When do you start to lose fitness?

I heard that you lose a lot of fitness immediately after death as well as some other things.

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This is a funny one, being that studys are very diffrent on this matter. Some say you loose a lot quick, some say you dont. In a week your not going to loose that much, even if some say otherwise. More of the people that I know who are runners, have PRed! comeing off one or two weeks of injory then have gotten worse. One thing to keep in mind that what really makes you a better runner are the metbolic changes that take place within your legs. And these changes happen very slowly, but also are slow to reverse.

What about one week of just easy running, followed by one week of normal training. Would it likely be an improvement or a loss if one raced at the end of the second week?

As soon as you start typing.

Well if your just takeing an easy week of running, not cutting anything out. And haveing a good hard race in there I bet you will GAIN some fitness. I loose fitness really really fast, but my coach make sure I taper ten days befor my peak races. No more no less, often when I do this I think I am looseing fitness. But the wild thing is that I allwasy end up running much much better then befor. As long as you do not cut your miles down, your going to keep what you have built up.

i think it has more to do with losing it mentally. studies have shown that you can take 7-10 days off and will only lose something like 1ml/kg/min for VO2 max. but the problem is coming back people think they lost a lot more than they really did, and fold like little girls. (sorry if i insulted little girls there)

If you have been training hard and you take up to 3 days off you will attain "TEMPORARY" recovery benefits that will cost you later. After 4 days off you begin losing ground which rapidly accelerates which each successive day of no running up to about a month. After a month of no running, the loss of continues but the rate of loss slows. Of course by this time, you have lost so much already that it doesn't matter that the losses are slowing.

From my Lydiard thesis:

End of Season Recovery

For about a week or two just jog 3 miles every other day to get mentally fresh again. Then start whole process over again for next year. Lydiard says to never take a complete break from running or you will needlessly throw away your hard earned gains. This is mistake that is almost universally made by American coaches. In as little as 4 days with no training the following deleterious effects start taking place: Rise in resting heart rate, decrease in heart size, decrease in tone in leg muscles, decrease in blood volume and red blood cells, loss of running economy (form), decrease in heart stroke volume, decrease in the number of mitochondria in the cells, etc. Granted, these negative changes are small at first but as Lydiard says you are only fooling yourself if you think ?rest? is doing you good. Lydiard says competitive distance running is a year round endeavor. Lydiard disciple Marty Liquori (the last American to rank # 1 in the World in the 5000 and in the 1500/mile) says in his book on the Lydiard principles ?Few things in life fade as quickly as the results of hard physical training. It is a flower that does not last long after the picking. The first day you miss training, you begin a backward slide. You cannot ?pick up where you left off?, since you have already slid several feet back down the mountain. You cannot put your body on hold [see above deleterious effects of complete rest], in distance running you are either getting better or getting worse at any given moment. There is no status quo in the world of the distance runner.?

what if you didn't take time totally off-- just did a week of regular length runs at a comfortable pace (recovery pace)-- would that negatively impact fitness?

No it won't hurt your fitness. Your gains will be miniscule if anything though.

It is the total rest (no running at all) that sets you back. Case in point is Alan Webb. Immediately after signing his pro contract, he was advised and took the advice to take 40 days off and he didn't run a step. He was not happy with the results he got following this layoff.

Don't the Kenyans take up to a month off a year?

i remember moses kiptanui saying that he took off a month every year. everyone's different. i've PR'd a couple times after time off (the week i started again), in the 10k and 10 mile.

The effect of a layoff is determined by the training you have been doing prior to the layoff, and of course the way your body responds individually.

If you have been running 100mi/wk for 10 weeks of easy running, take a week off completely you will likely lose no fitness upon starting up again, in fact you will be more fresh.

If you have been beating yourself up with intensity or higher than normal mileage for a while then taking a week off will likely benefit you if you are exceeding your capacity to adapt.

If you have only been training for a few weeks no matter what the training, taking a week off you will lose a great deal of relative fitness(since you probably havent gained a great deal yet).

Baisically if you are riding a strong wave of training/fitness into the layoff you will not lose fitness. And if you have been overtraining a bit or exceeding your capacity to adapt the layoff may leave you more fit, or at the very least healed up and prepared to become more fit.....i said the same thing twice, oh well...another way to put it is: a layoff after solid training is going to lose you 'opportunity' fitness, whereas a layoff after overtrainig is going to maximize 'opportunity' fitness to use economic terms very poorly.

I began to lose fitness about age 37.