how much fitness do you lose when you dont run for 3 days

juzkeeprunnin wrote:

I have the flu but because i got medicine early the recovery should be 2-3 days. How much (if any) will i lose?

juzkeeprunnin wrote:

I have the flu but because i got medicine early the recovery should be 2-3 days. How much (if any) will i lose?

Did you have a fever? Only about 20% of flu cases are actually flu.

R2D3 wrote:

juzkeeprunnin wrote:

I have the flu but because i got medicine early the recovery should be 2-3 days. How much (if any) will i lose?

Did you have a fever? Only about 20% of flu cases are actually flu.

If OP really had the flu, he wouldn't be on here saying he will be better in 2-3 days. More like a month to be running normally again. It's a cold.

Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:

WE HAVE HAD THIS QUESTION BEFORE. YOU DON'T LOSE ANY "FITNESS" BY NOT RUNNING. YOU ACTUALLY GAIN FITNESS BY ADDING SOME BULK.

REPEAT AFTER ME: LONG DISTANCE RUNNING AND FITNESS ARE UNRELATED

REPEAT AFTER ME: XFIT AND INTELLIGENCE ARE UNRELATED.

FITNESS IS ABOUT THE BODY'S ABILITY TO DISTRIBUTE OXYGEN DURING EXERCISE. THAT CAN BE IMPROVED BY RUNNING, AMONG OTHER TYPES OF TRAINING, BUT NOT BY ADDING "BULK", WHICH THE OP WON'T BE DOING ANYWAY SINCE HE'S SICK.

Three days worth.

Not enough info wrote:

Height/weight/400m time?

I appreciated this.

juzkeeprunnin wrote:

I have the flu but because i got medicine early the recovery should be 2-3 days. How much (if any) will i lose?

It you are in a build up phase, you will lose a little, but if you are fit, you will lose very little to nothing. And, the little bit you lose, will come back as soon as you get in one or two days of training. Now, the effects of the flu can linger is your system for another day or two after you start feeling better, but again that effect is minimal as well. Btw, getting some type of bug a week from a major competition actually happens quite often and most athletes bounce back quickly with no effect come race day.

The time off won't cost you anything (okay, maybe .1% of your fitness). The flu and meds are what will hurt you.

If you're asking if you should take time off, the answer is yes. Pushing your body with hard training thru the flu will do much more harm than good.

Rest and live to run another day.

.1% sounds about right. It will be very minimal. Heck, I once got into pretty good running shape then had a month long vacation to Israel where I was active but only ran once during that entire month. Came back and had only lost probably 25% of my endurance.

FWIW Roger Bannister took five days off--no running at all--before his first sub-4:00.

Thanks guys, im almost positive its the flu. My fever had been fluctuating all day yesterday going from 103 to 98 at the end of the day. The medicine im taking is called tamiflu which what I've heard works really well. I have gotten more than 20 hours of sleep in the past few days so i have had a lot of rest.

I've had the 'real flu'. You will not be able to run after 2-3 days. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me.

Take an extra 2 days off when you start to feel better. Don't start training again until you feel perfect and spend the first 4 days going very easy. No longer than 30 mins.

The flu puts a huge amount of stress on your body. It takes weeks to fully recover from. There is no advantage to trying to come back quickly because you will only wear your body down.

Just accept you are sick and write off the next two weeks of training. It's the reality of the situation you are in. Trust me.

^^

xcskier66 wrote:

I've had the 'real flu'. You will not be able to run after 2-3 days. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me.

Take an extra 2 days off when you start to feel better. Don't start training again until you feel perfect and spend the first 4 days going very easy. No longer than 30 mins.

The flu puts a huge amount of stress on your body. It takes weeks to fully recover from. There is no advantage to trying to come back quickly because you will only wear your body down.

Just accept you are sick and write off the next two weeks of training. It's the reality of the situation you are in. Trust me.

You might be right but in some cases it's not entriely true. I've had personal experiences where it went just how you said it here. But I remember this one time having the flu for a couple of days and I'm talking high fever, vomiting, etc. and then going into a xc meet because my team needed me to at least be the fifth runner and instead of being miserable I had the race of my life.

it takes about 2 weeks to lose a significant amount of shape

You don't have the real flu for a couple of days. You have it for 4-5 days and then feel exhausted for the next week.

Everyone always confuses something like a cold, norovirus or food poisoning with the flu. You almost certainly didn't have the real flu even though you exhibited flu like symptoms. I couldn't imagine racing after having the real flu.

The flu is life threatening and kills >10,000+ people a year in the USA. It seriously compromises your immune system and kicks you to the ground.

If you really had the real influenza virus and were able to have the race of your life after being sick for 2-3 days then you have the worlds greatest immune system and are one in ten million special.

Sorting out what the flu had to do with your post illness fitness level and what part not running played is an impossible task. Recover fully and then continue your regular fitness program.

I guess your probably right. My flu test came up negative but the doc said that sometimes happens in the early stages so she prescribed me medicine. The only reason the doctor probably thinks its the flu is because my bro had it a week ago and is just coming back from it.

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