In this podcast, we plug into Christine's experience and discuss how she would handle travelling to a bodybuilding comp, we discuss how to prepare yourself for long-haul flights, and how to set up the perfect conditions when you land.
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In this podcast, we plug into Christine's experience and discuss how she would handle travelling to a bodybuilding comp, we discuss how to prepare yourself for long-haul flights, and how to set up the perfect conditions when you land.
Muscle Talk - Bodybuilding podcast by International Protein
If you want your own questions answered on our bodybuilding podcast, then join our private Facebook Group and share your ideas, https://www.facebook.com/groups/muscletalk
If you'd like to learn more about International Protein, visit https://www.international-protein.com/
A Thinkroom production.
https://www.thinkroom.com/
Ash Horton:
Our host, the world renowned Christine Envall, an IFBB professional, three times world champion, a mentor, an icon, and of course, a founding co-owner of the best supplements money can buy, International Protein.
Ash Horton:
In this podcast we plug into Christine's experience and discuss how she would handle traveling to a comp. We discuss how to prepare yourself for long haul flights, and how to set up the perfect conditions when you land.
Ash Horton:
So today, Christine, we want to talk about traveling and bodybuilding. So one of the main challenges to anyone's fitness goals is consistency. And I don't know, when you travel, you're thrown out of your routine and trying to get back on track is the tough part. Now, I think we touched on this in other podcasts in the past, but I'd really like to know your tips on how to travel and actually body build at the same time.
Christine Envall:
Cool. Well, actually I want to talk about how to travel and body build, but also how to travel for a bodybuilding competition.
Ash Horton:
Right.
Christine Envall:
Because that's something that hopefully people who are competing do actually aspire to compete more than just at their local shows, even if it's only traveling within the country. But at least, hopefully traveling internationally if they're successful enough. So firstly to tackle the topic of traveling, keeping your routine and still bodybuilding. I think the main thing, or my main tip there is that you need to have a routine. So, if you do have a consistent training program and a cardio regime that you do, it then means when you travel, you have to look at, "Can I do it at the same time or do I have to switch my times around? But, I still in essence want to keep that same thing.”
Christine Envall:
So, if you do a cardio session and a weight training session, you may not be able to ideally do the cardio in the morning and the weights that afternoon, like what you normally do. You may have to look at switching that around whilst you're away. So, it's going to depend on so many things. Like, it's going to depend on, are you away for a holiday? Are you away for work? Because if you're away for work, obviously you're confined to certain times when you're going to be at either business meetings, or a conference, or whatever it is that you've traveled for.
Christine Envall:
So my suggestion would be, and thank goodness we're in the era of Google, wherever it is that you're traveling to, Google or check out where the gyms are in relation to where you're staying. And in this day and age there's going to be something, and worst case scenario the hotel that you're staying at, it's going to have something which is better than nothing.
Christine Envall:
So even if you can't ideally do your full routine, to me that's not an excuse to just drop it completely. Like the idea is that you look at what you can do, rather than what you can't do, and try to keep something that resembles a sort of a workout so that when you get back to your normal routine and your normal life, you haven't totally just dropped a lot of fitness. Because fitness does drop very quickly. Like one session off of legs and the next session that you go back it feels like you haven't trained them in six months, and the pain that you get afterwards. But I think the key things there are, rather than looking, "Oh, I can't train at the perfect time or I can't do something at the time that I would like to," it's more like looking at the structure of your day and looking at what you normally do and try to fit those activities in.
Christine Envall:
So it may mean that you have to do your weights and your cardio at the same session, or you have to do like a version of what you have been doing. But I guess the main thing is that something is better than nothing. And trying to keep some sort of semblance of a routine. So for example, before COVID, I spent a lot of time traveling back and forth between the U.S. and Australia. And my routine in Australia is one way because of how my day structure is. And my routine in America is it is almost like flipped around. So I'll be doing my cardio later, or I will do a different sequence of events, but I still fit everything in. And still basically have my same meal structure. It's just, things are at different times. So that's the other part of it is that the traveling and the food and battling with what's available, and trying to stay on track with your diet and that type of thing,
Ash Horton:
Just adapting to what's available, the resources around you. You might be in an area where it's just inappropriate to do certain things.
