make sure that you have either a chair or bench nearby to do dips on. That is all that is needed! Travel. Fitness. Together. The CarryOnTravelFitness way! Workout is posted below:

Road to Hell: 1,000 Rep Inferno Workout:

You have to do these exercises in order and you cannot move on to the next exercise until you finish all 100 reps of the current exercise. Do any rep range that works for you and allows you to complete the workout. Welcome to the Desert :)

100 Burpees

100 Sit Ups

100 Pullups/ If not, High Knees

100 Walking Lunges

100 Pushups

100 Jumping Jacks

100 Dips

100 Mountain Climbers

100 Calf Raises

100 Air Squats