ExRx.net

Okay this may seem like a strange question but...

My wife has been doing a boot camp training program, 3 days a week of workouts that include running/jogging/sprinting, body weight exercise, some HIIT type workouts etc, it varies every session. She's had about a week off and hit the treadmill this morning and felt a bit buggered after 1km. She then asked the question on Facebook "is it possible to lose the cardio fitness you've built up over two months in a week?" and a friend replied that she was told by a PT that "it takes only 12 days to go almost back to your starting point or a loss of about 95% of your gains". Now I can't find anything to support myself, but that sounds like BS to me! Can anyone enlighten me? I would have thought that you may lose a bit but not 95% in 12 days!

John

Unless your wife was sick or bedridden during her week off, I doubt if her cardio conditioning has taken much of a hit. Anyone can have a bad workout for a variety of reasons. But a person who has decent cardio conditioning won't go to zero in two weeks. Perhaps the PT didn't want his clients to get in the habit of taking long breaks - it's less client revenue for him during the breaks, after all.

It's possible that she was pushed too hard during the boot camp, and she is still in the process of recovering.

Asked the wife more about her day yesterday and the work out this morning and it seems to me to be a combo of bad diet and low fluid intake yesterday combined with fatigue from a bad night sleep and an overall unmotivatedness (is that a real word? lol) to actually do the workout!

Had a talk to a patient on my ward who is a trainer for a local soccer team and his answer pretty much mirrored yours Stephen so I am gald I'm not going mental!!! lol

John

@jeffrerr:

I was wondering if your wife has gotten back to form in her cardio program. Speaking for myself, lack of sleep kills quality workouts much more so than hunger or dehydration. There's growing evidence that people - particularly middle aged people - who don't get their 7 hours of zzs each night are at higher risk for a whole host of medical problems.

Yeah her very next training session she was back to being as fit both cardio vascularly and muscularly as prior to the 7 day lay off! Turns out her friend, who I thought heard it from a PT, is actually a university qualified Physical Education Teacher! Luckily she hasn't gotten a job in the field since leaving Uni a few years ago! And her source when I questioned it, Cosmo magazine, so it MUST be true right? lol

John

Just back tracking through some of my old posts and I can now say from personal experience that the info in the OP is BS! lol