This is a question we often ask ourselves when we miss a training day for whatever reason. This can make us feel like it’s the end of the world.
Either due to an injury, illness or recovery time after a running race in different modalities, or some multisport event, we panic if we see that we cannot perform physical exercises for fear of losing shape.
Most athletes know thay is important to take a few days off after a great race, but stopping training to rest and not because of something mandatory such as injury, can be difficult to put into practice due to fear of losing our physical form.
The good news is that you don’t need to worry if you have to take a break up to 5 days of inactivity, this will not negatively affect your fitness.
The efficiency of your body to absorb oxygen in the blood and transport it to your muscles is called Aerobic Endurance. Which creates the ability to maintain a certain level of performance, Along with maintaining the strenght of your muscles, it translates to how well your body can absorb and tolerate the shock or running. along with aerobic endurancethai it is essential to completely avoid injury.
Experienced athletes who have been active for years will be affected differently than beginners. However, for both, seven days or more without physical activity will affect your aerobic endurance. this will begin to decrease and this is mainly due to the physical form acquired in the last weeks and months.
The structural physical condition of the muscles, which we mentioned earlier, is essential to avoid injury, it will start to decrease after seven days or more of inactivity as well, but the big difference is that it will take longer than aerobic resistance to reach levels again. Optimal.
This can be dangerous for those athletes returning to sport because their aerobic fitness indicates that they are doing well, while theis body’s ability to tolerate an event or training loads has decreased due to structural fitness.
So, we conclude that even if your legs feel rejuvenated after a week or two for rest, and feel able to run even in a faster pace, you will be at a higher risk of injury to decreased structural physical capacity, and this is true for all types of athletes whether they are beginners or experienced.
| TIME WITHOUT TRAINING | PERCENTAJE APPROX. OF LOSS OF PHYSICAL CONDITION |
| 3 – 5 DAYS | 0 – 1% |
| 1 WEEK | 8% |
| 15 DAYS | 20% |
| 3 WEEKS | 40% |
| 4 WEEKS | 55% |
| 35 DAYS | 75% |
| 6 WEEKS | 90% |
| FROM 7 WEEKS | 100% |