Detraining

We all know that many of the adaptations that happen in response to training are very elusive. It wont take a long time for some of the cardio vascular adaptations such as stroke volume to decline to their untrained levels. I read somewhere that for cycling, just a week of sedentary life is enough to lose half of the adaptations! I will soon be able to verify that on myself as I am coming from a two weeks of inactivity due to a crash. I have my bike back, My bruises are healing slowly and my hand is not as sore as before. Unlike two weeks ago, I am now very motivated to get back on my bike today. I will ride fairly slowly today and tomorrow and try to do a time trial on thursday to see where I am standing. My guesstimate is that my FTP should have dropped to 280-300 Watts from its latest 317W, but we will see. During this past couple of weeks, I also gained about 2-3 pounds, in spite of trying to limit my calorie intake. It sure takes a lot of determination to limit your food intake when you suddenly switch to a sedentary life from a 15+ hours/week of intense training. I am however not too much worried about any of this, I don't have a serious race planned for this year and I am sure I will be back where I was in a month. This two weeks, I tried to have fun and regain the motivation so it can also be a good vaccination against the late season burnouts that many cyclists face.