Fitness fades fast if you don't exercise
By Patricia Hagen
Indianapolis Star
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| Gannett News Service
Detraining After 20 days of inactivity, runners can lose more than 20 percent of their aerobic capacity. After four to six weeks of lazing around, a measurable decline in heart strength, muscle strength and endurance will take place. Even fit types who decline to exercise for more than a month will lose the fitness capacity added during their workout phase. It takes two weeks to rebuild the fitness lost for each week of inactivity. |
Even if you train for months on end to prepare for a marathon, many of those hard-earned miles will be wasted unless you continue to train.
Getting in shape, unfortunately, is not a once-and-done project.
If you don't use it, you lose it, warns John O'Dea, an instructor at the National Institute for Fitness and Sport in Indianapolis. Exercise physiologists call it "detraining."
"If you've been sitting on the couch since your last major fitness blitz for a marathon or other physical event, your physiological benefits are wasting away," he says.
Within three weeks, you might have lost as much as 20 percent of your built-up fitness.
He bases that estimate on a 1960s study of runners who were put on bed rest for 20 days. Their fitness — measured by the change in aerobic capacity, or how well the heart could pump blood and oxygen — declined 26 percent.
While that was an extreme experiment — and even a couch potato wouldn't be that inactive — you get the idea: Fitness fades fast.
How fast?
If you're a lapsed athlete, the speed of your "gradual decay," as Cedric Bryant puts it, depends on a lot of things, including how fit you were before gearing up your exercise program and what fitness level you attained.
Generally, after four to six weeks of inactivity, "they will experience some noticeable declines," says Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise.
The declines are in aerobic capacity, muscle strength and endurance, and flexibility. You'll feel it in your lungs and your legs. After taking a month off, doing a run or walk at race pace or distance will be "a much more difficult endeavor."
Take a month off and you'll be approaching your pre-training fitness level, Bryant says.
It's a bummer, agrees Joshua Dobbs, associate coordinator of the Adult Fitness Program at Ball State University. "You lose it faster than you gain it."
Don't misunderstand. Dobbs and other exercise experts are not against rest. Rest is good. It's when the body recovers from the stress of training. Muscles require rest to rebuild and get stronger.
"It's very important for people to build in recovery time," Bryant says.
Even top athletes take breaks. Their training includes more-intense and less-intense periods, scheduled to help them peak for the most important events of the year.
So, it's OK to take a week off after months of training and a big event, Dobbs says. But then you should try to get back on the exercise wagon.
The good news is you don't have to work out as much. It takes less effort to maintain fitness than it does to get fit in the first place, he says.
Once an individual is reasonably fit, Dobbs says, "it really only takes two to three days of moderate exercise (a week) to maintain what they've achieved."
"Once you make that heavy investment, you can maintain a significant amount of it," Bryant says.
But what if you've already made the mistake of quitting cold turkey?
"The good news is, you can regain what you lost," Bryant says.
Just take it easy.
Figure on taking two weeks to rebuild for every week of rest, Bryant says.
The speed of your return also depends on the reason for the layoff — whether you were sick, injured, too busy or just plain lazy — and how active you were during the layoff.
If you rush your return, your weakened body is more likely to get injured. The first few workouts, Dobbs suggests, "you should feel like you didn't do very much."
You might be wondering if there's any long-term benefit of training for a long-distance race that you retain, even if you never work out again.
There is: You'll always have bragging rights.
That confidence is a good thing, even if it's psychological rather than physiological. O'Dea says, "You can say, 'I did it. I can do it again.' "
• • •
Some fitness events coming up. Entries for most are available through Hawaii Race magazine, www.active.com, or at specialty shops statewide.
JULY
4 — Fourth of July 5K and Children's 1-Mile Fun Run, 9 a.m., Schofield Barracks. 655-8789.
7 — MDA 5K Banana Man Chase, 7 a.m., Ala Moana Beach Park. 548-0588.
13 — The King's Swim (Big Island), 8 a.m., Kailua Bay. (808) 334-0083.
14 — 22nd Annual Tinman Triathlon, 5:45 a.m., Ala Moana Beach Park-Kapi'olani Park. 595-5317.
21 — Iao Valley 10K Run (Maui), 7 a.m., Wailuku Center. (808) 242-1553.
27 — Kilauea Volcano Wilderness Runs, Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. (808) 985-8725.
28 — Oahu Perimeter Ride, 6 a.m., Kapolei Rec Park. 735-5756.
AUGUST
3 — Kolekole Pass Half-Marathon and 6-Mile Downhill Walk, Watts Field, Schofield Barracks. 486-8420.
25 — 12th Annual Pedal 'Til Ya Puke, Run 'Til Ya Ralph (Big Island), 7:30 a.m., Kaloko Mauka Drive. (808) 324-7327.
