Newsflash: taking a break from training can be a good thing. A bit of downtime can give your brain and body the time it needs to recover from regular exercise, not to mention that holiday headspace can do wonders for motivation levels. And while you may panic that doing less or no exercise during your two-week summer holiday or the six-week summer break will cause your fitness levels to plummet, it takes longer for fitness to decline than you might think.
‘Data shows that cardiorespiratory fitness – indicated by a person’s VO2 max (the maximum threshold of oxygen a person can use during exercise) – drops by about 10 per cent over four weeks after a person stops training,’ explains PT Josh Ivory (@josh_j_ivory). ‘But when it comes to strength, evidence suggests that it takes 12 weeks without training for the average person to experience a significant decrease in the amount of weight they can lift.’
Of course, there are useful things you can do to maintain some fitness while on holiday, including enjoying ‘active rest’ days by keeping regain fitness lost when you return to exercise, plus you might have a little more vim and vigour to boot.
