Categories
Health

Turn Your Holiday Into a Deload Week

You head off on holiday with a bag already packed with guilt: two weeks without training and it feels like you’re throwing away months of work. Relax. That deload isn’t wasted time — it’s exactly the part of your training where you get stronger. You just have to let it happen.
 

Rest isn’t the opposite of training

While you’re training, you’re not improving yet: you’re getting tired. Training is only a stimulus that breaks an equilibrium, and the real progress comes afterwards, while you recover and your body rebuilds itself a notch above where it started — what coaches call supercompensation. So without recovery there’s no adaptation: fatigue just piles up without ever turning into fitness.
 
It’s the principle any serious programme rests on. The consensus statement by Meeusen and colleagues (2013, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise) puts it plainly: effective training isn’t just about load, it’s about the balance between load and adequate recovery. When that balance tips too far towards work and not enough towards rest, you don’t get faster — you slide towards overtraining. Seen this way, switching off for the holidays is no betrayal of your plan: it’s part of it.
 

How much do you really lose in one or two weeks? Less than you think

Let’s start with the numbers, which are more reassuring than the gut feeling. In a study of 15 trained runners, ten days of complete rest changed neither VO2max (the maximum volume of oxygen you can use during effort, the key marker of aerobic fitness) nor heart size (Cullinane et al., 1986, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise).
 
Beyond that, a decline does start to show, but it stays modest — around 6% over the first two weeks — and it’s really after two weeks that it becomes more noticeable. And it’s far more recoverable than you’d imagine. A good part of that early drop isn’t the “engine” shutting down: it’s plasma volume — the liquid part of your blood — falling and then returning within days once you start again (Mujika & Padilla, 2000, Sports Medicine). As for the engine itself, it holds up for a long time: even after three weeks without training, the capillaries and enzymes your muscles use to burn oxygen stayed well above the levels of a sedentary person (Coyle et al., 1984, Journal of Applied Physiology).
 
The full picture, with the factors that speed up or slow down that decline, is in our article on how quickly you lose fitness after a break. In short: the fitter you are, the more slowly you lose your base — and the faster you get it back.
 

Active recovery or complete rest?

There are two ways to switch off, and they suit different situations.

  • Active recovery — moving lightly without training: a walk, a swim, a hike, an easy conversational-pace bike ride. It keeps your blood volume, your mood and the habit of movement going without adding any stress, and it’s the right choice in most cases. That’s exactly why a holiday is never a real “stop”: between the beach, the trails and swims, you keep moving anyway, and that little is enough to preserve most of what you’ve built.
  • Complete rest — no structured activity at all. It makes sense when you reach your holiday truly drained, or carrying a small niggle that just needs to be left alone.

The rule is simple: if the urge to move is there, move easy; if the very idea of any effort puts you off, give yourself a few days of full rest, because that reluctance is information, not laziness.
 
If you want concrete ideas, we’ve put together 6 tips for training on holiday and a 20-minute bodyweight strength circuit you can do anywhere, with no equipment.
 

Use your holiday as a planned deload week

In a well-built plan, deload weeks aren’t accidents: they’re scheduled at regular intervals, with less volume, to give the body time to absorb the work and supercompensate. That’s also the logic behind 2PEAK, which is built on periodisation: the structured alternation of load phases and recovery phases. Every cycle ends with a transition phase (phase 4), a low-load, less structured regeneration period — and that’s exactly where your holiday belongs. If you reach the summer tired, after a demanding block or a race, the timing is perfect: you’ll come back not just rested but often a notch above, because what you sowed in the hard weeks blooms while you’re resting.
 

The signs you needed to switch off

Sometimes the holiday doesn’t fall by chance: it comes just when your body was already asking for it. The signs of accumulated fatigue are fairly recognisable, and the overtraining literature describes them well (Meeusen et al., 2013): a tiredness that sleep doesn’t repay, flagging motivation, a shorter temper than usual, disturbed sleep, performances that stall or slip even though you keep training. If two or three of these ring true, the break isn’t a luxury but genuine treatment, and stubbornly pushing on would be the quickest way to tip into an overtraining state that takes weeks, sometimes months, to climb out of. Two weeks under a parasol now are well worth it.
 

Enjoy your holiday

So set off with a clear mind. Move the little you feel like — a walk, a swim, nothing structured if you don’t fancy it — and stop counting what you’re “losing”; think instead about what you’re rebuilding. You’ll come back with a clear head and fresh legs, and that’s where you set off strong again. And on your return you’ll have no backlog to catch up on: 2PEAK recalibrates your plan to your real current form, adjusting it after every session, so you pick up exactly where you actually are — not where a rigid schedule assumed you should be.
 