Christine Envall:
Well that's way around. I mean, again, depending on where you travel to, if you're traveling anywhere within, even within Australia, New Zealand, Asia, America, even Europe, there's going to be something that somewhat resembles what you normally have food wise. But this is also again why you travel with protein powder, because if nothing else, you know you're going to be able to get good quality protein. Because that's normally the hardest part of traveling is that if you go to some places to get meat, and again, China's probably a really good example when we've traveled there, because a lot of the food, the meat content at restaurants is very, very low. Like it's very higher vegetable content and that's all well and good, but when you're trying to bodyboard, you want to have protein.
Christine Envall:
So, having access to protein powder or finding a Western restaurant where they're serving steak and things like that is your best options, but it isn't as easy as what it sounds. But if you're going to America, you're going to have the opposite trouble. You're going to have like an abundance of food and trying to, I guess, not being tempted to go and eat 10 times what you need to eat, just because they put it in front of you over there.
Christine Envall:
So those are some of the challenges, but there's also the option of getting yourself a good set of resistance bands worst case scenario. Or learning some more like plyometric exercises and body weight exercises and things that you can do, just to keep yourself kind of, I guess, keep your body active and keep it moving. Because I think-
Ash Horton:
So worst case scenario you're doing something in the hotel room.
Christine Envall:
Yeah, yeah. Because to do nothing is worse, and then just to kind of like totally throw that routine out the window. It's harder when you get back to then get back into that routine. So having, I guess, looking at what you do is key components or key items that you do. Like I do a cardio session, I do a weight session and these are my five meals. And trying to keep yourself somewhat in that structure. Or adapting, say for example, I think you mentioned, Ash, you had to do like some boozy lunches and-
Ash Horton:
Oh, it is. And sleep, sleep gets me. So if I'm knackered, getting up the next morning at six in the morning, or I know that's probably late for you-
Christine Envall:
Yes.
Ash Horton:
When do you wake up? 3:45.
Christine Envall:
3:45, yeah.
Ash Horton:
Yeah, I'm not at that level. But for me getting up at six and actually wanting to exercise after having to do dinners until midnight and a few drinks along the journey, as a job it really derailed me. So that's why I don't do it anymore.
Christine Envall:
Well, there you go. That is also, I guess, another option, isn't it? Is to assess how does that fit into your lifestyle and find something that's more conducive to it, but say that that is your lifestyle. Again, when you go out, looking at menu options, there's always a salad, there's always a lean option. You don't have to eat the fries just because they serve it with the meal. You can always ask to substitute. Most places now do have fresher, lighter options. Definitely you see that coming through into the hotels where they actually even promote that, the fact that they have a more corporate fit type of identity and you can get leaner foods. It's not all just dodgy kind of foods. So when you go out, it's smarter choices. So if you do have to eat out a lot. If alcohol is involved, I don't know much about alcohol at all, I don't really drink, but I do believe you can split things and maybe every second drink's a non-alcoholic wine or ask for sort of more dilute things.
Ash Horton:
It's the lemon, lime and vodka, which is your go to kind of very low, if not no calorie kind of option other-
Christine Envall:
Yeah, other than the alcohol. Alcohol is always going to have calories, but so the lemon and lime. So that thing, don't go for the creamy cocktails, I guess, with all the cream and everything, is the moral of that story and the extra sugars. So there's always a smarter choice of anything. If you have to, if you're in that situation where you need to eat like that and try to fit in. And I'll spend a lot of time going to those kinds of, not maybe the kind that you go to, Ash, but still dinners with business partners and things where there is food and there is entertainment and you're expected to join in.
