Fitness Flatline™ is a trademarked term coined by Ho’Omau founder Andy Funk and generally refers to an athlete who is stuck at the same level of fitness. Flatlining an athlete’s fitness does not necessary imply a negative situation – some athlete’s are content with keeping the same level of fitness year in and year out – others are not.
Fitness flatlining occurs when an athlete’s Acute Training Load hovers right around that athlete’s Chronic Training Load for an extended period of time, without it ever changing much. This can happen due to a variety of factors.
The most common is that the athlete has reached a certain level of fitness and trains consistently at a working, yet comfortable level, inducing just enough training stress onto the body to feel like work is getting done, but neither going above what the body can handle, or much below. In other words, no easy activities and no vigorous activities, either. This keeps the body out of a state of ‘build’ or ‘recovery’ and ends up resulting in purely maintaining the level of fitness the athlete already has. In running, this could also be considered junk miles.
Another common scenario is an athlete’s crunched schedule. For example, an athlete with much potential for improvement may only have 4 hours to train each week due to life circumstances. As a result, every run or bike ride the athlete performs is at a fairly high intensity – making each minute count. The higher intensity of these workouts induces more training stress on the body than the athlete can handle – on a ‘per-workout basis’ – thereby increasing the athletes fitness in theory. However, due to the very short amount of hours this athlete has available to train, there are plenty of rest days built into the week, maybe as many as 4-5, decreasing overall training stress on the body, and ultimately resulting in the athlete’s fitness flatlining right around his or her original ability despite the high intensity workouts and the athlete’s potential for improvement.
Another common scenario of fitness flatlining is the purposeful act of lowering intensity and duration of workouts during the offseason. The offseason, if done right, generally results in a reduction of an athlete’s fitness. However, lower intensity and duration workouts can only be done for so long before the reduction in fitness would become counter productive. As a result, a common goal for the knowledgable athlete is to keep his or her fitness level in ‘maintenance’ mode after the athlete’s body has recovered and his or her Chronic Training Load has reached a satisfactory level. From there, the athlete continues a purposeful fitness flatline by keeping both Chronic Training Load and Acute Training Load “coupled” for the remainder of the offseason to allow for continued recovery without any additional loss of fitness.
