Giving Blood and Training

Triathlon Forum
1

If you donate blood, how soon after can you train hard?

How far out from a 1/2 Ironman would be safe?

2

You can train hard a couple days later, but you will feel definitely the effects. I would go aerobic for 3-4 days. I wouldn’t donate blood within 2 months of an A race. You could expect performance in training and racing to be impacted for up to 4-6 weeks.

3

Training after giving blood is specific to the individual. I give a pint every 56 days and platelets once per week for 20 weeks out of the year. I use the day I give as a rest day, and return to normal efforts within 3 days. My PR for Oly was set 5 days after giving blood last season.

4

Thanks for the info. I swam about 2500 Saturday followed by a 3 mile run. Today I ran 2.5 biked 18 ran another 2.5. Trying to get ready for Powerman Alabama. I am also going Gulf Coast in may.

I was a little sluggish in the water saturday and I wanted to stay on the couch today, but once I started running I felt great.

5

I’m a regular donor too, and I have long wondered about this very thing.

Donating blood is sure to drop overall hematocrit at least a few percent. Even more once the plasma is replaced. The body takes longer (is there a physiologist around here that knows regeneration times?) to regenerate RBC than other blood components.

Here’s the real question. Is training with regular blood donation the equivalent of training at altitiude? Lowering hematocrit means less oxegen to the cells. Altitiude means less oxegen for the RBC to deliver. Same effect. So train at altitude while donating and over the course of a few years your body will become accostomed (maybe?) to creating new RBC faster than normal. Then you stop donating a few months before your A race and your body just might (I don’t have a clue if this is possible) overcompensate and you will end up with a hyper-leveled hematocrit.

I tried to talk an exercise physiology friend into doing this as his masters Thesis, but he didn’t. Is there any part of this that holds any water?

ps. As for the original question, I’d take a few days off. The American Red Cross recommends not doing heavy exercize or lifting for 24 hours. Anything you can do after that should just give your body some good hard work.