Ash Horton:
You spoke about China before, they're the worst, because of course you go, they feed you, you eat something. They fill up your plate, you [inaudible 00:08:39] to eat it, no matter what it is, and it just gets worse and worse. And as the novelty white guy at the table, of course, what they're doing is they're challenging you to a drink. So anyway, it's an unhealthy lifestyle.
Christine Envall:
And yeah. And speaking of China too, they do like to, I guess, push you on those certain feeds. But again, there's, I guess it's that thing where maybe I have the advantage of being the athlete or something where I can kind of push back a little bit and say, "Not on my diet. I'm not going to eat that, but I'll have that." Because they do have this crazy chicken thing over there, which is like pickled chicken, which is like pure chicken breasts, but it's cold. And it looks like it's meant to be hot, but it's actually a cold chicken and it's actually really, really good. So when that comes around, you kind of just have extra, that build up the protein content there.
Ash Horton:
Well, I didn't have that advantage and I'll go off track a little bit, but I was best man at a mate's wedding. He was Chinese. And I must have been, I don't know, 23 at the time and quite a wealthy family. So they had their weddings. They had, I think, three weddings in different cities.
Christine Envall:
Wow.
Ash Horton:
Because they lived in New Zealand, but they had their parents in Chengdu and also in Tianjin. So anyway, I was over there and of course there's 30 tables of families and everything. And I'm the novelty white guy. They've got these little, almost like a little seven ounce kind of glass where they'd fill up Chengdu beer, which was really good beer made by the Germans, German [inaudible 00:10:02] once upon a time. But also then they'd pour the nastiest sort of cheap red wine they could possibly, because they don't really know wine that well. They're getting there, but in the past they didn't. And then it could also be Chinese Sake. So you're expected to, I think it's called Ganbei, Ganbei or something like that, which means bottoms up the. My job was to earn my stripes. So that's the kind of treatment I get over there. And I was just thinking all time endurance, it was a hard round. But anyway, you can get away with it. So let's get back to bodybuilding and-
Christine Envall:
And traveling. So that's the thing. So if you do have a job that entails that, but it's all about routine and just having that discipline to do something rather than nothing and to plan. A lot of it comes down to planning. Again, when I was prepping for competitions, I had to travel to New Zealand of all places, Ash.
Ash Horton:
Lucky you.
Christine Envall:
I know, and I'd spend a week there at a time, visiting clients and it would be a matter of, whatever I could possibly take that I was allowed to take that was dry type of foods that I could keep on my diet, the protein powders and those type of things, rice cakes and whatever. And other things I would just try to source there, obviously being New Zealand, very similar to Australia, not that difficult to find.
Christine Envall:
And again, a lot of the hotels now, if you ask for certain food, they are generally able to make it. If they have chicken, even if it's skin, they can take the skin off and make it skinless for you and prep it like that. So it's just a matter of being, I guess, bold enough to ask which I've, again, that's something I've learned from the Americans. They will ask to have something exactly how they want it. And I know Australians, we tend to be a little more like, "Oh yeah, it's whatever. Give it to us however." We won't ask for what we actually want or what we actually need.
Christine Envall:
So a lot of the time it is just asking for what it is that you want, but knowing what you need to have, and preparing and planning ahead. That's when you're traveling, I guess that would be now during a prep time or just as part of your normal lifestyle. But a lot of the time in bodybuilding, you do a competition and the number of times it's in your own hometown isn't that common. And especially as you get higher and higher up, you're going to be going to like world championships, so at least national titles. Professional shows does require you to travel overseas, or even in interstate.
Christine Envall:
The first thing there is obviously, how far before the competition do you travel? If it's a local competition, then you know if the show is on a Saturday, you're probably okay to arrive on a Thursday, maybe the Wednesdays, if you've got that luxury of being able to get away from work in time. Obviously you need to be there in time to do your check-ins, weigh-ins, all that kind of stuff. Get your tan done. So you need to allow that amount of time.
