How quickly do you de-train?
Just how quickly do you de-train?
When we aim for an event where we want to ride well and feel 100% fit. However, training is not always perfect either due to injury or illness. This means we have to pair back training which often makes us feel like we are losing fitness hand over fist.
The good news is that losing fitness doesn’t happen overnight! Even though we all worry it will.
In a slightly different dedication to Education post this month I want to draw your attention to this lecture by Professor Trent Stellingwerff and Dr Stuart Phillips which gives insights into the detraining effect. In it they discuss.
1. How long it takes
2. The minimal effective dose to retain fitness
3. Exercise and immune function
4. Intention and Focus of training to limit detraining
Now, I appreciate that some of you may not have the time to geek out for an hour so, here is a list of my biggest takeaways from this lecture.
Bike Training:
• The detraining effect is roughly 10% a week and usually starts between 5 and 10 days of TOTAL inactivity.
• Detraining effect depends on an athlete's training age, actual age, current training volume and specificity before you stopped.
• You can afford to drop off for 7 days where you may lose minimal fitness. (Just 5 days of SPECIFIC training will move you back to where you were)
• 2 X 40 mins moderate intensity maintains V02 adaptions.
• Even with no hard training glycolytic enzyme activity erodes very little.
Strength:
• To maintain power and strength perform a mixture of movements, and increase the velocity of movements in strength training if you can.
• Strength endurance is retained with 30 - 50% of 1RMax.
• Some form of body weight training will retain muscle strength if performed 2 - 3 x per week and to momentary failure in reps.
• Incorporating isometric holds would be prudent.
Nutrition and Health:
• For health focus on healthy actions such as sleep, hydration, and whole foods.
• It’s important NOT to eliminate carbohydrates from the diet as there is good evidence to suggest that low carbohydrate availability negatively affects immune cells.
Not discussed in the lecture:
Suboptimal carbohydrate intake for athletes is below 1.2g per kg of body weight daily.
At times of de-training or no training due to illness or injury, a sound nutritional practice would be to maintain calorie balance, eat a higher protein diet between 1.8g and 2g of protein per kg and supplement with 5g creatine monohydrate daily to help mitigate muscle loss.
To wrap up.
Fitness is not just about training long and hard. Yes, you have to do this to drive training and fitness adaptions. Where the magic happens is in rest and recovery. #supercompensation.
Super compensation is why de-load week after hard training blocks must happen. To allow the body to absorb the training, recover and adapt so you can get faster, stronger and fitter. Without them, you plateau or worse never improve at all.
Next time you have to take a few extra days off or are injured and need to back off intensity for a few weeks remember, detraining takes more time than you think and it may well be the best thing for your long-term strength and bike fitness. #justathought
Thanks for reading, Simon
Performance & Nutrition Director
2 X Winner of Gym Based PT, and founder of VPCC