Tomorrow is Earth Day, so I thought I would use this opportunity to talk about “Earthing” or “Grounding” as it is also known. Earthing (or grounding) refers to the connecting your skin, usually your feet directly to the ground to realize possible benefits from conductive systems that transfer the Earth's electrons from the ground into the body.

This topic came up recently during a meeting I attend monthly with professional peers (not a group directly in the health and wellness space). One of the other members asked me if I had heard of grounding and wanted to know what I thought about it. To those withing earshot, it definitely sounded strange as I described taking off your shoes and socks and allowing your feet to make direct contact with the dirt, grass, or sand. But it’s something I’ve been doing for over a decade and there’s plenty of evidence that this simple practice of getting your feet dirty can be greatly beneficial for health by lowering free radical damage, reducing stress, inflammation and pain.

If you think back to prehistoric man, or even Indigenous cultures, they were naturally earthing.  But since the invention of the rubber soled shoe in 1882, most humans in first-world countries have been purposely keeping their feet from making direct contact with the ground. Foot coverings before this were made from materials such as leather and other animal skins. These materials serve as a conduit, enabling the flow of electrons to one's body from the ground up. Rubber and plastic are insulators, materials in which an electrical charge can't flow through, so once we started wearing rubber and plastic-soled shoes, the connection with the earth stopped.

The idea of earthing or grounding is that the Earth is a source of negative energy (which is good in this case) that we can connect with to offset the positive charge we build up from our typical modern lifestyle that usually does not include our skin being in direct contact with the earth.

You can find lots of information out there on the how behind earthing. To simplify it, like any other electrically conductive object, a human body can store electric charge if insulated. The body prefers to be neutral, but the build up of free radicals - produced either from normal cell metabolisms or from external sources (pollution, cigarette smoke, radiation, medications), lead to a positive charge in the body. The human body requires a constant source of negatively charged electrons in order to get back to neutral and prevent an excessive build-up of these positively charged free radicals. Without a regular supply of electrons, the cells in our body are unable to balance the positive charge. Too much positive charge starts to create free radical damage, oxidative stress and inflammation. Free radicals damage contributes to the etiology of many chronic health problems such as cardiovascular and inflammatory disease, cataracts, and cancer.

Fortunately, the Earth is continuously being charged with electrons, which mainly occurs through the hundreds of thousands of lightning strikes that take place around the world every hour. Your body is naturally able to absorb the Earth’s negative electrical charges since your skin acts like a “conductor.” Your feet, specifically certain points in the balls of your feet, are believed to be especially good at receiving the earth’s electricity.

Although direct contact with the ground outside is the best source, you can also practice grounding/earthing indoors. Indoor earthing can be realized with earthing mats, sheets, or bands. These products have a grounding wire designed to plug in to the ground port of your wall outlet or a grounding rod, which is meant to connect you to the earth through your home or building’s grounding wire. A grounding wire is a safety measure used to prevent a house fire or an electric shock if there is excess electricity in the wiring system. Ground wires run parallel to other wires in order to safely discharge excess electricity into the ground. So by plugging in a grounding mat or band, you are able to connect directly with the earth through this wire.

The conclusion of this study states that emerging evidence shows that contact with the Earth—whether being outside barefoot or indoors connected to grounded conductive systems—may be a simple, natural, and yet profoundly effective environmental strategy against chronic stress, ANS dysfunction, inflammation, pain, poor sleep, disturbed HRV, hypercoagulable blood, and many common health disorders, including cardiovascular disease. The research done to date supports the concept that grounding or earthing the human body may be an essential element in the health equation along with sunshine, clean air and water, nutritious food, and physical activity.

Bottom line is that earthing or grounding is free and with no side effects other than getting dirt on your feet, the potential benefits make it a no brainer. So take off your shoes and socks and get outside!

According to the definition found in most medical journals, Flat feet refers to a change in foot shape in which the foot does not have a normal arch when standing. The condition is normal in infants and toddlers and occurs because the tissues holding the joints (called tendons) in the foot together are loose.