Christine Envall:
When you're traveling overseas, if you have the luxury, I always like to arrive the Sunday before, or even the Saturday, for a show the following Saturday. Mostly because you are switching time zone and you do want to have a whole week to train each body part in that new environment at least one time, before you're going into compete. So there's number one is like the timing. Obviously that does get expensive with a week's worth of accommodation, time off work, all that kind of stuff. So that's best case scenario. Worst case scenario is, again, probably trying to arrive on the Thursday. That is a little bit tougher because you don't have time to really train. You've normally finished your training cycle by then. And the travel is over that period when you would normally be doing your last sessions and everything.
Christine Envall:
So, think hard about that as to, is it worth that extra little bit of money and time to just come in that full week earlier and really acclimatize yourself to the region, or whether or not you absolutely have to fly in that close to the time. So that's number one.
Ash Horton:
I you're a professional athlete-
Christine Envall:
You would-
Ash Horton:
... then you would. Because every sports team does it.
Christine Envall:
Yes. But you would be surprised the number of athletes that I see that try to drop in at the last minute, because they really want to spend almost like the least amount of time or the least amount of money. And to me it's like, you put so much effort and so much time and energy and money into getting to that point. Why would you compromise it at the end? But it's something that I do see time and time again, where people think that, "I'll be right. I'll just fly in on the Wednesday, compete on the Saturday, be out of there." But it doesn't bring the best out in you. So again, I would always like at least that week beforehand. Any longer than that, and it's like you have to kind of go through too much outside of your routine. So you don't really need to get in two weeks before anything, a week's normally pretty good.
Christine Envall:
When it comes to the actual flying, I've just got a few tips here. So in the old days, in the old days they used to let you take water on the plane. They did, they didn't have bans on how much you could take through, all that kind of thing. And I literally would just try to take all my water for the flight, which is kind of ridiculous, but they did let me do it. Now obviously they give you a lot more water and there's a lot more access to water, even if it's not special water.
Christine Envall:
But when you're flying, one of the things that bodybuilders worry about is water retention. Anyone who's flown knows that there's often a great deal of water retention associated with flying. And I've seen people who've tried to only eat protein on a flight, thinking that carbs will blow them up and all these kinds of things. And it's not that at all. It really just is your body responding to the pressure and you can still eat your carbs. You can still eat protein, but one of the tricks is to just keep that water flushing through. So I would try to drink at least half a litre every hour.
Ash Horton:
And also have an isle seat.
Christine Envall:
Yes.
Ash Horton:
Because if you're at the window, you're going to piss someone off.
Christine Envall:
Yeah, we'll see, but that's good though. Because again, getting up and walking-
Ash Horton:
It's good for the [inaudible 00:15:25].
Christine Envall:
Yeah. Every hour or something, because you need to go to the toilet. Having that little walk on the plane is really good, rather than sitting in the one spot for eight hours at a time or something. So it has a twofold effect, doesn't it? It keeps the water coming through and it keeps you up and moving around that plane so that the water isn't pulling in different areas. So there's this kind of rule of thumb, half a litre every hour is a pretty good amount just. And even if you don't want to drink it, force yourself to drink it because it forces that water to keep on coming through. So don't try to not drink on the flight. And if you need to drink more than that, that's probably half a litre an hour is quite a lot.
Christine Envall:
If you fall asleep for a couple of hours, try to not make up the whole amount, just try to do drink a litre and a half, it might be a little bit hard. But if you're thirsty, do it, because sometimes flying does make you thirsty. Do have an electrolyte as well, even if ... Because now there's sugar-free Gatorade and stuff like that. Having electrolytes, probably like two Gatorades on a 12 to 15 hour flight is a pretty good gauge for that. That's something an air stewardess told me, she said that they always drink electrolytes and that prevents them from one, getting jet lag, and two, from getting water retention and too much dehydration and that. So that was interesting.
