De-Training – The Scourge of the Coach and the Athlete – Written By Steve Nance

When an athlete sustains an injury or becomes ill, there is usually an associated disruption to training. This can have little or no effect at all, or it can be catastrophic and cause the loss to a whole season of competitions and sometimes may be career ending. If the athletes’ adaptation level is not very high (i.e. they haven’t spent countless hours developing oxygen capacity or strength or power or speed) when they miss training sessions it really is no big deal. They didn’t originally have much to lose so it doesn’t take a great deal to get it back. However, if the athlete is elite and the adaptation level is very high or close to their ceiling, then they have a lot to lose, and can lose it very quickly.

Detraining effects everyone differently and is largely dependent on several factors:

• Type of component lost
• Level of adaptation and or/ competition
• The amount of time missed 
• The effectiveness of the re-training program

Let’s look at it a little closer. Some research suggests that an elite athlete will lose some adaptation with as little as 6-10 days off. Plenty of studies are close to this suggesting loss will begin anywhere between 8-14 days off. In 2000 when I was in charge of the Wallabies Program, I spoke to the Head of Sports Science at Australia Swimming, Dr Bob Treffene (we were both in camp at Caloundra at the same time). He presented some hard evidence and detraining among elite swimmers. He believed that they started to lose performance times after 7 days and that for every week lost, it took 3 weeks to get back to where they were. Now remember swimming is an A to B sport so the stopwatch does not lie. He went on that if a swimmer missed 2 weeks in the pool, they didn’t get their times back for 6 weeks. In 2003, just before the 2004 Olympics, I was extremely fortunate to spend a day with Inigo Miyikaa, a Spanish Sport Scientist and to me the guru of training, detraining and retraining of athletes (especially aerobic athletes) in the whole world. He has written several articles and books on these topics and believed that detraining in elite athletes occurs anywhere between the 6–10-day mark. The first things they lose is power and top end aerobic capacity. He said with strength, muscular endurance and flexibility the loss is not as fast and not as severe.

Now remember their guys were working with elite athletes, not punters, nor amateurs but athletes we would presume had almost 100% adaptation levels. Let’s look at it like its money or wealth. Say a millionaire loses 10% of his money or $100 000, That’s a lot and it probably took him a long while to accumulate it. Then say a person like me who only has $100 and I lose 10% or $10 it’s no big deal. I can get that back both quickly and easily.

With rugby union and league players I looked at 1:2 detrain/ retrain models. Out for 1 week back to full fitness in 2 weeks (varied among individuals) remembering that these guys had to develop multiple fitness components, in fact all of them. The longer they were out I noted that their power and cardiovascular fitness were affected. Power loss effected speed and agility, or it was exceptionally important to work hard at getting it back to pre-injury levels. If we put markers in place such as Jump Squats, Bench Throws, Dead lift jumps (measured electronically) or simple measures such as 3 single or double leg hops or 5/10m speed times, we can gauge both what the loss is and when we got it back. I remember Dan Baker (former head of ASCA and my Strength Coach at the Broncos during some of my time there) and myself analysing data during the 1997 Season. In those days however if you made State of Origin Teams (at one stage we had 12 players, 10 from QLD, 2 from NSW) training was interrupted for almost 6 weeks. Very little training carried out, and a pretty hectic social calendar adhered to. We had in place a weekly power test using Ply Power (a ballistic measurement device) measuring Jump Squat and Bench Throw. Both went down significantly during State of Origin. They returned the upper body test just before Grand Final but with the Jump Squat they never regained their power.

What Can We Do to Stop Detraining:

1. Limit cessation time. Work with players to make sure that time is as short as is needed and even begin a gradual return earlier than normal.
2. Use cross-training or like activities to simulate what is being missed such as bike, rower, stepper etc or deep water running. With weights try exercises that use the same muscle groups but do not contraindicate the injury.
3. Make sure your re-training program is effective and specifically focused
4. Do plenty of Pre Hab exercises on a regular and even daily basis to prevent injury as much as possible.
5. Don’t get injured or sick – easier said than done.

Written by Steve Nance