The tissues typically tighten and form an arch as children grow older. This will take place by the time the child is 2 or 3 years old. Most people have normal arches by the time they are adults. However, the arch may never form in some people.

This can be hereditary or can come from aging, injuries, or an illness that harms the tendons and causes flat feet to develop in a person who has already formed arches.

So what? Does it matter? Do you NEED arches? The truth is that most people with flat feet live with no pain or other problems.

Some adults with flat feet may experience tired or achy feet after long periods of standing or playing sports. Some may also have pain on the outside of the ankle.

I’m one of those cases where my arches never formed. I’ve had flat feet as long as I can remember. My parents may recall otherwise, but I don’t recall even having any pain associated with my foot deformity.

I wore normal shoes as a kid – I had some Larry Bird Converse, Nikes, Kangaroos…you know, all the classics. But once I started running, I was told that because I had no arches, I would have to have running shoes with arch supports to prevent foot pain and injury. Not only that, but I would need inserts (orthotics) in my shoes to provide additional stability and balance, align my body and further prevent the pain that I wasn’t even experiencing.

For a while, I had over the counter (they make prescription ones) orthotics in my running shoes - like the ones pictured below. They were uncomfortable and actually caused me pain in my arches – the opposite of what they were supposed to do. I was told that I would get used to them and the pain would subside.

Being in my early 20’s, I was not the greatest advocate for myself and instead of doing some more research on my own, the foot pain forced me to just stop running. I thought maybe my feet were just not made for me to be a runner.

After several years of lifting weights on doing other things to stay in shape, I signed up for a triathlon and therefore needed to start running again. This time, I decided to forego the insoles, but still took the advice given to me at the shoe store and wore running shoes with a lot of support to offset my flat feet and overpronation.

As I started to train for longer distance races in the subsequent years, I developed plantar fasciitis, patellar tendonitis, and IT Band Syndrome. I have no idea if all or none of these were related to my flat feet, but I was frustrated and started on a quest to learn more about how to prevent running injures.

Around 2011, I read Christopher McDougall's book Born to Run. He believes that modern cushioned running shoes are a major cause of running injury, pointing to the thin sandals worn by Tarahumara runners in the Mexican Copper Canyons, and the explosion of running-related injuries since the introduction of modern running shoes in 1972. This book sent me down many rabbit holes into other barefoot running books and podcasts.

I then learned that it was possible to build, develop and then strengthen arches in flat feet. This was not something that anyone had ever told me I could do. The thought of being able to run injury free AND reduce muscle fatigue in my feet and legs was exciting to me, so I developed a plan!

It started with getting some running shoes with minimal cushion and minimal drop (The 'drop' of a running shoe is essentially the difference between the height/thickness of the midsole under the heel compared to the same measure under the ball of the foot). I would rotate these shoes in for shorter runs, still wearing my more “supportive” shoes on longer runs.

After 6-9 months of running in these more minimalist shoes, I started to incorporate barefoot running into my warmups. Yes, I would actually take off my shoes and socks and run barefoot on the grass. I would jog a mile barefoot on the grass inside the track before my speed workouts. This was once or twice a week.

Next step was to assess all of my footwear. I tossed out my dress shoes for those with no heel. The flat shoes forced my feet to adapt. The constant support of shoes with built-in arches and heels prevented those muscles and tendons from getting stronger. I bought some minimalist shoes to just wear out and about in the evenings and weekends.

I also made it a point to go barefoot around the house and even outside when possible. The more time I could spend without shoes, the better.

I even started doing my weightlifting sessions without shoes. I would just wear socks when lifting to not only improve foot and ankle strength, but my balance and stability.

While still doing all of these things, somewhere around 2017, I transitioned to a standing desk at work. I remove my shoes while standing at my desk and do lower leg strengthening exercises such as arch lifts, calf raises, towel curls, golf ball rolls and toe raises.

The final touch was to start wearing toe spreaders for an hour or so each night before bed. After a lifetime of wearing shoes that smashed my toes together, I needed to return the big toe to its normal anatomical position; that is, separated from the second toe and in line with its metatarsal bone instead of being turned in. Getting my toes splayed would provide the foundation to maintain a strong arch.