Ash Horton:
Have you ever, I can't remember what it's called, the actual brand, but there's like a really expensive water you can buy at most airports.
Christine Envall:
Evian?
Ash Horton:
Called, no, no, no, no, no. It's too cheap.
Christine Envall:
No?
Ash Horton:
It's like a $40 drink of electrolyte [crosstalk 00:16:58].
Christine Envall:
Oh no, I have never tried it and I don't think I've needed to, but yeah-
Ash Horton:
Probably not much different from a Powerade, or a Gatorade.
Christine Envall:
Probably not. It's probably just pitched at that idea as to like, "Oh, this is going to make you not feel jet lagged," or something at the other end. But no, just a good old Gatorade will do the trick there. So that's with your water. Now with your food, the key thing that I used to always think about was a need to get my meals into the time zone of where I'm going. And that can sometimes be the hardest thing, like flipping your routine around and knowing how much to eat on the flight and getting it so that when you hit the ground wherever that you're going, that you can fall straight back into your routine. So again, I talk about routine and how important that is. So I would always look at my, from leaving my home and that sort of include time getting to the airport, waiting at the airport, flight time, assume you have a couple of hours before you checked into your hotel at the other end.
Christine Envall:
I would look at that total amount of time and still look at my food for a 24-hour period. And then, so for example, if I'm going to arrive in there at night time, I would have to make that decision. Is it going to be too late to get food? Am I going to have to try to work that into my meal time and then wake up the next morning and start my day as if it was like a new day? Or am I getting in there in the middle of the day, and how many meals am I going to be having in local soil? And how many calories would I normally have consumed during that period that I'm traveling? So it's a little bit, again, it's a lot of planning, but I would always make sure that I had that, because I didn't want to overeat and I didn't want to under eat.
Christine Envall:
And obviously we'll factor in the fact that for that amount of time I'm going to be not burning a lot of calories. So I would do that. And also the fact that on a flight you tend to get hungry and bored. So I would work out total of what I needed for that period of time and then split it up so that every three hours I would be eating. So if I was on a flight for say it was like 18 hours from start to finish, I'd kind of make sure I had say six meals so that every three hours I was able to have something. And I'd virtually make those meals almost identical in size so that I'd just be constantly drip feeding my body with food. And then when I'd get to wherever I was going, I would figure out what I had to do once I got there.
Christine Envall:
Like if I was getting there at night, "Okay, I can go to sleep." Next morning, wake up and make sure I would always have my first meal that I knew I would had. And then from there I can go and start to forage for a run for food and find out what I can get. So yeah, some of the things that I would do, I would take little bags of oats and protein powder that I can easily get water in a cup and just mix that on the plane. I would take little sachets of tuna, rice cakes. Don't ever take cooked food on a plate. I think, or you can maybe do that for one meal, but you're asking for food poisoning. And I, saying that again, that's something I've seen so many times where people, they underestimate how quickly bacteria can grow and they'll be like, "Oh, but the meal was only six hours old and I ate it. And then why did this happen?" Because it's, once you got all of the heat in the plane and everything, things kind of grow really quickly.
Christine Envall:
And that's the last thing that you want when you're traveling is to get diarrhoea on a plane. And also when you're traveling for a competition, that's the last thing that you want.
Ash Horton:
That's a [inaudible 00:20:08].
Christine Envall:
Yes you do, but you don't even want to be in that position in the first place.
Ash Horton:
No, no you don’t.
Christine Envall:
So don't risk it. And I almost, to me it seems like food just goes off quicker on an airplane than anywhere else. So, and again, this is something that I see so much in America, people traveling with full on steak and everything, and then having to throw it out because the rice has gone off or something bad like that. So try to take stuff that you can either hydrate on the plane or it's, you don't need to cook it. Or it's the tuna sachets are little tins of tuna. And I know some people don't like that, but it's, hey, it's a couple of meals and it's something that will make it make a huge difference is to be able to feed your body still right amount of protein and carbs and get you to the other end and get you into that new time zone.
