DETRAINING, SUMMER ALERT

Surely you have ever heard of detraining … It is the state in which training is totally or partially interrupted, losing physiological, anatomical and performance adaptations as a result of a reduction or suspension of the training process. It can be programmed within physical preparation, with the aim of regenerating, returning to a state of form to work certain loads, or avoiding overtraining. But it can also be a period that leads to physical deconditioning.

During detraining, physical capacities decrease, but the percentage of worsening will depend on the duration of the period and the physical condition from which the subject starts at the time of the “stop”.

Do you want to know what will happen to your body during the summer time without training?

Cardiorespiratory changes

In your 4 weeks at the beach moving only to go to the beach bar for a sangria, your oxygen consumption could decrease even 14%. But how much did it cost you to earn it? Surely that 14% you got it between 12 and 16 weeks.

This is also associated with a decrease in cardiac dimensions. The thickness of the left ventricle could be reduced by 15%. Heart rate increases during maximal and submaximal intensity exercise. Respiratory functions are also affected, reducing even 10% in 5 weeks.

Muscle changes

As is evident, the strength is reduced, but also the muscle mass, and the distribution of the fibers changes. After 14 days without training, your eccentric strength can already be diminished (and be careful, this is the one that often stops us from falls). It is at 8-12 weeks when a clear loss of 7-12% can be observed. In 30 days the muscle fiber section is significantly reduced, and in 56 days the type of muscle fiber can even be changed up to 19%.

The older we are, the less it takes us to lose the muscular adaptations achieved. With more than 75 years at 6 weeks we may have lost a large part of the adaptations achieved.

Another important issue is the intensity at which you have trained, since if you have done it with high loads your loss of strength will be less pressing. Although in older people this variable does not seem to have too much importance.

Metabolic changes

One of the main changes in this aspect is the decrease of up to 50% of the oxidative capacity after 8 weeks of detraining.

The respiratory quotient increases, which means that there is a greater dependence on carbohydrates as a source of energy used in muscle metabolism, with a significant reduction in the use of lipids. In 2 weeks this change is already significant, imagine in a month of vacation … What it will cost us to return to “burn fat” in September!

Even lactate undergoes changes in just 7 days of rest, accumulating more in submaximal exercises, with which this marker of exercise intensity will be altered. In this sense, the lactic threshold decreases.

At FAST we don’t want your vacation to be a detraining period, but a time when you continue to keep your body in shape. That is why the Summer Bonus is thinking for you, because if you live in Madrid and go on vacation to Marbella you can stay in shape with the FAST method