Taking a break from training: 4 non-obvious principles

In 1980, having received his last Mr. Olympia title, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the end of his sports career and devoted himself entirely to cinema. Filming did not allow the iron Arnie to train as before, and during a year-long break in training, he loses 15 kg of muscle mass. So no, it’s impossible to pump up once and for all. But total regression can be avoided by following simple rules. Here they are.

Busy work, vacation, pregnancy, illness or injury are all good reasons to take a break from training. Refusal of regular exercise negatively affects primarily muscles, strength and endurance. How quickly the changes occur depends on your physical condition at the time of the break and the duration of the break.

An experienced athlete is able to maintain his sporting achievements at the same level for several months. Newbies to the world of fitness and those who have been training for about 6 months will lose their fitness faster.

What and when will happen to the body without training?

One workout or week

Nothing bad will happen. Moreover, for well-trained athletes, a missed lesson or a seven-day time-out will even be beneficial: the body will have time to recover and enter the supercompensation phase.

Month

Physical qualities will begin to deteriorate 10 days after the last workout. Muscle strength and flexibility will decrease, aerobic capacity and heart function will decrease, and endurance will drop by 5-10%.

1-2 months

Stamina will decrease by 15%. Instead of muscle mass, adipose tissue will grow. The nervous system will also begin to suffer: if previously training helped you relieve nervous tension, now you can become irritable, hot-tempered, and feel apathy.

What happens to the body without running?

It doesn’t matter for what reason you stopped running – without sports, your body will begin to change. After a week without any training, even in a physically developed organism, changes begin in the functioning of the heart and lungs, in the condition of the muscles, and in the functioning of the hormonal system.

The heart will begin to pump 10% less blood per beat. You may notice this by your resting heart rate being slightly higher than it was during regular exercise.

The anaerobic threshold will drop - a high level of intensity that the body is able to maintain for a long time without a noticeable increase in the amount of lactate. You will feel this if, after a break, you immediately move on to high-intensity exercises.

Without running, your maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) decreases. If the break continues into the second and third weeks, then VO2max decreases from 4 to 15%.

This is also due to the changes that occur in the muscles - the network of capillaries that was built during the training period will degrade, and this will affect the access of oxygen to the tissues. By this break period, the volume of blood pumped by the heart will have dropped to 20% compared to what it was during the training period.

And it is clear that the further running and sports are absent in the same volume, the further the regression will go - what runners among themselves call a rollback. After a month without sports, the capillary network of the body will become the same as it was before training, and the volume of the heart will decrease significantly.

Changes in the hormonal system will make themselves felt when you return to training - the body will produce more stress hormones under the same loads as before, and recovery will take longer.

marathon and half marathon training plans and start training today!

Read on topic: Resting pulse: how to measure and why you need to know

Wide grip squat pull-ups

The arms, shoulders, abs, back muscles, chest, legs - almost the whole body work.

I squat all the way down: This is correct form for everyone except powerlifters. They really don't need to go below 90 degrees because they're lifting a lot of weight. Squats with weights can be traumatic. We don't lift weights, so we squat to the end.

Dips

The arms, oblique abdominal muscles, back, and legs work.

If you don't have a good playground in your yard, put up two desks and use them as bars. You can also do pull-ups even on the porch canopy. It is important to focus on the result: think about the training during training, so that not only the muscles, but also the brain work on the result. If you pedal an exercise bike and watch a TV series at the same time, you won’t get the desired effect.

How to get back to running

After a break, the body is not ready not only for training in the same volume, but even for some less intense loads.

The good news is that those who trained regularly and for a long time before the break will find it easier to return to running. But both trained and untrained need to engage carefully, in small volumes and with low intensity.

We include the body in work gradually, this will relieve injuries and overtraining

Walk vigorously

If the break was due to injury, then it is better to return to running through walking. You need to walk for 45-60 minutes and not at a walking pace, but at an intense pace, at which the pulse should be somewhere around 100 beats per minute.

The heart and muscles will begin to remember the load, and at the same time you can check whether the pain remains after the injury. If it is not there, you can introduce running.

Read on the topic: Walking: types, benefits, calorie consumption

If there was no injury, but the break was long, it is still better to alternate between jogging and walking.

In the first week of training after a break, try the beginner program:

1 minute run
2 minutes of intense walking

And so on for 30 minutes.

Over the next week, increase your running interval to 2 minutes with the same walking interval for 2 minutes. Then, focusing on how you feel, shorten the walking interval and eliminate it altogether, but don’t hesitate to take a step if you want.

Increase volumes gradually

If the break is not associated with an injury or the injury was not serious, and there is no more pain, then you can immediately return to running at low intensity, without intervals, slides, etc., and, of course, you will have to continue with lower volumes.

If the break lasted more than 10 days, start with 70% of the previous volume. If from two weeks to a month – 50% of the previous volume. Two months is less than half of the previous volumes. If the break lasts more than three months, start from the very beginning (see point above).

And most importantly, don’t forget the 10% rule: you need to increase volumes gradually, each new week + 10% of the previous week’s volume. For example, if you ran 20 km in one week, then next week you should run 22 km. On the next one - 24-25 km, etc.

Podcast on the topic: Running volumes, or how much you need to train for a marathon

Plan your next running season

Try to analyze the moment when you had to take a break from running. If it is not related to life circumstances, then the problem is most likely too much volume, or too high an intensity, or insufficient recovery, or incorrect technique.

