Don't Stop Exercising During the Holidays

As the holiday weeks arrive, schedules become quickly filled up with shopping trips, parties and vacations. Exercise programs often become casualties of the season. Many people disappear from the gym in early December and do not reappear until January.

There is an alternative approach. Instead of spending the first months of the new year struggling to regain your fitness, a strategically planned holiday program will help you maintain your fitness and have time for social activities also.

First, let's look at how the body "detrains", or decreases fitness levels when you stop exercising. Increased cardiovascular fitness means that:

1. the heart can pump more blood
2. more blood is delivered to working muscles and
3. more oxygen is extracted from the blood by the muscle cells. This occurs because of:
1. an increase in blood volume
2. increased capillary density in the muscles and
3. an increase in the number and in the activity of the mitochondria, cell structures that are the muscles' energy "factories".

When you stop exercising, plasma volume (and the amount of blood the heart can pump) decreases rapidly. Mitochondria activity and capillary density decrease more slowly. Substantial losses in cardiovascular fitness can occur in just two weeks after exercise is stopped, while complete detraining takes several weeks. (This is affected by how long you have been following an exercise program—persons who have exercised regularly for years will decline less quickly than someone who has only exercised for a few months.) Once fitness levels begin to decline, it takes approximately three times as long to regain former levels.

However, reducing exercise frequency, as opposed to stopping exercise, can effectively forestall serious declines in fitness levels. Studies have shown that individuals who decreased exercise frequency from 6 days/week to 2 days/week were able to maintain cardiovascular fitness levels for up to three weeks, as long as exercise of moderately high intensity was performed (70%-75% of maximum).

The moral of the story is: don't stop exercising during the holidays! If your schedule gets tight, 2 quality 30-minute exercise sessions per week can help you maintain your fitness until you can resume your usual program. Plan the 2 sessions 2-4 days apart for maximum benefit.

Follow this program and you will not only maintain your sanity, but won't feel like you are starting all over again January 2.