Sources

Cullinane EM, Sady SP, Vadeboncoeur L, Burke M, Thompson PD (1986). Cardiac size and VO2max do not decrease after short-term exercise cessation. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 18(4), 420–424.
 
Coyle EF, Martin WH 3rd, Sinacore DR, Joyner MJ, Hagberg JM, Holloszy JO (1984). Time course of loss of adaptations after stopping prolonged intense endurance training. Journal of Applied Physiology, 57(6), 1857–1864.
 
Mujika I, Padilla S (2000). Detraining: loss of training-induced physiological and performance adaptations. Part I. Sports Medicine, 30(2), 79–87.
 
Meeusen R, Duclos M, Foster C, et al. (2013). Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the overtraining syndrome: joint consensus statement of the ECSS and ACSM. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 45(1), 186–205.

Categories
Nutrition

Summer nutrition: what and how to eat when it’s hot

In summer your training conditions change, and so should the way you eat. Not just because of the heat itself, but because when temperatures rise your appetite drops, digestion slows down and the desire for heavy meals fades fast. In this article we look at how to set up your nutrition when you train in the heat — and we finish with three refreshing recipes.
 

Why digestion slows down when it’s hot

During exercise your body redirects part of the blood flow away from the gut and toward the muscles and skin, to sustain the effort and dissipate heat through sweat (the mechanism is called thermoregulation). A systematic review published in Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics (Costa et al., 2017) estimates that intestinal blood flow can drop by up to 80% during intense exercise, and this reduction is even more pronounced in the heat. Less blood to the digestive system means slower digestion, which copes worse with heavy, fatty or fibre-rich meals: it’s one of the reasons certain dishes you digest without any trouble in winter sit heavy on your stomach in summer.
 
The practical takeaway is simple: before training, go for a light meal or snack based on simple carbohydrates and low in fat and fibre, to be eaten 1-2 hours before you set off. After training the story changes: it’s the moment when your body is most receptive, and it’s worth getting there with carbohydrates (to replenish glycogen stores, the sugar stored in your muscles) and protein (for muscle repair), ideally within about an hour of finishing the session.

Frequent, light meals beat heavy ones

 
In the heat your appetite drops and hunger shows up differently than it does the rest of the year: often you don’t feel like a full meal with a first course, main, side and dessert, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s better to break the day up into smaller, more frequent meals — even 5-6 occasions, counting snacks — rather than a few big meals that leave you feeling heavy. A piece of fruit, some bread with fresh cheese, a yogurt with cereal or a handful of nuts are snacks that keep your metabolism active without weighing down your digestion.
 
It’s also worth avoiding dressings and cooking methods that weigh you down — fried food, elaborate sauces, too much salt or too much butter — and leaning toward one-plate meals, simple but balanced, that combine carbohydrates, protein and vegetables on a single plate instead of stacking up several courses.

Seasonal fruit and vegetables: your summer allies

 
Summer is the best time to increase the share of fruit and vegetables in your diet: aim for at least 3 servings of vegetables and 3 pieces of fruit a day, ideally in season. As well as being light and refreshing, summer fruit and vegetables — watermelon, melon, peaches, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes — are rich in water, vitamins and minerals, and the pigments that give them their colour (orange, red, green, purple) often correspond to antioxidant substances such as vitamins and polyphenols (plant compounds that protect your cells). The more varied the colours on your plate, the more varied the micronutrients you take in. A simple, effective pairing is fresh fruit with plain yogurt with no added sugar, great both at breakfast and as a snack.

3 recipes to train (well) when it’s hot

 
1. Breakfast — Summer overnight porridge
 
Ingredients: 50 g of oats, 15 g of chia seeds, 150 ml of milk (plant-based or dairy), fresh berries, a pinch of cinnamon, a handful of almonds or walnuts.
 
Preparation: the evening before, mix the oats, chia and milk in a jar, cover and leave to rest in the fridge overnight. In the morning add the fresh fruit, the cinnamon and the nuts.
 
Why it works: it’s prepared the night before, so zero effort in the morning when it’s already hot early on. The carbohydrates in the oats give you the energy for training, while the chia and nuts add good fats without weighing you down.
 
2. Snack — Banana and mint smoothie
 
Ingredients: 1 banana, about ten fresh mint leaves, 180 g of plain yogurt, 150 ml of water or milk, a few ice cubes.
 
Preparation: blend all the ingredients until smooth.
 