It is important to note that I didn’t incorporate all of these techniques and routines at once. In fact, I've been adding something new once a year or so for a long time. Jumping into all of these at once would have undoubtedly led to more injuries. Like anything else, the best way to make change is gradually.

While my ultimate goal was to be injury free – and I have been for a long time now despite doing some pretty intense races and events for the last 14 years – I also set out to grow my arches. While I hadn’t thought about that aspect of it in a long time, it has actually worked.

Just two weeks ago, I was spraying some dog vomit off of our deck (don’t act like you haven’t had to do that before) and was barefoot. After getting it all cleaned off, I was gathering up the hose and my feet got wet. As I walked back across the dry portion of the deck, I was making footprints with my wet feet. My wife Jessica looked down and said “hey…look at your footprint…there’s an arch!”. She was right; sure enough, my feet had been developing arches all this time and the proof was right there in my wet footprint.

Over time, I have been able to build a beautiful foot arch that functions the way nature intended. I’m looking forward to the benefits of having arches, such as improved balance, fewer back problems as I get older, improved posture and fewer leg and foot injuries as I continue to run into my late 40’s!

I’m a member of a peer group of local business leaders that meets monthly. Each month, we have a top-notch speaker come and talk. It’s usually around a business-related topic. However, once year, there is a speaker that comes to talk about health and wellness. While most people in the group dread this topic, I get very excited. This past month, we had a speaker that came to talk about fitness. The speaker was Luke Carlson (great first name) and the title of his presentations was “Sharpen The Saw: Evidence-Based Fitness For The High Performing Executive”.

Over the almost four hours of time he talked with us, he not only debunked several workout and training myths that most people believe, but he also presented a simple resistance workout that anyone can fit into their busy schedule. You can learn more about Luke and his training program at his website: https://www.discoverstrength.com/

One of the more interesting subjects he approached was how many reps and sets you should do when lifting weights.

I started lifting weights around age 13. My Dad knew the benefits of resistance training even back in the early 1990’s. There was some good information available thanks to Joe Weider’s books and magazines and the popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger. My Dad encouraged my brothers and I to lift weights to not only get stronger for sports, but to feel better and have more energy. We had some old concrete dumbbells, bars and a bench in the basement and would lift several days a week after school.

Even way back then, everywhere you read told you to do 3 sets of 10. That’s 10 repetitions of the specified weight, followed by a rest period, 10 more reps, rest and then a final set of 10 reps. With the exception of a few periods of time off here and there, I’ve pretty consistently lifted weights for the last 30 years. Throughout that time, I’ve always fallen back to doing something close to 3 sets of 10 whenver I'm in the gym or lifting at home. I would adjust how heavy I lifted depending on my goals at the time but would always do multiple sets of 8-10 repetitions. But why? Where did this 3 sets of 10 come from? Why does everyone do it?

Where Did 3 Sets of 10 Originate?

What I learned during Luke’s discussion was that the thoughts around 3 sets of 10 in strength and conditioning was first coined in 1948 in a paper by T.L. Delorme and A.L. Watkins titled, “Techniques of Progressive Resistance”. The idea seems logical.  3 separate sets of 10 exercises allow muscles to gain strength and endurance. Moreover, in addition the rest period between each set, the first 2 sets ramp up muscles for an intensive third set. But is this the most effective or efficient way to lift weights?

Turns out exercise science has come a long way in the last 70 years, and we now know much more about the human body and the way it responds to training. Many studies over the last decade show that the 3 sets of 10 reps approach is far from the most effective program for several reasons.

Despite this information, most mainstream fitness publications and websites continue to promote the 3 sets of 10 reps philosophy like it was not only the best way but the ONLY way to train. The 3 sets of 10 approach also does not allow for customization of volume (reps and sets) and intensity (amount of weight lifted).

If you have ever started a new training program, you know that your body adapts very quickly to the training stimuli and eventually you will stop responding to doing the same workout over and over. In order to continually progress you should consider breaking out of the 3 sets of 10 mindset.

