Maximum Effort

I am a fairly competitive guy. Shocking revelation there I know, but there you have it. Truth is out.

That competitiveness can lead to some interesting interpretations in life sometimes, one of which has just happened to me.

On the weekend my Doctor said that it would be a good idea for me to detrain. Let all fitness go in order to let my heart reduce in size. That may reduce whatever is causing the issues I am having. Certainly most of the studies have indicated that detraining leads to a reduction in ectopic beats etc. So that is that, detraining it is.

Well damn it, if I am going to detrain, I am going to detrain the fastest and best anyone ever has!!!

Prepare to watch me lose fitness and be amazed.

In all seriousness it is a bizarre world I am currently finding myself in. After years or trying to build fitness and maintain it, the idea of deliberately losing fitness is quite a hard one to get my head around. I don't think it is something that I have ever actively pursued. I have definitely lost fitness before, but that has mostly been injury induced. I guess in a way what I am doing right now is sort of injury induced, but it is doesn't really feel like it because on the whole I feel fine. Still, lose fitness is in the instruction and so lose fitness I shall do.

Actually, having that clear instruction from the Doctor really works for the athlete in me. Somebody has told me what to do, all I have to do is go and execute. It is just like a training program, but in reverse.

Of course losing fitness and getting fat and lazy are two very different things. I am allowed to maintain some activity, but it is a fine line between being active enough to maintain sanity, but not being so active that I stay fit. Once again the idea of limiting my exercise so that I don't accidentally gain fitness is a very foreign concept, but there you go.

Weight is going to be a significant factor too. It is a common occurrence that athletes stop training and put on a lot of weight. The classic problem of maintaining an athlete's diet, without maintaining their energy output. In the 6 months since I stopped racing I haven't put on too much weight (I have gained a bit), but that has been because I have been careful and I have been doing a bit of exercise. Moving to no real exercise means I am going to have be extra vigilant when it comes to my diet. As of this morning I weigh about 80kg. For context my race weight used to be about 72kg. At 72kg the skin folds were getting pretty low and so I would usually sit around 74kg or so during the main training phases so avoid getting sick. It is perhaps not surprising that the weight has headed north as the exercise has decreased. Now that I am not doing exercise my goal will be to stay as close to 80kg as I can. We shall see, but that will be my goal.

As a obsessive athlete I am of course still using TrainingPeaks to log any exercise I do. One of the thing that TrainingPeaks does is quantify your fitness using a number called CTL (Chronic Training Load). My CTL is currently sitting at 54. That doesn't mean much as it is a fairly individual number, but for some context at Ironman WA last year my CTL was about 180. So have I lost some fitness? Yes, yes I have. However, since about March my CTL has sat between about 65 and 90, so perhaps I haven't lost enough fitness. I am not sure what CTL would be considered detrained. I am working towards a goal CTL of 0. If you are going to have a target you might as well aim high (or low in this case).

I was reading something today that said you usually see the effects of detraining begin after 8 to 12 weeks. According to TrainingPeaks, after 12 weeks of no training my CTL will be about 10. If I do no exercise then by the end of the year my CTL will be 2.7. By the end of January it will be 1.7. It takes a long time to finally come down to 0. I suspect I will be feeling very detrained well before I hit 0, if I ever actually manage it.

Time will tell what the effects of detraining are. However, given that it has been years and years since I let my body lose form, perhaps this isn't a bad idea, both from a cardiac point of view and a general health point of view.

Watch me go, I am going to detrain so hard it will blow you away.