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I read a paper once describing research on thoroughbreds - they analized
fitness level (I think it was based upon mitochondrial density, or some
similar cellular activity) on horses kept in stalls, and found that it was
three weeks before they identified significant decline in this particular
parameter.

Steph>

There are dozens of fitness parameters--that is, changes made through 
conditioning. Since TBs get almost no conditioning, they're not a very good 
model.

Anyway, these changes can be tissue changes (hard tissue, soft tissue), 
chemical changes (fueling/neurotransmitters, enzymes, hormones)and other things 
like hard-wiring of neural connections, modified gene responses, etc.

Basically, it's "easy some, easy go". Those changes that take a long time to 
achieve take a long time to go away--but not as long, ever, as it took to build 
them in--big mistake to let any athlete go back to "state zero". Bone changes 
take longer to lose than muscle fuel storage capacity, for example. The 
presence of neurotransmitting chemicals goes away faster than a hard-wired 
neural connection. Enhanced capillary density lasts longer than mitochondrial 
density.

Luckily, most of these tie in to the numbers provided by Efficiency Score.

Any professional athlete will tell you that it's nuts to think that you can do 
next to nothing and retain competitive fitness for more than a couple of weeks. 
Of course, if none of your competitors is fit, and you're not fit, then you 
have nothing to worry about.

ti


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