What Should We Be Doing Instead?

When lifting weights, the goal for most people is to get strong. You may also lift to improve cardiovascular health, reduce blood pressure, increase bone density, improve cognitive and mental health, live longer or even just look better naked. Regardless of your personal why, you should maximize the amount of time your muscles are under tension. Accomplishing this is not possible if you limit yourself to a specific number of reps. If you can easily do 20 or more consecutive reps of the weight you are lifting, why would you only do 10? If you load up a weight that you can only do 6 times, is it too heavy since you can't get to 10 reps? Studies show that, regardless of the weight, it is best to do as many reps as possible until you physically can’t anymore. You’re trying to make your muscle tired. You’re trying to feel something by the end of it. Lifting until you can’t do another will accomplish this. Slowing the amount of time you take to lift and lower the weight can also increase your time under tension.

You should not even have to count the number of reps you do. Simply choose a weight and do as many reps as you can perform of the exercise until you fail. You can even just do one set. That’s right, just one set to failure of any given exercise while maintaining proper form and technique. Not counting is going to be hard for me to do as I often even find myself counting the number sips I take from the water fountain at the gym or counting the steps as I leave. Counting has always been part of my lifting routine, but maybe it shouldn’t be.

A study from the Journal of Sport and Health Science published in November of 2022 found that that a lower volume, higher effort approach should be encouraged. You can read the entire study here, but below are some of the quotes from the conclusion:

If your goal is to gain muscle mass, drop sets is a great way to efficiently lift weights. A drop set is when you perform the exercise until failure, then lower the weight and continue with no rest in between. Or if you have a partner, you can do “negatives” or “eccentric” lifts, where you have assistance lifting the weight and then do reps lowing the weight slowly until failure.

I tried this single-set to failure approach for the first time this morning at the gym. I plan on using it for the next few months to see how my body reacts. I’m excited to not only see the results, but to be able to do more with the 40-50 minutes I have to lift in the mornings.

I started training for this race in the fall of 2019. I had signed up to run the full marathon in April of 2020. A global pandemic caused a slight change to those plans! I was in great shape in the months leading up to the race that was planned for April 25th. My workout times were faster and my heart rate was lower. I was poised to run a fast race. Then on March 25th, for the first time in it's 19 years (47 years for the half marathon), the race was cancelled. The half was rescheduled for August 2020, the full was not going to be run at all in 2020 - the only option would be virtual at some point later in the year - which I was not interested in doing.

So I stopped my training. All that fitness was wasted as there were no other races anywhere else to run either. While I continued to run a few times a week, they weren't focused runs and with no races on my calendar, my diet started to slack as well. 

Then in December came the announcement that you could defer your race registration to the 2021 race. Since I knew that I wanted to do the race live, and didn't want to lose my entry fee, I signed up for the April 2021 race. I was still not feeling motivated, but hoped that once I get back into my training, my mental state would improve!

I decided to kick off my training with a long run at the end of 2020. I wanted to see where things stood both physically and mentally. It wasn't pretty. I had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. I still wasn't excited about the race. So I decided a good way to ensure that I put in the work and was ready come race day was to challenge myself publicly. On January 2nd, I posted the following to social media:

It worked. Any time I didn't want to push that last run interval, or any time I wanted to eat that dessert, I thought of this post. I thought of that feeling I would have when I crossed the finish line with a new Personal Record (PR) and how good that would make me feel. That feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction far outweighs any temporary feeling of pleasure I get from eating a piece of cake or indulging in some Jet's pizza! When my body wanted to call it quits at 6 hill repeats when the training plan called for 8, I thought about crossing that finish line on April 24th and did those last two reps.

Even in a pandemic, not much has changed from a stand point of free time I have to train. Making time to train for a marathon is not easy with a full time (50+ hours a week) job, a wife, four kids, a dog (that I'm training), and countless responsibilities around the house. I knew that I had to follow the Balanced Approach plan that I developed while training for four Ironman triathlons.