Christine Envall:
Because that's the key is to get yourself into that new time zone. Like you want to be able to try to get a flight that gets you in later in the evening to wherever it is that you're going. So you literally can pretty much go to bed once you get there and then wake up, ready to go the next day. And you hit the ground running. And obviously before you've traveled there, you're going to have looked up where the nearest gym is to your hotel. You've probably checked out what facilities the hotel has, whether you're going to be able to get food that you want at the hotel, whether you're going to have to go travel. Again, if you're traveling to America, it's very easy to get food. You obviously need to think about how you're going to cook that food, but remembering there's like different power in America. So maybe you got to go, first find yourself a cooking utensil.
Ash Horton:
Adapter.
Christine Envall:
No, not even an adapter, Ash, because in America, the power's 110 and we use 220. You're going to pretty much, even with an adapter other than electronics and laptops and all that kind of stuff. But if you try to run a rice cooker or something in America, there's not enough power. And conversely, if you bought an American one and tried to use it here, you'll pretty much blow the electrics.
Ash Horton:
Nice.
Christine Envall:
Yeah. So it's all those little things with now we know with the internet it's so easy. Because you can look all of this stuff up, now are they even done like click and collect or had stuff delivered to my hotel room, knowing what day I'm going to arrive and just order a rice cooker with American power. And they're like 40 bucks and stuff like that. And another tip is in America they charge you 12 bucks a night or something to hire a microwave, because they're not standard in a lot of the rooms. And you can go to their Walmart and buy a microwave for $40. So if you're there for a week, it's way cheaper to just buy a microwave and leave it in the room afterwards, or give it to someone. Give it to another competitor.
Christine Envall:
Yeah. And you're thinking like, "Oh, it's a whole microwave, but like 40 bucks." And that's, in four days you've already spent that. And it's probably better than the one that they would have given you in the hotel room. So it's just little things like that where if you're traveling within the Western world, it's quite easy. You know, funny story. When I went to my first world championship in Greece, in Athens in 1997 and got to the hotel and I didn't think of any of these things. I just thought, "Oh yeah, I'll be able to get what I need at the hotel. And I'll be able to heat stuff up. I'll be able to cook rice and that," and they actually didn't have a microwave, not even in the kitchen of the hotel in Athens. There was, "Oh, you know, this is traditional.”
Christine Envall:
And I asked for boiled chicken, because my friend had told me how to ask for boiled chicken in Greek. And they literally served me a bowl of boiled chicken in the water, still sitting in the water that they had boiled it in.
Ash Horton:
Nice.
Christine Envall:
But hey, it was boiled chicken, but it's things like that, that we, Australia is very advanced in what we have access to. And you just don't assume that every country is going to have the same thing as you. But you know, looking at what plugs that they do use so you do have the right adapters for that country so that you can run your basic things like your laptops, and normally like hairdryers and hitting a lot of those kinds of things are now universal. But if you have something more aggressive, like a grill or a rice cooker or something like that, you need to have the right one for the right place that you're going. But if you have something like that, you can only steam chicken, you can cook rice, you can do a lot of stuff. And do all that in the hotel room.
Ash Horton:
I never thought this conversation would get into electronics and things like that, but-
Christine Envall:
There's a lot to consider, but that’s-
Ash Horton:
It's preparation, isn't it?
Christine Envall:
It's preparation. Because the last thing that you want is anything that stresses you out close to a competition. So if you're running around trying to just get the food that you want, that's going to be taking away your focus from the things that you need to do in the last week, because obviously peak weeks will differ and you're probably depleting at some point, so your energy is going to be low. And again, that's another reason why you want to get in that week early because normally like Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday, you're starting to be through a depletion phase. So you kind of want to get there in enough time that you've got yourself settled so that when you hit that part of your preparation, you're not running around like crazy, trying to find where you're going to get this or where you're going to train. All of that can be planned beforehand.
