Maintaining fitness when life takes over

harrast

Teammates, I recently had a situation that required me to put in a lot of hours at work precluding my normal EN workout schedule.  I probably could have done a 45 minute workout 2-3 times per week if I had been in that mind set, but I just kept thinking that I would get back to my regular EN schedule the next week--this went on for about 8 weeks.  

Reading over some of the studies regarding the loss of fitness, it looks like aerobic fitness is lost fairly rapidly when exercise is abandoned.  A study Denmark showed that athletes lost about 20% of their ability to do aerobic work in 8 weeks of inactivity.  I would rather hold on to as much fitness as I can.  So, if you had 3 workouts of 45 minutes per week, what would you do to maintain fitness?

My first thought is do one hard run and two hard bikes--no swimming.  Any other thoughts?  Any experiences?

Coach Rich

My experience backs up that 20% jazz, on the bike, as that's very easy to quantify with a PM. Even worse, it sucks how much you can lose with as little as a 7-10 day layoff but you also get it back very quickly and relatively risk free, on the bike.

For the run, in addition to lost aerobic fitness and speed is durability. And if you lose durability while losing fitness, getting both back at the same time, safely, is a tall order.

My recommendation would be to run, hard, 3x/wk, as that would retain your running durability and fitness. Like I said, getting the bike fitness back is comparatively simple and risk free so I wouldn't worry about putting that in the closet.

Al Truscott

Certainly running over biking. Also, maybe there's a way to fit some biking in on your commute? Even to the point of parking five miles from work and biking from there?

The running doen't have to be overly structured. Even doing 30 minutes/4-5 miles, at a tempo,pace, plus 10 x 20-30 second strides should be enough.

morpheus

And, add some 15-20 min circuits, when available, of pushups, planks, body squats, crucnhes, pullups, etc. Body weight stuff, if done right, is very efficient.

harrast

@Al, interesting thought. I am a bicycle commuter--when I work from my office, which is only about 2 miles away.

cgres123

Running. If you have some time to sweat a short reverse brick .5 mile as in .25 out and back run home hop on the trainer pump out all Z3, as you will be warmed upped with short pick ups hop off the bike do a mile run a .5 out and back twice a week then run your 3rd day without the bike.

harrast

Thanks for all your comments. I will put them into practice the next time that life gets away from me. BTW, it appears that the bike fitness is coming back, although the quads are barking and the mind is playing its usual tricks. Running doesn't seem to be coming back yet. I am literally off my normal pacing by 20%. I guess patience is the key right now.