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30-Minute Survival Workouts

Friday, 12 December 2014 00:10

By Marty Gaal (usatriathlon.org)

Most of us will have days, and sometimes weeks, where life, work and family duties demand a lot of our time and energy. You might be traveling for work and engaged with clients from sunup to sundown; your children may be out of school and you need to keep them entertained while also logging 40-plus hours of work or your dog is sick and you can't leave her alone for too long. Let the fun begin!
 
Whatever the cause, you find yourself overwhelmed, stressed out and just generally unable to get much time to yourself. You might be tempted to just chuck all your training and sit on the couch in those few moments you do have to relax. But if you really are goal-oriented and in training for some big event down the road … don't give in.
 
This is where short workouts come in. I call them 30-minute survival workouts. Why? Because those 30-minute workouts will help your fitness survive until you have the wherewithal to get back out and about for your 'real' training sessions....

The validity of this has been researched quite a bit, and some further reading links are provided at the end of this article.
 
To sum the research up: If you stop exercising, you will lose fitness. Surprise! The longer you go without any training, the more fitness you will lose. The newer to the sport you are, the quicker you will lose that fitness. The reverse here is also true: The longer you've been in a sport the slower you will lose that specific fitness. However, two to four weeks for just about everyone means you will lose a lot of fitness — reduction in V02 max, threshold, maximal power, strength and so on. READ MORE