At the beginning of January, I got the training plan out and got to work. I pulled just the running workouts out of the 36 week plan and counted back. I had 20 weeks until race day. Every workout was going to be important, there was no room for wasted days when the plan was cut 16 weeks short.

Each week consisted of three runs. Usually one with hill repeats, one with sprints and one that was either all aerobic or a progression run. When it was all said and done, I went back and looked at the 20 weeks of training. My average week consisted of just 18.75 miles and only 2 hours and 39 minutes of running! Compare this to most marathon training plans that require you to run 5-6 times a week with weekly mileage in the 45-50 mile range!! Seriously, who has time to run for 7 or 8 hours every week?!?!

If you are interested in learning more about the training plan I followed, you can find it here: The Balanced Approach to Marathon Training

The workouts and my fitness improved, and in the weeks leading up to the race, so did my confidence in my ability to get that PR. My previous best for a stand-alone marathon was 3:40:31. That was what I needed to beat. Even just one second faster would be enough!

The actual race was unlike any other that I had done. While still navigating a pandemic, the race organizers did the best they could to create a safe environment for everyone. That meant staggered start times and no (very, very few) spectators. It also meant a new course that was basically on walking/running paths instead of roads. The aid stations were a mix of water bottles and giant water coolers for runners to self-fill their own bottles. Runners would be required to carry their own nutrition. This was no problem for me, as I always have my own food anyway. For this race, I decided to try something new. In my search for real food that is both portable and easy to digest while running, I decided to try out baby food. That's right, I was going to fuel my 26.2 miles with the stuff that you feel to your one year old. I spent some time in the baby isle at the store reading ingredient labels and thinking about how easy it would be to carry 4 or 5 of these pouches. I grabbed a few different kinds to test on some runs. I ultimately landed on the Biodynamic brand made by White Leaf Provisions. I tucked four of them into my fuel belt and ate one at miles 5, 10, 15 and 20...and it worked great. Being fat adapted meant that the 160 total calories (40 calories per pouch) is all that I needed to get me through.  

Beating my goal time equated to a pace of 8:24 minutes per mile. I knew that I wanted a little to spare, so I set my sights on holding a pace of 8:20 or less. I knew not to go out too fast, so I was checking my pace every few minutes to make sure I wasn't getting much under 8:10's. I'm happy with my pacing and I honestly feel like holding a steady pace is a huge key to running a successful marathon. It wasn't until mile 22 that my pace started to fall off. As expected, those last 4 miles are brutal.

Good thing the course was pretty lonely, there were several times that I was talking to myself out-loud. Trying to keep my legs moving and willing myself to hold as close to my 8:20 pace as possible. My Garmin was telling me that I was 0.15 miles long the whole day. The mile markers on the course always came 0.15 to 0.17 miles after my watch beeped for the mile split. I think I ran the extra distance early in the race at the turn around at Eva Badman Park. There was no sign, cone, or even paint or arrows on the ground to indicate where to turn around and I'm sure I went too far. So my actual distance for this race turned out to be 26.37 miles! Not that I needed that extra 0.17!!

There's not much better than that feeling you get when you try to do math with a little over a mile to go and after assessing how you feel and how fast you need to run, you realize that you are going to meet your goal. I knew that despite the race course being long, I would still set a marathon PR! My official time was 3:38:49.

The finish line was very anticlimactic. No PA system. No one announcing your name as you sprint toward the line. No finish line shoot full of cheering spectators. No music playing.  - Just a small flag that says "Finish" and a timing strip on the ground. I cross the line, stopped my watch, and stumbled up to the rack of medals. No one was there to put it over my head like I just won gold in the Olympics. I took one off the rack and put it around my own neck. I looked around. There were only a few other race finishers standing around. Everyone looked a little lost. So I just started walking back to my car.

While inside I was busting with joy, I'm sure to anyone that saw me, they probably thought I was disappointed. It was weird. I worked so hard, made so many sacrifices to accomplish my goal and then there was no one there to celebrate it with. The good news is that 20 minutes later, I was in my living room surrounded by people that were proud of me and were more than happy to celebrate with me!

