Maintain your fitness during the holidays

Azdak

Holiday times can be hectic with travel, shopping and events. I was reading another forum where someone said they were planning a 2-week "break" from their fitness routine.

I suspect that is unthinkable for most people on this website, but it can be a challenge.

Obviously, there is the whole eating/calories question (oy! I just got on the scale and I am heading to the gym RIGHT NOW!--with TWO shirts packed).

Independent of that, however is the idea of maintaining your fitness, so you do not have to take several sessions to get back into your routine after the new year (and the importance of maintaining a schedule).

I am not going to go into a lot of physiology details--suffice to say there are short-term and long-term adaptations to exercise. A two-week break will have little noticeable effect on the long-term improvements, but some "detraining" of the short-term adaptations can occur.

The good news is that it doesn't take nearly as much effort to *maintain* a fitness level as it did to achieve it in the first place. A quality workout every 3-4 days can be sufficient.

So, if this is an issue for you, rather than banging your head against the wall trying to work out every day, or giving up and taking the two weeks off, just schedule in a couple of workouts per week. They don't even have to be as long as your usual routine as long as the intensity is up--try to keep the effort level at the upper end of your usual intensity. Even 2 good workouts between now and Jan 1 should have you ready to go full speed after the holdays.

slieber

Being in ballet, often-times schools let out for the hols and we have no place to go. I'm happy in that there is at least one school scheduling at least one class a week for the next two weeks. I'm taking one tonight, had one yesterday - an impulse invite to a private lesson from one of my teachers and will have a class next Monday. Have also asked one of my other teachers if she'd be willing to give me a class sometime next week.

I normally do 12 hours of ballet training a week with about 4 hours of cross-training at the gym - mostly aerobic and now with upper body weights mixed in with that. I just caught a cold so will scale that back just a bit till the cold is better, but am not giving up the few ballet classes I can get to over this holiday break.

That said, in the past (and I must say I'm well up in the years age-wise), one day off would set me back a week in flexibility. Now, taking the time off actually helps - it appears to let my body repair with the flexibility staying in place, as long as I don't take off too long.

I guess, being there in the years and the training levels, I agree with you, Azdak. It's not as horrific as one might think to take a few days off and might even be beneficial. I can see my metabolism being shocked into working again if I take time off.