How long does it take to lose cardio fitness?

Regular exercise can improve your cardiovascular fitness. When you perform high or low-intensity exercise, your heart needs to pump harder and faster to supply enough blood to your working muscles. Over time, you can build up your stamina, endurance and strength through regular physical activity.

However, if you stop exercising, you will start to lose cardiovascular fitness at some point. The question is, how long does it take for you to start losing your gains?

The answer will be different for everybody, and it largely depends on how long you’ve been exercising and whether you are still staying active after you’ve already built up great cardio fitness.

However, on average, people can begin to lose their gains and notice declines in cardiovascular fitness after two weeks of no exercise.  It’s important to note that these losses will only be minimal to start, and as soon as you begin exercising again, you can start to gain the fitness that you lost.