When the Gain-Train Derails

The Impact of Detraining on Physical Fitness: What You Need to Know

Exercise plays a crucial role in maintaining physical health and well-being, but life can sometimes interfere with our training routines. When regular exercise is paused or significantly reduced, “detraining” occurs. Understanding detraining and its effects can help you navigate through busy or unproductive periods and reestablish your training routine more effectively.

What is Detraining?

Detraining refers to the process of losing physical fitness and performance as a result of reduced or discontinued exercise. Fortunately, our body is very efficient at using the least amount of energy to survive. Unfortunately, that means – if we don’t use it, we lose it – meaning all the adaptations you have gained through training start to be dismantled by the body.  When you stop working out, your body begins to revert to its pre-training state to save energy in order operate more efficiently. This can impact cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, and overall health.

How Quickly Does Detraining Occur?

Quite discouragingly, the human body often will revert at a much quicker pace than it took us to get there. The timeline for detraining varies based on several factors, including the individual’s fitness level, the type of exercise previously performed, and the duration of the inactivity. Research suggests that some changes can begin within just a few weeks of reduced activity:

Cardiovascular Fitness can start to decline within two to three weeks of inactivity. Aerobic capacity, measured by VO2 max, is particularly sensitive to reductions in exercise. Reduced physical activity leads to a decrease in heart and lung efficiency. The heart may become less efficient at pumping blood, and blood volume can decrease, resulting in lower aerobic capacity. This is highly important for team sports and endurance sports athletes to be aware of as aerobic capacity and power is vital to their sports performance.

Muscular Strength can be maintained for a longer period compared to cardiovascular endurance. However, noticeable decreases can occur within three to four weeks of inactivity. More recently, research has shown that changes to muscular architecture can happen within 2 weeks of no training. Muscle fibers can atrophy (shrink) both in size and in length when they are not regularly engaged. Additionally, muscle glycogen stores and enzyme activity levels decrease, affecting strength and endurance.

Sprint Speed and Acceleration: Within 7 days of inactivity or a lack of exposure to sprinting, your body can lose between 5-10% of its sprint speed which can lead to a performance decline and increase the risk of injury in muscles used for sprinting.

Flexibility may decline more slowly, but joint health can be impacted if regular stretching and mobility work are skipped.

Metabolic Rate: A decrease in muscle mass and physical activity can lead to a slower metabolic rate, making it easier to gain weight if caloric intake is not adjusted.

Managing and Mitigating Detraining

No, the answer isn’t to train everyday until you drop dead because stopping will lose you all your gains and you will be back to square one! Instead, here are a couple things you can do to manage detraining.

1. Plan for rest: It may seem counterproductive to take time off from training considering what we have spoken about but planning for small periods of rest time will help you to stay on track with your training routine more than trying to constantly avoid stopping. At best try to keep periods of complete rest to no more than 2 weeks.
2. Microdose: Microdosing is doing small bits of exercise more regularly than a full workout or training session. It’s a simple way to keep exercise in your daily routine without taking too much time when you get busy. It can be as little as 3 x 3 Nordic Hamstring curls for hamstring health or a 10 minute interval run of 30 seconds on 30 seconds off. Though not as beneficial as a full training program it will help to slow detraining
3. Focus on Nutrition: Maintain a balanced diet to support overall health and muscle preservation. Adequate protein intake is particularly important for muscle repair and maintenance.
4. Gradual Return: When resuming exercise, start slowly to avoid injury and allow your body to readjust and build those adaptations to exercise slowly. Gradually increase the intensity and duration of workouts based on your fitness level.
5. Recovery: Ensure you’re matching your rest and recovery to the period and intensity of exercise. Proper sleep and stress management are crucial for increasing fitness levels as this is where our body repairs itself and create those beneficial adaptations.
6. Alternative training: in times where you are managing an injury, try to find an activity that will still keep you active without doing further harm. Many lower body injuries can still be managed well performing exercise on a bike, skierg or in the pool. These alternatives will help to maintain aerobic health well avoiding further harm to the injury.
7. Ensure a well-rounded training routine: As discussed above there are many changes that occur with detraining so ensure that you are getting exposure to a little bit of everything will help you progress along in your training.

Detraining is a completely natural process and is needed to keep our bodies running efficiently when we are inactive. But you don’t have to fear it, and better yet if you understand it then you can set a much better expectation for training and ensure you progress at the right pace.