Christine Envall:
And as I said, the internet these days makes it so easy because you can jump online from anywhere in the world and ask about information for something or book something or make sure you've got all of those things booked and planned. So let's just say, it just, when you're prepping for a competition, start that type of preparation as far out as possible. Again, so you're not leaving it until the last minute when you're stressed out and everything. Because traveling, then you can just kind of enjoy the process, enjoy where you are, and then if you've got the luxury again, book for a couple of days after so that you can actually enjoy it.
Ash Horton:
So that preparation sort of makes me feel as if it's almost how people visualise their success as well. I mean, that's almost part of that process, isn't it?
Christine Envall:
Well yeah, because you have to kind of think, "How is my week going to go?" And again, I don't know what everybody else does, but that's certainly how I do. I always think about, "Okay, where am I going to be? How far is it to the venue? How far is it to the gym? Am I going to like, and again now with Uber it's very easy, but again, in the old days, how am I going to get to the gym? I'm not going to have to pay for a taxi. How do I call a taxi? All of those kinds of things that you take for granted when you have a car. Or are you going to hire a car? That's another thing like, I'm the queen of convenience, so I always hire a car wherever I go, because I just don't like being stranded and not being able to do stuff for myself or having to wait on something.
Christine Envall:
So I'll hire a car, but I'll always, just basically be organised. But like I say, I already know which gym I'm going to be training at. And I know where the three nearest supermarkets are and just, I start to think about, "What do I need to take?" Okay, I like this particular brand of rice. So I have my rice cooker, but I still want to use my brand of rice rather than have to buy a different brand, for example, or as much stuff as I can that's very specific to my preparation that I want to make sure I have the right thing and it's able to travel, take it with you, you know? Obviously fresh meat and stuff like that you're going to buy it over there. As much as what you possibly can, take with you.
Christine Envall:
When you're traveling, again, and this is probably more important, even for the women, but take your makeup, take your costume, take your music. Make sure you have all of that in your carry on. Don't ever put it in your suitcase, because inevitably one time or another in international travel you're going to end up somewhere and your suitcase is going to end up somewhere else. And again, you don't want that stress of, just say they lose it. What if it comes later? So anything that you absolutely critically need to have to get on stage. So obviously I would say that you need your posing suit and you need your music. If nothing else, make sure that that's with you. Obviously your makeup, it just can get very expensive if that doesn't turn up because you had to go rebuy everything.
Christine Envall:
And you know, you'll be able to find that, but can you find exactly what you want or maybe getting your hair and makeup done, but still it's something that, the things that you absolutely must have. If you need a certain outfit to sleep in, or you need something to make sure your prep goes smoother, then make sure you have that so that you're not in that position of panicking because you don't know where to find it or can't find it or you have to spend more money than what you expect to spend.
Christine Envall:
So, like I said, it's a little bit of planning and having, but that goes for whether you're traveling interstate as well, same thing. Always have the critical things within your carry on, and allowing yourself enough time and looking at how long things take. Because again, if you're staying at a hotel and you think it's close to the venue, but then you realise that ... Maybe Google the peak time that you'll be going, because maybe there's really hideous traffic. Like again, particularly if you're in America, I know people who've done competitions and the hotel, like the host hotel that they've recommended that you stay at, looked like it's very close to the venue. But understanding LA traffic, it's not that convenient to kind of go back and forth between the two.
Christine Envall:
So sometimes you maybe book it the non-host hotel because it's actually more convenient, or a lot of the times they do have the luxury of the main connected buildings where it's easy just to walk across a bridge thing and you're at that thing. But that's the same when you're actually going backstage to compete. You've got to have your bag, got to have your bag with all your stuff in it, because you don't want to be running back to your hotel room. Even if it seems like it's really close, you don't know, sometimes the schedule gets pulled forward.
