The Complete Guide to Breaks

[RWAGR]

Looking to compile people's war stories from enforced breaks from the erg. I'm inspired to do this because I have two weeks away at the end of this month and I'm dreading the impact on my erg fitness. I know there are disparate threads out there with advice/ experience ranging from "no harm done- two weeks will actually make you better" to "it's going to take you at least a month to come back from that" (i.e. the two weeks come-back for every one week off rule). Somewhere in the middle is the "should be fine but try to do 1 or two sessions while away" pack.

It seems to me that the upshot of all this is that (i) everyone's experiences vary; (ii) it depends a lot on how trained you are going into the break; and (iii) it depends a lot on what level you want to reach after the break. Doubtless there are other factors.

It therefore may be that the best thing might be to start a thread where people put their experience of enforced breaks (>1 week) down. It will certainly help me deal with the fear I'm facing for my own enforced break!

Something like: (i) how much time you had off; (ii) training level before the break; (iii) nature of the break (vacation, injury etc.); (iv) cross-training or activity level during the break; (v) how long it took to come back to the level you were before the break.

[Sakly]

Longest enforced break by illness I had two month after I got on the erg. Break was two month, I lost 5kg of bodyweight and much of my strength.
After two month I was stronger than before and faster on the erg, only gained 3kg back at that time.

One or two weeks of vacation don't bother me. I typically use it as recovery time, as my typical training schedule is very packed and intense, so it does my body good to get some more rest at least one time per year
End of this month it will happen again, 8 days away from the erg and gym. If I feel for it, I throw in bodyweight sessions, as I only need a playground or something similar. Going for metcon style prevents losing much stamina and strength.

[ahooton]

Section 11

http://www.leicester-rowing.co.uk/media ... _Guide.pdf

[Dangerscouse]

Whenever I've had more than one week off and done no exercise (more than walking), I've always used the 2:1 ratio for getting back to form. This has held true regardless of my level of training.

Now, when I say 2:1, this could just be a perception and may be due to the fact that I'm reluctant to embrace anything too hard for the first week or so.

Bottom line is you'll suffer, but to what extent you want to embrace or detest the suffering is what makes the difference. I always remember a post on Instagram, about four years ago that was from a really strong erger who broke an arm, I think, but he could only row one handed for about six weeks. When he had use of both arms, he commented "this isn't going to be easy. Good, I don't want it to be easy, it needs to be hard".

When you can embrace and accept the suffering, it does become easier, possibly not by too much but it's got to be a good idea.

[Dangerscouse]

I was thinking about this this morning, and I'd also suggest that relaxing is a big part of returning back to erging.

It might just be me, but I find my breathing gets slightly shallower, and I don't take fairly regular deep breaths, which is really helpful. I also tend to slightly tense my shoulders too much over a longer distance, which is easily fixed by remembering to occasionally shrug my shoulders, but that can need a bit of remembering as the stress and strain of not exercising dominates the thoughts.

[dabatey]

I've shown improvement in cycling after a couple of weeks rest. In cycling load based training matches chronic training load against acute training load (fitness vs fatigue) and the balance gives you 'form' which is your ability to perform at your best. After the 2 weeks off might be an ideal time to go for a TT and try and set a pb.

Obvs the 2 weeks off isn't actually going to improve your underlying fitness, and will instead detract from it a bit. I personally would probably aim to step back and repeat my last week or 2 weeks of training plan and then move on from there.

[JaapvanE]

One or two weeks of vacation don't bother me. I typically use it as recovery time, as my typical training schedule is very packed and intense, so it does my body good to get some more rest at least one time per year

I second this approach. I train for fitness, so I'm not that bothered by times improving or getting worse. For me, it is actually the opposite of OP: I row in between holidays to make sure I have the endurance to enjoy my activities I do in my holidays (walking, climbing, skiing, etc.). So as long as I can do on my holliday what I want, I don't care how far my pace drops.

However, I put in a lot of volume througout the week. Doing that for months on end, sometimes with a bad recovery due to work stress, I typically build up some pains and fatigues. I notice that a week or two off helps a lot in getting rid of the lingering pains and fatigues, even if I'm active, as I'm doing something different. So I actually embrace the variation and recovery, and I happily accept the drop in pace (if I cared), as that allows me to sustain a training regime in the long run.