In order to properly distribute the load after a break and not step on the same rake, it is better to find a running coach who will conduct training with you, or at least create a training program with him.

A training program can be purchased, created in a running app or using sports gadgets. For example, in the running app Nike Running Club, you can plan a training program for races from 5 to 42 km.

A more difficult program can be selected using an account on Polar Flow and a sports watch that will monitor the condition of the body.

Check your running technique. Again, it is best to contact a coach so that he can evaluate the technique from the outside. You can ask a friend to record you on video and try to analyze the mistakes yourself. You can also contact a running lab.

Include a massage (or at least self-massage), a sauna or bathhouse, Pilates or yoga, and stretching in your recovery program.

Read on topic: 5 rules of long-distance running technique

Add security and security forces

Strength training will help you avoid future injuries, increase strength and explosive endurance, and develop the muscles that work when running. And add variety to your workouts.

A good training plan always includes SBU and other exercises.

It is better that strength training for runners be part of the preparation and included in the training plan.
Strength training should be repeated 2-3 times a week and take at least 30-40 minutes of time.
Strength training can be done in the gym on machines, with expanders and elastic bands, and with your own weight. If you have weights, focus on light weights and high repetitions.
If you don't know where to start, listen to our podcast about strength training for runners.
Special running exercises are a lifesaver for a runner; they will help you hone your technique, develop coordination, and strengthen your muscles and ligaments. Check out our selection of 50 developmental exercises for runners.

Add cross training

This means periodically replacing running with other cyclic sports, for example, cycling, swimming, and the same strength exercises.

Swimming and cycling are types of exercise that develop the cardiovascular system no worse than running. They are ideal if you feel sore, if you have a minor injury, or if you don’t feel like running.
Strength training in this case can also be considered as an alternative training to regular running. You can try circuit strength training to keep your heart rate high.

Close grip pull-ups

Works your arms, back, abs and legs. Due to the fact that, when lowering, the legs move to the “corner” position, the exercise becomes more effective.

Pull-ups are a basic exercise. But, if you don’t know how to do pull-ups, entry to the sports ground and the Workout movement is not closed to you, on the contrary. On September 23, our “Hundred Day Workout” program for beginners starts, the first part of which is dedicated to how to learn how to exercise on the horizontal bar.

Briefly about protein

For many beginners, having so many different types of protein is a revelation. Most people do not know about the existence of whey, soy, milk, casein and other types of protein. But this is a very important point. The type of protein directly determines the time of its intake, dosage and effect.

It is important to know that protein can be “fast” and “slow”:

“Fast” proteins are characterized by a high rate of absorption by organisms. They have unique indicators of biological activity, so they are suitable for taking in the morning and after training. These supplements include all types of whey powder - isolates, concentrates and hydrolysates.
“Slow” proteins are absorbed much longer - up to 6-8 hours, so it is better to drink them at night or during long breaks in nutrition. Their peculiarity is the continuous supply of muscle fibers with amino acids and the prevention of catabolic processes. Slow proteins include:
Casein powder is also absorbed slowly, so drinking it is most effective before bed. Disadvantages include an unpleasant taste and poor solubility in water, which complicates the process of preparing a protein shake;
egg protein, like casein, has a “long-lasting” effect and begins to act only after 4-6 hours.

So, we have mentioned the main types of proteins that are most in demand in bodybuilding today. All of them can be drunk on any day, regardless of the time of rest and training. But more on that below.

How to lose weight without sports at home

As you can see, I did not mention anywhere in the article that you will need to visit the gym, because, in fact, you can start losing weight simply by paying attention to the things that we talked about above.

Therefore, I can safely say that you can lose weight without sports at home without any problems.

You can even start training at home if you still want to (we’ll talk about this later). By the way, as always, I have an article for you about how to build muscles at home.

Calisthenics trains the whole body

An exercise with your own body weight cannot be performed in isolation - even if you lift yourself with your arms, the rest of your body is also under tension. This is especially true for complex movements like one-arm pull-ups or the horizontal exercise (“board”, planche).

Horizontal exercise / bodyweighttrainingarena.com

Press

Any movement from the calisthenics involves the abdominal muscles. In addition, there are special exercises for working these muscles, for example, lifting the legs to the horizontal bar or the “windshield wipers” exercise. These exercises also work the serratus anterior muscles, which, along with the rectus abdominis, define the appearance of your abs.

Hands

There are many types of pull-ups in calisthenics that can pump up the muscles of the arms and back better than exercises with weights: pull-ups to the chin and to the chest, with a narrow or wide grip, on a thick bar and other objects that you can grab onto, slow pull-ups, L-pull-ups , one-arm pull-ups. There is always a more difficult option that will provide more stress on the biceps and back muscles.

For the triceps and chest in calisthenics there are many types of push-ups on the floor, as well as on parallel bars and rings. By combining pull-ups and push-ups in one workout, you evenly pump up your entire upper body.

Legs

Most often, criticism of calisthenics concerns the development of the legs, since they do not participate in spectacular exercises on the horizontal bar. However, it is quite possible to pump up your legs with bodyweight exercises.

By using a full range of motion (squatting until your thighs touch your shins), high repetitions, and more complex forms like the pistol squat, you can increase the load on your legs and build strength.