Ok smoking... not for the sarcastic.

MrNundy

OK, so i will try to word this differently or as easily as i can. I am not going to state the obvious facts about smoking, this is more of a question to those who were previous smokers.

So I am currently training to join the RAF and running is my main area of training at the moment, I smoke so obviously my lung capacity is smaller compared to a none smoker. A fair amount of military personal smoke, including my dad who was in the RAF for 23 years and was fit through out so i know that I can run and still smoke, although i won't ever hit my potential ability.

What Im trying to get at is, how much more of an improvement did people find in there running during the first few months after quitting and did anyone restart smoking after a few months and was able to keep up there "new and improved" standard of running when restarting?

Hope this makes sense lol.

IamUndrCnstruction

You lung function will improve, but it will get slightly worse for the first month as your body tries to rid itself of the nastiness that cigarettes leave. After that you will begin to see improvement. Imagine you certainly CAN be fit and be a smoker, as the your lung function increases from aerobic exercise (if I can increase the function of the 1/3 of one working lung I have left, you can improve yours, smoking or non). As to whether or not you can maintain that increased function once you start smoking again.....maybe, but... WHY start again?

Phrick

My running ability was worse in the 5-6 weeks after I quit smoking. As above, my body was too busy hacking out the tar to give me any kind of boost in performance. When is your performance test? You're going to need to give your body/lungs some fairly significant recovery time before you can expect improvement, if you choose to quit smoking.

cw106

i still smoke, but have increased my lung capacity( vo2 max) from very poor last july to excellent,for my age group, in march 15.
daily aerobic exercise,strength training and swimming is my main exercise.over 50 too.
losing 70lbs has obviously helped significantly.