Should You Take A Break From Working Out Over Christmas?
Q: The annual secular expression of capitalism is coming up. Yeah, I know, it seems like it was only yesterday that it was Christmas but it’s already here again. Sheesh, time flies! Anyway, would I be justified in using the holiday as an excuse to stop working out for a while?
A: Should you take a break from working out over Christmas?
Well, with the turn of the calendar from November to December, there’s gift shopping; preparation and cleaning of your home if hosting parties or get-togethers; long-distance traveling to visit relatives; and attendance at numerous social events. Activities like those and more can make the Christmas period busy and stressful and in between that, you have to juggle your work duties, family obligations, and other responsibilities.
As Christmas day gets closer, things can become more hectic than usual. If you’re capable of handling all that comes with the festive season without maintenance of your gym routine contributing to overwhelm and anxiety, then go ahead and stay on top of your training regimen.1Here, you can maintain your regular routine or increase the intensity and cut down on the number of workout days and/or duration of sessions to better accommodate your schedule. However, if you can’t or don’t want to go to the gym because other things are taking up your time, energy, and focus, then go ahead and skip it.
According to research, it takes about 12 days of inactivity to experience a loss in VO2 max and other markers of cardiovascular fitness and endurance. With weightlifting, it takes about 14 days for a drop in strength. Taken together, the evidence suggests that taking a week or two off from the gym to enjoy Christmas won’t have that much of an effect on anything, as you’ll regain whatever was lost in relatively quick time when you return to your regular gym schedule if you’ve been training consistently in the weeks and months leading up to the break.2The fear of a significant loss of gains rather than a minimal amount should only be a concern when the hiatus is extended and the body begins losing more and more of its adaptations with continued inactivity. Speaking to that matter of training consistently, the holiday time off might actually be beneficial by giving your body the opportunity to fully rest and recover from the accumulated damage brought on by exercise. As such, you may feel stronger or more aerobically conditioned in the ensuing sessions after your return on account of the body having the chance to repair itself and make adaptations that can improve your performance.
Taking a break doesn’t have as much of an effect on fitness progress as you would probably think, so taking a week or two for yourself is something you can do without that decision being an additional thing you have to worry about when there are more pressing matters at hand.
See, with all of the activities that take place during the Christmas season, it’s not only busy and stressful but it’s also expensive. To that point, a third of American adults go into debt to pay for food, presents, decorations, travel, entertainment, and other holiday purchases thanks to the pressure of consumerism through advertising and societal expectations with the overcommercialization of Christmas. So yeah, whatever worry you have about making it to the gym or not should be saved for your credit card statement!
Now, does anyone else have a fitness or nutrition question of their own that they want to ask?
Glossary: exercise, fitness, gym, intensity, muscle, nutrition, routine, training, work out, workout
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