[alex9026]

Had an enforced break in March this year for a hernia op. Training level, I had only started Erg'ing in December, so I had three consistent months training, but did have a background in other sports. Volume was typically 50-60km a week.

I had six weeks off, as per Dr advice. The times you see in my signature were all pulled mid-late February as the op was pre planned and I wanted to see where I was at. I was lifting 3 times a week, too. Only really relevant because my top end strength is still down on my numbers from then, but I am 2kg lighter and happy to sacrifice it a little to focus on my Erg training.

So back on the Erg mid April with no expectations on myself what so ever. Aerobically, I was pleasantly surprised how soon it picked up, I was soon back to my December training levels. As mentioned above top end strength is down and I believe my speed is too, but only now have I started to address this. Without actually pulling it, I believe I was in 3:00 1k shape, I just didn't get the chance to test it. Now I'd say I am low 3's, and more like 6:40 shape over 2k. However, I should better my 5k when I stop making excuses on test day. My longer pieces are a tad quicker, for longer. I'd say it took 3 months to start to recognise this. I believe the 2:1 ratio to ring true in these sort of circumstances.

During my six weeks off, exercise was very limited due to the nature of the op, but I did start to log a lot of miles just walking. Mentally the break probably did me a favour, I just want my next break to be on my terms, not my body's

[jcross485]

Looking to compile people's war stories from enforced breaks from the erg. I'm inspired to do this because I have two weeks away at the end of this month and I'm dreading the impact on my erg fitness. I know there are disparate threads out there with advice/ experience ranging from "no harm done- two weeks will actually make you better" to "it's going to take you at least a month to come back from that" (i.e. the two weeks come-back for every one week off rule). Somewhere in the middle is the "should be fine but try to do 1 or two sessions while away" pack.

It seems to me that the upshot of all this is that (i) everyone's experiences vary; (ii) it depends a lot on how trained you are going into the break; and (iii) it depends a lot on what level you want to reach after the break. Doubtless there are other factors.

It therefore may be that the best thing might be to start a thread where people put their experience of enforced breaks (>1 week) down. It will certainly help me deal with the fear I'm facing for my own enforced break!

Something like: (i) how much time you had off; (ii) training level before the break; (iii) nature of the break (vacation, injury etc.); (iv) cross-training or activity level during the break; (v) how long it took to come back to the level you were before the break.

Curious as to whether or not you will be completely off of training of all forms for two weeks or just the erg for two weeks. I'd be more than happy to comment on the remainder but I would like it to be in the context of what you may be dealing with.

[RWAGR]

Curious as to whether or not you will be completely off of training of all forms for two weeks or just the erg for two weeks. I'd be more than happy to comment on the remainder but I would like it to be in the context of what you may be dealing with.

Hard to tell. Best guess is week 1 I’ll have access to a gym maybe twice and may be able to do one erg. Week 2 no access to anything. Should be fairly active in a relaxed way- walking around sights all day, fishing trip in week 2 etc.

Thanks for all the feedback so far all!

[iain]

Not sure my recent experience is much help due to inconsistent training. Over earlier covid training the most I had done for 9 years and set a PB HM 1/1/21. But no breaks in that. Stopped rowing regularly August '21 and in poor fitness when restarted Christmas 22. Improved steadily to Sept 23 when my best performance was some 3S/500m slower than early 21. Again had pause, rowing only 5 sessions in 5 months before restarting Feb 24. Since then managed 50k+ most weeks from mid March, building from almost as slow as early 23 to 1S/500m faster by end May. I have just restarted after a 2 week gap. My 10 x 1' r1' was around where I would have expected before the break. But my HR was much higher and I had to take a break in a 5 x 750 r3' session only slightly faster than the 4 x 1k r4' before the break. In fact today following the day of the 750s, I slowed my SS 2S/500m from what I was doing before the break and HR avg 4bpm higher. May have been a little dehydrated and definitely slept worse, but that drop is far more than would be explained by that.

[H2O]

I was off for almost 2 years due to Covid inconvenience and changed interests. When I started off again a miracle happened. I covered the monitor with a towel since I suspected some decline but everything felt as before: the stroke felt powerful and in good form and I was able to row for quite a long time. Except when I pulled off the towel I discovered that the monitor was broken: it had stopped working after 10 minutes and the splits were also completely ridiculous: the minutes had changed from '1' to '2' but the seconds looked very familiar.

Very likely there was no maintainance of the machines due to Covid and I had to put up with this for quite a while.