How to avoid losing fitness while injured? (Read 433 times)

derek

posted: 12/13/2006 at 6:47 PM

I've now missed 2 running days and I will probably I'll miss at least the rest of the week. My concern has now centered on losing "fitness". I've done some digging and it seems that I can expect to lose 2-3% of my fitness for each week that I don't run. I was wondering if someone can explain what is meant by "fitness"? Is this just aerobic capacity? I don't currently do any lactate threshold or VO2max training so I don't expect I would lose anything there. I did 40mins on the elliptical trainer today and I was wondering that if I exercised at my normal running heartrate, if I can prevent the loss of aerobic capacity. And, once I do start running, if I could then resume my running schedule.

Derek

RunB

posted: 12/13/2006 at 8:57 PM

I read at many places that water running is great when you're injured. I tried it for a couple of weeks once, it's a bit weird but you do get a workout. I even heard that some athletes that had substituded running for water running came back with better performances.