Putting races on the calendar and setting goals for them has always been a driving force behind training hard and keeping myself healthy through diet and lifestyle. With no races in 2020, it was hard to stay on track. Despite the persona I put out, I struggle to make good choices sometimes when it comes to food and doing things to improve my mental state. With several races on the calendar for 2021, I'm hoping that I can make this a year where I can get things back in alignment. A marathon PR is a good start!

Deadlift

• ​​Begin in a standing position with a bar, broomstick, or band in your hands in front of you
• Keep your back is straight for the entire exercises, suck in your stomach to engage your core, and stand with your feet hip distance apart.
• Bend forward at the hips, slowly pushing your butt back towards the wall behind you. Your knees should only partially bend which should generate tension in your hamstrings
• When your hips cannot go any further backwards, pause, and then slowly return to standing by extending the hips

Single Leg Box Squat

• ​Set up your box or bench so that it is around knee height
• Stand with your feet hip width apart, suck in your stomach to engage your core and keep your shoulders back
• Lift your right leg off the ground, keeping the above posture as you balance on the one leg
• Slowly start bending your left knee, pushing your butt back as if you are about to sit in a chair
• Get as low as you can, then slowly engage the muscles and start standing up straight again

Lateral Lunge

• ​Either with or without dumbbells.
• Step out to your right side, keeping both feet pointing ahead of you
• Lower your body until your right thigh is parallel to the ground, keeping your left leg straight
• Step back to the center and repeat on the other side
• Focus on keeping your stomach sucked in the entire time. As you have to balance to bring your leg back to standing position, it means that you abs have to do a lot of the work, and in turn they also get a workout!

Dumbbell Single Leg Dead Lifts

• Stand straight with a dumbbell in each hand. Keep your stomach sucked in tight and your shoulders back
• Plant your left leg into the ground, this leg is going to be your support on this side
• Now send your right leg straight back behind you, while at the same time bring the front of you body forward until it is almost parallel to the ground. Without breaking the hips, slowly start leaning forward, allowing the weight to carry you down, while pushing the right leg back towards the wall behind you
• Now slowly bring yourself back up to standing. You should be feeling this in your core, your left hamstring and your right glute

Overhead Squat

• ​Hold a barbell, towel, band or broomstick above your head
• Stand straight with your feet at shoulder width apart and slightly angled at around 45 degrees
• Slowly squat down, keeping your chest and arms up and your core engaged
• When you get to your lowest point, engage your core and push yourself back up to standing keeping the band or bar above your head the entire time.

3 Common Weight-Lifting Mistakes

Keep in mind that a runner using weight training to improve your running is different than a weightlifter who also runs. Here are some shares some common weight-lifting mistakes to avoid according to Matt Fitzgerald:

• Going Too Heavy: The weight room is no place for ego, so check it at the door. “Not every lift has to be superheavy and superhard. Don’t risk injury trying to be a hero in the weight room.”
• Lifting Too Light: If you’re always lifting low weight for high reps, you’re building endurance in the weight room, but you shouldn’t be. “Runners work on endurance all the time with every run. The goal with weight training needs to be strength and power.”
• Focusing on Specific Body Parts: “Runners don’t need to lift that often, for as long, nor isolate individual muscles. You can lift full-body twice per week for 30 to 60 minutes, prioritizing strength and power.” You’ll get everything you need with that setup.

If you have lifted weights or spent much time working out, you have likely heard that you need to 'keep the body guessing' by regularly switching up your workout routine. For those just starting out, it’s much easier to follow the same plan day in day out. However, doing the same workouts for too long will bring your training progress and gains to a slow crawl.

The biggest problem of not altering your routine is simply boredom. There are certainly people out there that would do the same thing every day for years if they thought it would help them accomplish their goals. There is a certain segment of the population (Type A Personalities), that will do whatever necessary to succeed…even at the cost of being bored. But the truth is, you will at some point plateau and no longer adapt to your training. Not to mention the risk of injury from overuse. Nagging injuries could be a sign you’ve reached a threshold pattern called pattern overload—an injury to the soft tissues resulting from repetitive motion in one pattern of movement.

