There are a lot of reasons why you might be “out of shape.” From injuries to decreased motivation, it’s normal for your fitness to ebb and flow. The good news is that whether you’ve always been an athlete or have never been able to stick to an exercise routine, there are some tried-and-true methods to help you get fit again.
What does “being fit” really mean?
Physiologically, physical fitness entails a comprehensive look at several factors: cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, mobility (including flexibility and range of motion), and neuromuscular control (i.e. balance and agility). Heather Meltona board-certified clinical exercise physiologist at NYU Langone’s Center for Sports Performance.
Anecdotally, physical fitness will look different for everyone, but it can often mean that you have good energy, feel strong, are able to perform daily tasks without pain, have mental clarity, and generally feel healthy and happy.
This subjectivity can mean that getting back into shape will involve different goals for different people. “Does being ‘fit’ mean that you are able to walk all day for your job and still have the energy to play with your kids, or does it mean that you are able to crush a new mountain biking trail without injury?” He says Jacqueline CrockfordACE Certified Personal Trainer. Understanding why this is the case will help you maintain the motivation needed to support your long-term goals.
The good news is that there are steps anyone can take to improve their overall fitness. Here’s what to expect.
How quickly do you lose fitness?
To understand how to get back into shape efficiently, it helps to know how quickly your initial results can disappear. You can actually lose your cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength with two weeks of complete rest, Milton says. She says this doesn’t mean you’ll lose all your gains after two weeks, but that’s when you can expect the decline to start. In general, cardiac endurance depletes at a slower rate than muscular strength and endurance, which decline fairly quickly when you stop training, Crockford adds.
Milton explains that loss of fitness can cause high blood pressure, low blood oxygen levels, decreased neuromuscular efficiency and heart strength, decreased lung capacity, and even a change in resting heart rate.
Age is also an important factor to take into consideration, Crockford says. Maximum oxygen uptake (or VO2max), muscle strength and mass, and flexibility all naturally decline with aging, while total body mass and fat mass increase, according to a 2009 study published in the journal European review on aging and physical activity.
How quickly can you get back into shape?
On average, if you carefully follow an evidence-based, strategically designed fitness program — meaning you’ve done your homework and stick to a specific plan — you can expect to get back in shape within 16 weeks, Melton says. Muscle strength can begin to improve within four to six weeks with noticeable results within 12 weeks. Improvements in heart disease also follow a linear pattern, with small changes progressing little by little over time, she says.
“However, this is in a vacuum,” Milton warns. This doesn’t take into account lifestyle factors such as changes in weight, diet, health conditions, or water intake, for example – all of which can significantly impact how long it takes to get fit again.
“The rate at which a person regains their fitness levels, in both muscular and cardiorespiratory measures, depends on several factors including programming, previous fitness levels and exercise experience, as well as age,” Crockford says. How long you stop exercising also matters, Milton says. If it’s been a few weeks or even a few months, that’s a big difference from a few years. “If it takes less than a year, you’ll start back maybe 50 percent where you left off and then slowly come back from there,” she says.
How to get back into shape after a break
The first step is to set a clear, measurable goal. Milton says that simply saying you want to “get back in shape” can lead to a haphazard approach to training that will ultimately take longer to achieve your goals — if you don’t get discouraged and bail yourself out along the way.
The most important thing to keep in mind when getting back into your exercise routine is to set your pace. This is especially true if you’re largely inactive (rather than just choosing less intense routes), returning from an injury, or older.
Older adults have more years of training experience under their belt, so they may be smarter about easing into a renewed routine, Melton says, but conversely, if you also want to avoid doing the same grueling workouts you did when you were younger. . Bodies change over time, she says, and it’s OK if your version of fitness looks different in your 40s than it did in your 20s.
A steady progression in difficulty will ensure you stay on track while avoiding injury or burnout, Milton says. Cardio can be increased by your overall training volume, which means that if you have success running for three hours each week, you can increase the total weekly time you spend running. Milton adds that strength-based training can look like more reps using the same weight or getting a higher weight while doing the same reps. Bodyweight tests with maximum repetitions — think how many push-ups you can do in one minute — are a good universal tactic for building strength, too. The bottom line is that you can get back into shape, but it probably won’t happen overnight. Small, smart steps over time will lead to the results you seek, so practicing patience is a necessary ingredient.
More about the work:
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.