Christine Envall:
You think you've got half an hour and it turns out you've got 10 minutes. So when you're going backstage, you think about, "What do I need to have?" Again, make sure you've got any things that you need for your hair, or ornaments. You've got your special oil. If they don't provide that there, your snacks for pumping up. Your pump up bands, your special electrolytes for after you come off stage, all of those things. So you've got to have everything, backup music in case your music fails. Because again, for some reason, even though you've tested all your CDs or your little, now I think they take it off of MP3s and everything, but all of that stuff, and something will inevitably fail or they'll lose it or something will happen. So you want to always make sure you have like a backup or something.
Ash Horton:
So, what I'm hearing here as a summary, is the word preparation.
Christine Envall:
Yes.
Ash Horton:
But I mean, you must plan this in some form of list and have a tick box for every time you travel sort of thing.
Christine Envall:
Yeah, I kind of do. I will, I guess, for my stage bag, I don't anymore because it's something that I did so often. But that is a really, really good idea for people to be like, write down everything that you think that you could possibly need. And then I guess you kind of separate it out, because you don't want to have a blooming, what do you call them? The backpackers hiking bag kind of bag. You want something that's reasonable to carry, but you do want to think about what is, and it can be stupid things like bobby pins, or safety pins or something, because your bikini decides it's going to do something crazy, and you realise that you need to sort of pin it somewhere that you didn't think you had to pin it. But yeah, you got to think about what could possibly go wrong and what do I absolutely need to get myself on stage? Anything else is almost like, it's non-essential, but could I get on stage without these sort of something?
Ash Horton:
I use Evernote for example, because you can create little checkboxes, and every time I travel I just know there's something that I'll forget. So if I don't go through that list every single time, then I will forget. But that's really good for me. And then of course, as I sort of travel more and more, I'd start adding things onto it. So I don't know, that works for me, and then there's, you can have different lists for different kinds of travel. So if you're interstate versus international, things like that.
Christine Envall:
Yeah. Well I would just put it, I would have like a shopping list too. Once I got there, what do I need to buy? So I'd have a list like that as well, okay? Because I'm not going to travel with peanut butter and honey and the things that I would maybe pump up on. And I actually did try to travel with honey once to New Zealand and they wouldn't let me in with it.
Ash Horton:
No.
Christine Envall:
Coming from Australia.
Ash Horton:
Poison, those things.
Christine Envall:
That's right.
Ash Horton:
Australians.
Christine Envall:
That's right. We'll go kill the New Zealanders with our honey. But yeah, it is those things where you think about what, "What can I get locally? What do I need to buy when I go to the supermarket so that I am prepped and ready to go?" Because again, you assume that what if something happens and you can't get out again. So you try to get all that stuff organised as soon as possible so that when it comes ready for comp time, because then you're going to have check-in meetings and different things that you have to do. You want to make sure that you have all of that.
Christine Envall:
But yeah, you use Evernote. I even just put normal notes in my ... Just the regular notes thing, something that you could just refer to, or, and I would always have a printed copy of my food, what I wanted to eat for the last week. And I would stick that up on the fridge wherever I was staying. Because again, it's good to have a hard copy, because what if your phone, what if you had something happens to your phone?
Ash Horton:
Yeah, for sure.
Christine Envall:
Yeah.
Ash Horton:
For sure. All right. Well there's a lot of experience in what you've just said, and I'm sure it's very, very useful to a lot of people listening. So thank you very much.
Christine Envall:
No way, it's my pleasure.
Ash Horton:
Words of wisdom. If you like what you've heard, recognise that these tips are free. So show your support by becoming a loyal International Protein customer by jumping online, hunt our product down and hit that buy now button. So once again, like, share and subscribe to our podcast so we can continue to bring you these episodes from our one and only Aussie muscle guru, three times world champion, Christine Envall.