How to tell you’re losing fitness — and how to fix it if you are

Get control of your “Am I losing fitness?”anxiety while you take a break from training.

Here’s why you’re being too hard on yourself. And, how you can preserve as much of your fitness as possible while you take a break due to injury, burnout, or a busy schedule.

The hardest sprint I ever done sprinted was at the Calgary airport.

I had a 2-year old in my arms along with a carseat (or some damn thing) and a bunch of chaotic bags flopping around. I remember a stupid grocery bag splitting open and having to shove the contents (which included a squashed banana, somehow?!) into my pockets.

Back then, we didn’t have proper luggage.

Anyway, we were hella late for a flight. I was glad then that I had my runner’s legs! Saved me $600 in rebooking fees, I reckon.

Even though I wasn’t training too much since I was a new mom, I had enough fitness still to hustle my ass to the gate and get on board.

Once I got settled in and chilled the hell out for a minute, I remember wondering how much of my training was still in my legs even if I hadn’t been running consistently for a while. I wasn’t anywhere near being a running coach in 2010 and my phone was still a shitty, non-data-plan piece of crap, so I couldn’t look it up.

But, now I can think back to frazzled airport Lorri and tell her exactly what she was working with that day.

It could come in handy for you, too — Lord knows some of our training regimens have gone in the dumper with the quarantine.

So, if you’re stressing about losing your fitness or it all going to waste, fear not.

First things first: Reversability.

You won’t start losing fitness until you have done zero training for this long:

Aerobic fitness: 10 days
Muscular fitness: 30 days

Remember, that’s if you’re doing nothing at all to maintain it, like being a total blob.

After 4 -12 weeks of no training, you will lose 50% of your VO2max. This variance is so big because it depends on your history as an athlete. If you’ve been training for years, you’ll stay trained longer than if this is the first training cycle you’ve ever completed.

And here’s the second thing:

Maintaining fitness takes a lot less effort than initially building it does.

What that really means is the secret number to maintain your current level of fitness is a 30% - 40% decrease in training volume.

The rate of decrease in your actual fitness isn’t a total plummet, either. It’s not like your fitness completely evaporates on day 11 or day 31.

You’ll return the pre-training levels of fitness after 10 weeks - 8 months of zero training. Again — big variance because it depends on your athletic history.

Another trick, for how to maintain your performance while training less is this:

If you reduce the frequency and duration of your workouts by up to 2/3, BUT you keep the intensity work at usual levels, you can maintain your VO2max performance for up to 15 weeks. However, if you keep your frequency and duration constant but you reduce intensity by 1/3 - 2/3, performance is significantly reduced.

This is true for muscular training, too.

In plainer terms, what this means is that as long as you maintain intensity workouts, reducing how often you train or how long your runs are will not adversely affect V˙O2max or muscular strength for up to 15 weeks .

You can use this information to optimize the workouts you DO get around to and lose less fitness overall. Just by being smart!

The other part to this is it’s easier to regain your fitness back if you’ve lost it, too — at least, it won’t be as hard to build it up as it was the first time you did.

So, if you’re feeling guilty about not exercising enough, don’t. If you need it, here is permission to take the pressure off, take a breather, take five. I firmly believe the smartest runners know when to say no.

Remember, you only need to keep your overall training load at 60% of your normal routine to keep the fitness you have now. This means you can now stop feeling like you’re “erasing” all your hard work if you gotta take time off for whatever reason.

And you can coast on that until your next training cycle picks up.

If you optimize it with your VO2max like I showed you (focusing on intensity and dropping down frequency and duration), you can do even less and keep your performance just as high, too, for quite a while.

It really is that simple and easy to maintain!

And if you are only able to keep your training load at 20%, 10%… 1%, building it back won’t be as hard or take as long as it did your first time around. You really do bounce back faster, I’ve been there myself many a time.

It just kills me when good runners beat themselves up for missing some workouts or taking time off. I know that voice that tells you you’re sliding backwards and ruining everything. But that voice is a bastard who is thinking with fear instead of with science.

Now, all that being said, here we have finally arrived at the real point of this post:

If you’re going to be late for a flight, at least try to have proper luggage with you. And for the love of squashed banana pockets, bring your damn running shoes!

If you need some advice with your quarantraining, let me know. The numbers can be a bit annoying / scary, but that’s what I’m here for.

<3

your L

References:

Benson, Roy, and Declan Connolly. Heart Rate Training. Human Kinetics, 2020.

Garber, Carol Ewing. “Quantity and Quality of Exercise for Developing and... : Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.” LWW, American College of Sports Medicine, July 2011, journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2011/07000/Quantity_and_Quality_of_Exercise_for_Developing.26.aspx.

Pollock, Michael L. “ACSM Position Stand: The Recommended Quantity and Quality ... : Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.” LWW, American College of Sports Medicine, June 1998, journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/1998/06000/ACSM_Position_Stand___The__Recommended_Quantity.32.aspx.