How Fast do you lose your fitness?

crackle

Someone told me once you lose it three times faster than you gain it!

After 3 weeks off the bike I semm to have lost

- my CV fitness fastest
- My Endurance 2nd
- My strength last

but my memory is still fresh, so I'm still trying as hard as when I left off but tiring early and causing higher than usual HR rates!

So how fast do you lose it?

Mark.Scp

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by crackle</i>

Someone told me once you lose it three times faster than you gain it!

After 3 weeks off the bike I semm to have lost

- my CV fitness fastest
- My Endurance 2nd
- My strength last

but my memory is still fresh, so I'm still trying as hard as when I left off but tiring early and causing higher than usual HR rates!

So how fast do you lose it?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

urm, arent CV and endurance the same thing

But yes, this seems right

Mark

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In sport, losing is the end of the world .....
la marmotte xD

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crackle

Same thing? CV = Cardio Vascular I know they're linked of course but I meant Endurance as what's left in the legs or am I using the terms in the wrong sense?

xio

I've been off for 8 weeks now and it seems about right. Have started training again last week and been pleasantly suprised on the strength front at least. Only another 4 weeks until I'm allowed back on the road....

Having had a spine fracture and been been pretty much fixed solid from shoulder to hip for 6 weeks, my core strength is rubbish. More amoeba like really.

simmers

I've read it comes off at about the same rate you gain it ie slowly. I had thought that muscle strength was first to go and endurance the last. The opposite holds true - endurance takes longer to build than muscle bulk.

campagman

After going on inactive beach hols I would come back and train exactly how I had done before the hol but the ride would be very hard, slow and not last as long as expected. I have learnt that the first session back after lay off should be about half of what you were doing before. You can then build it up from here and you will soon be back to where you was.

remember to keep pedalling in circles.

gaterz1981

rest does do your body the world of good at times. my legs grow muscle when i rest

I work hard because millions on benefits depend on me
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Johnpsanderson

Recent experience is that 3 or 4 weeks off the bike meant I went from absolutely flying to being totally crocked. I've been told that if you have time off and come back stronger then it means you needed the rest. I guess you are talking about a longer lay-off than that though? If you were in good shape i'm sure you won't be starting from scratch again, it's just another chance to peak!

It's ALL about the bike.

crackle

Yeah! Campagman that sounds familiar. Depite two half-decent trainer sessions, the first road ride was roughly half the distance I'd been doing and hurt! The 2nd one was hard but the hurt I feltlike the first time had gone.

And JohnP the bit about peaking is interesting. Because previously I've already done a fair bit (by my standards!) then I'm pushing harder on these first return rides than I would normally be at this same fitness level, so therefore can I expect to come back stronger!? I would suspect the answer is yes and would go some way to explaining how I was fitter when younger (apart from being younger that is!) and took a rather haphazard on-off approach to training, because each time I came back to it I was pushing harder at the beginning than the first time around (due to expectation from previous sessions) so therefore progressed further faster: I could actually apply the same logic to my running as well. However time may be against me proving it this time as a long holiday looms in July.

I ought to say I apply the word 'training' in a very loose way as I ain't training for anything other than fun and fitness and some personal goals.