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Although most people prefer to party and relax during a (sun) vacation, for some it’s a moment to train more.
For example, you might be addicted to the gym. For you, those pictures of the little gym on the hotel’s website counted. Arriving at the hotel, “the gym” turns out not to be five-star at all: Two worn-out bikes and an all-in-one strength machine whose cables got lost ten years ago. Before you construct something on the beach using car tires to do bench presses, I might be able to convince you to take it a bit easier for once.
Why train during vacation?
Why would you want to train during a lazy, all-inclusive, sun vacation? The main reasons I hear from others and myself are:
- Fear of loss of results
- Greater motivation
Greater motivation to train during sunny vacations.
I’ll start with the latter. It’s no coincidence that I keep saying specifically “sun vacation”. My motivation to want to train more during a sun vacation than less is the same as during beautiful summer days. While many people want to enjoy the sun, I’m extra motivated to dive into the gym. There’s something to be said for both when you understand the motives.
The argument not to train on sunny days doesn’t need explaining. There aren’t that many beautiful days in the Netherlands in general, so when the sun does shine, you want to make the most of it. Why would you want to train indoors, in a gym, then?
The argument to train then, however, is also very logical. At least, if you suffer from a very mild form of muscle dysmorphia, and the muscularity of your body is more important to you than to the average person. If you’ve read this article beyond the title, there’s a chance you’re one of those people. Don’t worry, we’re not crazy, of course.
After all, if you spend the whole year striving for the most muscular and lean body possible while nobody sees it under various layers of clothing, why wouldn’t you train when most of your body is visible? Probably, during those one or two weeks of vacation, more people at the beach will see your bare body than people in the Netherlands do the rest of the year.
During a vacation in Bodrum, I didn’t have to think twice when a hotel employee invited me to train at a local gym. While others couldn’t imagine spending an hour and a half in a sweaty gym with weights during such a lazy vacation, I couldn’t have been happier. Unfortunately, the same didn’t apply to my wife, who (perhaps rightfully) saw this as a sign of a somewhat obsessive training mindset.
Fear of loss of results
The fear of seeing strength training results disappear during vacation seems like a better reason, but is probably not.
Researchers from East Carolina University had trained strength athletes not train for 14 days. Before and after the two weeks of rest, strength was measured, including bench press and squat. Muscle mass was also examined. Strength did not decrease (significantly). However, they saw that the trained fast muscle fibers had decreased by 6.4% (type I fibers remained unchanged). Exactly what you’re afraid of, right? Yes and no.
The rest period also had positive effects that ensure that you may have made more progress after two weeks of training (so 2 weeks of rest followed by 2 weeks of training) than if you had trained four weeks in a row. The researchers found that due to recovery, levels of testosterone and growth hormone had increased significantly. Cortisol, the muscle-breaking stress hormone, decreased as well as creatine kinase, an indicator of muscle damage and/or breakdown.
Changes in the hormonal milieu during detraining may be conducive to an enhanced anabolic process, but such changes may not materialize at the tissue level in the absence of the overload training stimulus.
T. Hortobágyi, East Carolina University
Especially that last sentence is interesting. The higher growth hormone and testosterone levels and the decrease in cortisol in the two weeks did not outweigh the lack of stimulus due to training, but this did not result in much loss. If you now train again, so there is stimulus and you can benefit from a restored/improved hormonal balance, the chances are that you will achieve more results overall.
“You probably still need that rest”
If you find it difficult not to train during a vacation, then it’s likely that the last time you “granted” yourself a break was when you were forced to by an injury. Being successful in strength training is often a matter of pushing yourself to the limit while also recognizing your weaknesses. Overtraining due to intensity and/or volume slows down your progress and can cause injuries, forcing you to take a break that you can’t control yourself. Instead of taking enough rest, many people think they need to train even harder and more often, which then works against them.
Every body needs sufficient recovery time. And if you take that well-deserved rest, why not during vacation?
How the pros do it: The “pump”
That said, I prefer to take that rest during the Christmas vacation. You know, when I’m covered in layers of clothing.
So I understand if you can’t resist training so you can strut around the beach like a rooster. Before you start looking for rocks weighing 20, 30, and 40 kilos at your vacation location or ask your partner to stand on your shoulders during pushups, it’s good to know how the pros do it.
If you’re into strength training, having weights seems like a requirement for a good workout. Now, you can come up with all sorts of variations to make bodyweight exercises heavy enough, but that’s not necessary for what you want. Professional bodybuilders don’t do heavy exercises before they go on stage either. They can all do something different, but without exception, it’s with light weights. That’s enough to pump blood into the muscles. Besides this temporary effect, you may not actually get bigger, but they won’t see that on the beach later.
References
- Hortobágyi T, Houmard JA, Stevenson JR, Fraser DD, Johns RA, Israel RG. The effects of detraining on power athletes. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1993 Aug;25(8):929-35. PubMed PMID: 8371654.