Your training should be physically challenging and mentally stimulating. If you are constantly progressing, it's highly likely that you will remain motivated to keep training hard and progressing. But if your body starts feeling sluggish, fatigued, or it's taking you longer than usual to recover in between workouts, a change of pace might be what you need.

Even slightly altering your routine every so often will lead to the best results. Just switching your grip position is enough to create a different stimulus. For instance, a different stance in your squats, or changing from front squats to back squats. Doing narrow grip versus wide grip bench press is an easy way to switch things up as well. And it doesn’t need to be just new exercises, either. Trying a new sport or even a new kind of workout class—say spin or bootcamp if you never venture out of the weight room and treadmill.

The next obvious question is, how often should you switch up the routine? A good general rule is every 4-6 weeks for most people.

As with most things, you can overdo it. You do have to be careful not to bounce from program to program too regularly, as your body is not going to know what to adapt to and you will never get the results you want because you are not sticking to anything long enough to see measurable progress.

All that being said, you can keep a few key exercises or lifts as part of your routine even if you change up other parts of it. Complex lifts such as deadlifts, pull-ups, squats, bench presses and rows are worthy enough to always have a place in your program. Mobility exercises are also a key part of staying injury free.

Happy training!

We’ve all had to take some time off from exercising. It is usually related to an injury or a change in schedules at home or work. It can be frustrating to know that all the gains in fitness you made are slowing going away as you miss workout after workout. But how long does it really take to lose all that you had gained? Once you get back to running, cycling or lifting again, do you get back to your previous level of fitness much faster than it originally took to get there? I wanted to know the answers to these questions, so I started doing some research.

It’s important to note that “fitness” can take on two forms. Aerobic fitness is the measurement of how efficiently your body can absorb oxygen into the blood and transport it to your muscles. In running this means your ability to maintain a certain level of performance, essentially your endurance. Structural fitness ​relates to the strength of your muscles, and for runners, this translates into how well your body can absorb and tolerate the impact of running. Structural strength is essential for avoiding overuse running injuries.

Both research and personal experience shows that an experienced runner who has built up running endurance over many years will retain most of their aerobic fitness for several months, while a beginner runner’s overall aerobic fitness will drop sooner (within a week) following a period of inactivity.

Structural fitness will start to decline after seven days or more of inactivity, but the big difference being it will take longer than aerobic fitness to build back up again. You're demonstrating to your body that you don't need those muscles anymore. Over time your body will revert to a stable state that's adapted to the workload that you're giving it. Your body will also start shifting more attention to type 1 muscle fibers away from the high burning Type 2 muscles. At this point, it really depends on who you are and how well you're trained. Some athletes see a loss of about 6% muscle density after three weeks. Some power lifters see losses of as much as 35% after seven months. Young women who trained for seven weeks and gained two pounds of muscle mass, lost nearly all of it after detraining for seven weeks.

In 2016, there was a study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29212672) done with 21 people that had trained and raced the Boston Marathon. Immediately after completing the race, they were only allowed to exercise a total of two hours or less a week with no more than 3-4 miles total running per week . During their training leading up to the race, they averaged nearly 32 miles a week. So these were some well-conditioned athletes.

After the first four weeks, the runners had significant drops in blood volume and plasma volume. These changes can be thought of as the body’s blood-pumping system deteriorating, both in terms of the size and power of the pump. The result of this would make a given running pace feel harder, because less oxygen would reach working muscles per heart beat than had been the case at the time of their marathon. The changes that were experienced in the first four weeks stabilized and didn’t get much worse over the second four weeks.

At the end of the 8 weeks, a treadmill test found that the average time to exhaustion decreased by 5 to 6 seconds per week. This test matches most runners’ observations that their ability to sustain a hard pace had declined more than their ability to maintain their easy pace. It’s worthy of noting that there was a lack of decline in VO2 max and haemoglobin mass. According to the researchers, this suggests that with the resumption of training, you would see a fairly rapid return to form.

When researching cycling detraining, I found a review of over 60 studies from The Journals of Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise and Sports Medicine.