Why it works: the banana is one of the most convenient sources of potassium and carbohydrates for anyone who trains, the mint makes it fresh and pleasant even on the hottest days, and the liquid consistency makes it a light snack before or after training.
 
3. Cool dish — Cold barley (or spelt) salad with feta and cherry tomatoes
 
Ingredients: 150 g of pearl barley or spelt, one cucumber diced, cherry tomatoes cut in half, crumbled feta, pitted black olives, fresh mint leaves, a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice.
 
Preparation: cook the barley (or spelt) in salted water, drain it and let it cool. Add the other ingredients, dress with oil and lemon and mix well. It keeps in the fridge and tastes just as good the next day.
 
Why it works: it’s a one-plate meal that brings together carbohydrates (barley or spelt), protein and good fats (feta, olives) and fresh seasonal vegetables — perfect as a main meal on hot days, when a traditional multi-course meal would be too much. For a more protein-rich post-workout snack, you can add tuna or chickpeas.
 

In summary

When it’s hot the physiology of digestion changes, and your nutrition should adapt accordingly: lighter, more frequent meals, less elaborate, with more seasonal fruit and vegetables, and the right attention to carbohydrates and protein in the moments before and after training. If you want to dig deeper into the other effects of heat on performance, you’ll find more food for thought in our article on heat and performance decline.
 

Sources

Costa RJS, Snipe RMJ, Kitic CM, Gibson PR (2017). Exercise-induced gastrointestinal syndrome: implications for health and intestinal disease. Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 46(3), 246–265.
 
Burke LM, Hawley JA, Wong SHS, Jeukendrup AE (2011). Carbohydrates for training and competition. Journal of Sports Sciences, 29(sup1), S17–S27.

Categories
Health Nutrition

Hydration in hot weather: how much, what and when to drink

Temperatures are hitting record highs, and training under the full sun has become a real challenge: you need to manage the situation carefully to avoid hitting the wall mid-session. One of the variables that matters most is how much and what you drink — this article shows you how to get it right.

In the heat, you sweat more and lose more fluid: nothing new there. But there’s a less obvious cost: your body ends up working on two fronts at once, since it has to fuel the muscles while also sending blood to the skin to cool you down. It’s a bit like spending double the energy to hold the same pace, which means fatigue sets in earlier.

The fact is, beyond a certain threshold, dehydration doesn’t just make you less efficient — it actually slows you down. The reference review from the American College of Sports Medicine (Sawka et al., 2007, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise) shows that losing just over about 2% of body weight is enough to impair aerobic endurance. For a 70 kg athlete, that’s a little more than 1.4 litres — an amount you can lose without even noticing during an hour in strong heat. That’s why, in summer, hydration stops being a minor detail and becomes part of the training itself.

How much water do you actually need (and why “as much as possible” is the wrong answer)

There’s no single number that works for everyone, and anyone who gives you one is oversimplifying. How much you sweat and what your sweat contains vary enormously from person to person: Baker’s review (2017, Sports Medicine) reports sweat rates ranging from about 0.5 to 2 litres per hour and sweat sodium concentrations between 10 and 90 mmol/L. In other words, two athletes running side by side, at the same pace and in the same weather, can have fluid needs that differ by a factor of three to four.

The simplest way to find your own number is to weigh yourself before and after a one-hour session under your usual conditions, accounting for anything you drank in between. Each kilogram lost corresponds to roughly one litre of fluid: this way, you stop relying on guesswork and build yourself a personal benchmark — the only one that really matters.

For some concrete reference points:

  • Running. On a long summer run, an average-sized runner often sweats 1 to 1.5 litres per hour. You can’t (and shouldn’t try to) replace all of it while running, but small sips every 15–20 minutes, roughly 0.4 to 0.8 litres per hour, keep losses within a healthy range. On a run of two hours or more, that means planning for at least one to one and a half litres in total, whether via bottle, hydration belt, or fountains along the route.
  • Cycling. This is easier, since you have bottles on the frame: 500 to 750 ml per hour is the classic benchmark for long rides in hot weather, pushing toward the upper end of that range when the sun is strong and intensity rises.

These numbers are a starting point, not a fixed rule: cross-check them against your thirst and your before/after weight, and adjust accordingly.

And here’s the counterintuitive part: drinking too much is just as dangerous as drinking too little. If you take in more fluid than you lose, the sodium in your blood becomes diluted and hyponatremia can occur — an excessive drop in plasma sodium that, in severe cases, becomes a genuine medical emergency. It’s no coincidence that the international consensus conference on the topic (Hew-Butler et al., 2015, Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine) specifically warns against this kind of excess: pushing fluids “as much as possible” is just as much a mistake as drinking too little.

