We played flu dominoes at my house. First my youngest son, then the middle son, now me. I wrote down a bunch of my whines about it here, then deleted them because they were so onerous. Having the flu sucks.
And type A that I am, I’ve spend a fair amount of my laying-miserably-on-the-couch time thinking about how hard it’s going to be to get back in the gym, how intensely difficult it is in general to come back after a period of inactivity.
How fast do you get out of shape?
I’ve read and heard lots of conflicting opinions on this. Some say that you have to be out for two months before you lose your conditioning. My guess is that they mean ALL your conditioning, because I feel a significant reduction of fitness in two weeks (or less).
Maybe I’m wrong, but getting in shape feels like climbing a mountain, and if you’re only halfway up, you’ll get back down to the bottom faster than if you’re standing on the summit. Just my non-scientific view.
And I always thought everyone slides down the mountain at about the same rate, but this old article in the Chicago Tribune says veteran exercisers lose their fitness level at a slower rate. (See, I tried to do at least a little research.) Thank the good baby Elvis something’s working in my favor here.
First the lungs…
Fewer mitochondria means less oxygen to your muscles, and the longer you’re out of the game, the faster your mitochondria count plummets. How to build more mitochondria? Err, aerobic exercise. Dammit.
Then the muscle…
I barely have the power to shove my 6 pound dog Rocky out of my way so I can shift positions on the couch. Ugh. And according to this guy, you not only start losing muscle fibers when you’re out of your workouts, but your slow- and fast-twitch muscle fibers freaking convert to “couch potato” muscle types. I’m screwed.
So what’s the plan, Stan?
Life is no fun without spreadsheets. So I have one, even if it only exists in my mind. I’m planning my return to boxing, you better believe it. How do people NOT box? Life is no fun with out boxing. Spreadsheets and boxing. And little dogs. But I digress…
Truly, I do have a plan. It’s a four-point plan, which is easy enough for my fatigued brain to hang on to. Here ’tis. (more…)