They summarized what can occur during a 2 to 4 week break from training. They found the same drops in blood and plasma volume as the Boston Marathon runners study. Other effects of detraining include a loss of flexibility, a decrease in your lactate threshold pace, and large reductions in your muscle glycogen concentration and aerobic enzyme activity. Interestingly, the fitter you are, the greater these losses tend to be.

They found that endurance performance tends to remain the same or actually improve after just a few days without training. This is not surprising because when you are in hard training you are perpetually fatigued, so a short break allows your body to recover and adapt to your previous training (i.e. a taper before a race). Between 1 and 2 weeks off from training, however, the benefits of recovery start to become outweighed by a loss in fitness. Performance is likely to decrease by about 3-5% after 3 to 4 weeks of detraining.

From what I found, it appears that the body will lose its ability to tolerate the impact of running sooner so than its loses its ability to run. This can be scary for runners that are returning from injury. Your aerobic fitness might be telling you a six-mile run is fine, whereas your body’s ability to actually tolerate six miles of running has decreased due to the decline of structural fitness.

The better shape you were in, the less time it will take to get back into shape. Your muscle memory remains for a long time after your muscles have faded. Your body remembers how it was able to run and lift, you just have to remind it and get those muscles, blood vessels, and lungs back in shape to make it happen again​. Of course, it will take more time the longer you go without exercise. So slowly build the mileage back up as you are more at risk of injury because of the decrease in structural fitness. This applies to both beginner and experienced athletes.

Part of the current Holistic Hundred Challenge is doing 100 body-weight exercises every day! This might sound simple to some of you, but I would challenge everyone to try this, even if you are not doing the Holistic Hundred Challenge.

This time of year, lots of people spend a lot of money going to the gym. They have been lead to believe that in order to get in shape and build muscle, they must be in a gym with machines or free weights. Stand in line at the grocery store and you will see magazines with men and women on them with weights in their hand. I'm even seeing lots of billboards now with people liftting weights or using machines. But to most people, getting “huge” is not the goal and is not even necessary for overall health.

With that in mind, I recommend you try to start doing body-weight exercises every day. Below are a list of my top 5. Start off with 10-20 of each and try to consistently do them to the point where you can increase the quantity or add in variations.

1. Burpees

The burpee may be the perfect body-weight exercise. It combines resistance training and cardiovascular conditioning in one exercise. I started doing them on a consistent basis when training for Spartan races last year and they kick my butt every time. No matter how many I’ve done.

2. Squats

Back when I had a gym membership, I would see people doing squats with a barbell or even on a machine. Most of them had excruciatingly bad form. To the point where they were going to hurt themselves. The body-weight squat is a great exercise to assess your strength, awareness and lower-body mobility. Squatting your body-weight may sound simple, but you’d be surprised how many people struggle with doing these correctly.

3. Push-Ups

Push-ups are a great alternative to the bench press because a slight change in hand or foot position can hit the chest completely differently. They also recruit your quads, glutes and abs, you’re stabilizing your body as you push your own weight.

4. Planks

The plank recruits different types of muscles in order to properly do the exercise. You might think that it just works the abs, but when done correctly, it also recruits the quads and glutes to help keep your body tight in an efficient position. Planks help with core stability and balance, but they can also help with posture and lower back pain. Much like push-ups, there are several plank variations that you can use to increase intensity.

5. Pull-Ups

Out of every exercise you can do for your upper-body, the pull-up is the most efficient. You can purchase your own pull-up bar to hang on a doorframe (this is what I have), or you can use a beam in your basement (or office) or a jungle gym at a park. To ensure you’re getting the maximum results it is crucial to perform pull-ups in a controlled manner. Crossfit has lots of benefits (I'm using their videos in this post to show proper form), but the pull-ups used in their workouts (called Kipping pull-ups) are made for speed and can lead to injury. Do pull-ups in a very controlled manner. Up slow and down slow, avoid swinging your body. You can start by having your feet on a chair under you to assist if you can't do a pull-up the proper way when starting out.

The best thing about body-weight exercises is that they usually require no equipment and can be done just about anywhere.