That said, the most common mistake in hot weather is the opposite: waiting until you feel thirsty. By the time thirst kicks in, you’re already behind on what you’ve lost, and it’s too late to comfortably catch up on the go. It’s better to plan ahead: drink small amounts often right from the start, in regular small sips, spreading the litres you estimated from weighing yourself across the whole session. On very long, very hot sessions beyond two or three hours, a real hydration plan becomes almost essential.

Salt matters as much as water

Through sweat, you don’t just lose water — you also lose salts, and sodium is by far the main one. For a short session, plain water works perfectly well. But once you go well past an hour and sweat heavily, rehydrating with water alone becomes counterproductive: it dilutes what sodium you have left even further, pushing you closer to that zone of cramps, heavy-headedness, and dropping power numbers.

Sodium, in fact, isn’t just there to “replace what’s lost.” It helps the body retain the fluid you drink instead of flushing it out right away, and it keeps thirst active, so you keep hydrating regularly instead of stopping too soon. How much you need, again, depends on you: in Baker’s study, sweat sodium concentration ranges from 10 to 90 mmol/L — a huge spread. The practical rule is simple: on long, hot sessions, don’t rely on water alone — use an electrolyte drink or add a pinch of salt to what you eat and drink.

In practice

  • Weigh yourself before and after a typical session: each kilogram lost ≈ 1 litre to replace.
  • Don’t wait for thirst: drink small amounts often right from the start. As a rough guide for long sessions: ~0.4–0.8 L/h running and 500–750 ml per hour on the bike.
  • Past about an hour of heavy sweating, add sodium and electrolytes, not just water.
  • For sessions over 2–3 hours in hot weather, plan water and fuelling in advance.

 

Sources

  • Sawka MN, Burke LM, Eichner ER, Maughan RJ, Montain SJ, Stachenfeld NS (2007). American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Exercise and fluid replacement. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 39(2):377–390. — Dehydration of > ~2% of body weight impairs aerobic endurance.
  • Baker LB (2017). Sweating Rate and Sweat Sodium Concentration in Athletes: A Review of Methodology and Intra/Interindividual Variability. Sports Medicine, 47(Suppl 1):111–128. — Sweat rates ~0.5–2 L/h and sweat sodium 10–90 mmol/L, with wide individual variability.
  • Hew-Butler T, Rosner MH, Fowkes-Godek S, et al. (2015). Statement of the 3rd International Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia Consensus Development Conference, Carlsbad, California, 2015. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 25(4):303–320. — Overdrinking beyond thirst is the leading cause of exercise-associated hyponatremia.
Categories
Running

Run more efficiently: 7 technique points to watch out for

When you run, you mostly think about your weekly mileage, your shoes, and how hard your sessions are. Technique, on the other hand, often takes a back seat – and it’s true that it largely refines itself over time. Still, some movement patterns are worth a closer look: they can stick around for years and cost you a bit of energy with every stride. Here are seven details worth examining – along with some scientific background to help explain why.

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Categories
Health

Summer training: how do you get your body used to the heat?

The first summer rides always feel harder than expected. The legs are there, the lungs too — yet heart rate spikes, pace drops, and after half an hour you feel completely drained.

It’s not a fitness issue. It’s that your body has never been trained to work under thermal stress. The good news is that this feeling is temporary. With about two weeks of gradual exposure — and a few practical adjustments — the body adapts remarkably well.

What happens to the body in the heat

When you train in high temperatures, your cardiovascular system has to do two things at once: deliver blood to the working muscles, and deliver blood to the skin to dissipate heat. These two demands compete for the same resources, and the result is that heart rate rises even though the effort level is the same as usual.

At the same time, core body temperature rises more quickly than during a session in cool conditions. The body, to protect itself, starts slowing you down before you even notice — this is a safety mechanism, not a weakness. For many athletes not yet accustomed to summer heat, sustainable power output drops by 10–15% compared to cooler days.

The body adapts — and does so quickly

The interesting part is that just a few weeks of regular training in the heat are enough for the body to adapt significantly. Science has documented these changes with considerable precision: plasma volume — the liquid portion of the blood — increases by an average of 6–12% after a period of heat exposure (Carr et al., 2019, Frontiers in Physiology). This means the heart can pump more blood per beat, and the body no longer has to choose between cooling the skin and fuelling the muscles — it can do both better.

Other adaptations you’ll notice over time: sweating begins earlier and becomes more abundant, heart rate at the same effort level drops, and the sense of fatigue diminishes. It doesn’t mean heat stops being hot — but your body becomes much more efficient at managing it (Racinais et al., 2015, British Journal of Sports Medicine).

