How fast does fitness fade?

I finally rode this morning after being limited to just weekend rides for the last 3 weeks. This was due in part to me trying to get paintings finished and delivered, then having company for a week while having a s-i-l in the hospital.:(

I rode today and I was pleasantly surprised by my speed and cadence but I knew I was good for a distance of only 25 miles as opposed to a 40+ mile ride. I have a feeling I won't recover as quickly either.

I read that if you completely lay off cycling for a month, you have lost all your gains. But what if you just ride weekends?

How much does this affect my overall fitness level? :confused: :(

Not much. An out of shape person can't ride 25 miles. Get back to a regular routine and you'll be back where you were within a month.

Everyone is different.

I hardly rode during the week once school started, but managed to finish my big ride on the 22nd. I didn't finish as strong as I would have liked, but I finished. :p And I felt great doing a 75 miler this past Saturday.

V.

I heard something like you lose 30% of your fitness every week . . . but I think that's if you take those weeks entirely off.

I did lay off cycling for a month. I went to Europe and walked a lot, but I also had plenty of good Bavarian beer ;).

I lost some weight, so climbing when I got back felt much easier on the legs. My HR was off the charts for the first couple weeks back. My muscle recovery time has been taking the longest to build back up. And as I put some muscle back on, those climbs got a little harder again, but with that brought back some more speed and acceleration abilities that had faltered after the time off.

You have been riding on the weekends, so I doubt you've lost much fitness at all.

Everyone is very different.

If you pay attention, you'll get to know how far & fast you can push yourself after how much rest. It's usually a *little* further than you think :)

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Originally Posted by zencentury

Get back to a regular routine and you'll be back where you were within a month.

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A MONTH??? :eek:

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Originally Posted by limewave

I heard something like you lose 30% of your fitness every week . . . but I think that's if you take those weeks entirely off.

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Wow- I find that impossible to believe! You mean someone in fabulous fitness shape would be completely out of shape in 3 weeks? I refuse to believe it. :(

that 30% sounds high to me too. at that rate you'd be bedridden in a month :p

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Originally Posted by sundial

A MONTH??? :eek:

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A month is only four weeks :rolleyes: :o
I meant a month at most.

Must......pedal......faster! Pant, pant! :p

I heard for cardiovascular health, it takes about 2 months of regular activity for an inactive person to reach the fitness(heart-wise) of someone who has exercised their whole life and vice versa.

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Originally Posted by sgtiger

I heard for cardiovascular health, it takes about 2 months of regular activity for an inactive person to reach the fitness(heart-wise) of someone who has exercised their whole life and vice versa.

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Oh -- now I'm way depressed! (Said as someone who has been working pretty hard for a year to get to her current fitness level!):eek:

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Originally Posted by sgtiger

I heard for cardiovascular health, it takes about 2 months of regular activity for an inactive person to reach the fitness(heart-wise) of someone who has exercised their whole life and vice versa.

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Humm, forgive me to be skeptical, but it takes about 10 years to build an endurance athlete. The more we exercise, the more our vascular system ramifies and improves, irrigating our muscles, etc.

On one variable or another, that two-month measure may be true, but overall it's not making a lot of sense...

Regarding the 30% mesure, it sounds somewhat reasonable if one considers it week-by-week. Ex: if I have 100 "units of fitness", then after one week of break I have 70 left, then after another week off, 49, then after another week, 34, etc.

I'm pretty sure, though, that someone with a well established fitness base will recover faster than someone with only a few months of training.

Yup, everyone is different. But I think that the three biggest factors in how much fitness you lose and how quick you regain it are:

Just how fit were you before you had to be inactive?

How long had you been fit?

How inactive were you really?

Every bit of activity helps to keep that base fitness remembered by your body, so even if your inactivity included a lot more walking or carrying things, or whatever, that helped. And the more fit you were, the more of your fitness remained despite your reduced activity. And the longer you had been fit before the inactivity, the more fit you are now....and the faster you will regain it.

Of course, half of this is said to help me not despair over my months of little to no exercise due to a health issue. But I'm sure my gentle stretching morning yoga still helped. And walking the dog when I could. And walking to work when I could. What I found when I did get on the bike (and I was still and am still not over my illness, just feeling a lot better than I did!), as long as I went at a slower pace, riding and even climbing was still doable, and didn't really even hurt. That gave me a lot of hope!

You'll be surprised by how much your muscles remember of what to do! But be easy on yourself about recovery time. No point killing yourself trying to do what you could do at your peak!

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~

I don't think there's a hard and fast rule. If someone got a Paris-Brest-Paris randonneur to lay off the bike for a month, they'll still be able to ride most of us into the dirt after :). But that's not at all the same kind of fitness base as my 30-40 miles a week. If I laid off the bike for a month right now, odds are good that my max distance would drop, and my weekly distance would drop. How much? Depends on how my body responds to no exercise. And a year from now, even if I don't push distances, my body's answer would be different.

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Originally Posted by Lisa S.H.

Wow- I find that impossible to believe! You mean someone in fabulous fitness shape would be completely out of shape in 3 weeks? I refuse to believe it. :(

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I'm just repeating what I read in some fitness magazine or in the health section of some national news. It's not my theory . . . I just remember this one statistic so vividly because I read it about a week before I had my bilateral bunionectomy and was looking at 3 weeks of bed rest followed by 3 months of recovery. I was scared.

I think age has to be a big factor. In the past year I have riden more than I have ever before in my life, I'm 48.

I'm still not sure if I am as fit as I was in my 30's with a few months of serious exercise.

Drives me totally nuts!