Most of these adaptations occur within the first 10–14 days of regular exposure. In practice, if you start the summer season by training consistently and not skipping sessions to “avoid the heat,” the process happens on its own — no special protocols needed.

How to adapt intelligently

The key is gradualness. There is no safe shortcut to speed up adaptation. In the first two summer weeks, don’t look at watts or pace — focus on how you feel and how your heart rate responds. If your normal pace puts you at 150 bpm in spring, expect to be at 160–165 at the same perceived intensities until the body has adapted. That’s normal. Resisting the temptation to push harder is the smartest choice.

If you have a quality session planned — intervals, threshold work, a demanding long ride — move it to the cooler hours of the day, where you perform better and recover faster. Easy sessions, on the other hand, are the right moment to expose yourself to the heat: that’s where adaptation happens, without compromising training quality.

Those who want to accelerate the process can use deliberate heat acclimatisation sessions: 60–90 minute rides or workouts during the hottest hours of the day at moderate intensity. The goal is not performance, but prolonged exposure to thermal stress — enough to send the body a clear signal without fully depleting it. It’s not mandatory, but can be useful if you have little time before a race in a hot environment or want to compress the adaptation timeline.

Note: these sessions should be approached with caution. Start with shorter exposures, never train alone in extreme heat, and stop if you experience headache, nausea, or dizziness.

Hydration becomes more critical than you might think. In the heat, you can lose between 0.5 and 2 litres of water per hour depending on intensity and temperature. A simple signal to watch: urine colour. Pale straw yellow means you’re well hydrated; dark yellow means you’re building up a deficit. Drink before you’re thirsty, not after.

Warning signs to watch for

Training in the heat requires a more attentive level of body awareness than in cool seasons. Unusual fatigue, headaches during or after a session, nausea, dizziness, or a sudden stop in sweating are signs that the body is struggling to regulate temperature: in these cases, stop, seek shade and cool air, rehydrate, and don’t resume until you feel well.

People with cardiovascular problems, high blood pressure, or taking medications that affect thermoregulation (certain diuretics or beta-blockers, for example) should consult their doctor before increasing training load in the warmer months.

Summer heat as a stimulus, not an obstacle

Something that surprises many athletes is learning that training in the heat doesn’t only improve performance in hot conditions. The increase in plasma volume — one of the main adaptations — also brings benefits in races held in cool conditions or at altitude, because it improves the blood’s ability to transport oxygen (Chalmers et al., 2019, Frontiers in Physiology). In other words, summer weeks, when managed well, build a solid physiological base for the entire second half of the season.

References

Racinais S. et al. (2015). Consensus recommendations on training and competing in the heat. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 49(18), 1164–1173.

Carr A.J. et al. (2019). Mixed Active and Passive, Heart Rate-Controlled Heat Acclimation Is Effective for Paralympic and Able-Bodied Triathletes. Frontiers in Physiology, 10, 1214.

Chalmers S. et al. (2019). Performance Changes Following Heat Acclimation and the Factors That Influence These Changes: Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression. Frontiers in Physiology, 10, 1448.

Categories
Competition Cycling

Race strategy for a Granfondo

A granfondo is decided long before the final kilometres. It is the first ones — those filled with euphoria, where the legs spin smoothly and the group carries you along — that build (or undermine) everything that follows.

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Categories
Health Triathlon

Recovery: Tips and Tricks

Triathletes are well known for being training machines. The laps in the pool, the kilometres in the saddle and the strides on the tarmac soon add up — or rather, they are collected with a certain pride. It «soothes» the conscience. But this enthusiasm for effort must not give way to haste and the mistakes that come from a lack of recovery…

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Categories
Running

7 Strategies to lower your heart rate while running

Running is one of the most effective aerobic activities for improving cardiovascular health and overall well-being. Yet understanding how heart rate changes during training remains a challenge for many runners, especially in the first few months. Here are 7 concrete strategies to lower your heart rate at a given pace — and ultimately run faster with less effort.

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Categories
Cycling Running

7 tips to increase speed and endurance

Spring is the time when fitness is sown – the results are harvested in summer. But many athletes make the same mistake: they think that training more is what it takes to improve. In reality, the key is to train better – and to understand what really happens in the body when you cycle or run.

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Categories
Health

Spring Fatigue: How to Protect Your Endurance Performance

Every spring, from mid-March to mid-April, many athletes experience the same contradiction: the competition season is starting, but the body hasn’t caught up yet. For a triathlete, cyclist, or runner in full preparation, this seasonal dip rarely comes at a good time.

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