Wandoka's blog

Have you ever took a long break from cp? How did it affect your performance?
By Wandoka, history, 2 weeks ago, In English

By long break I mean 3 months or more.

I recently experienced a great positive effect on my job-related performance after having a long break. It seemed weird, I expected an opposite effect.

So my question is, have you ever:

  1. practice something (Competitive Programming or maybe some other non-physical activity) for a long time
  2. then took a long break (3 months+ of not engaging with this activity at all)
  3. then continued to actively practice something

Did your performance increase or decrease?

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2 weeks ago, # |
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It took me a while to re-adapt, but my performance did end up increasing.

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    Thank you for the answer! Can you be more specific? As I understand from your submissions, you practice a bunch till september 2023, than you took a 1 year break, only solving something in jun-july 2024, you returned to cp in october 2024 and you saw significant progress. Am I correct?

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2 weeks ago, # |
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hashman

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2 weeks ago, # |
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Performance decreased lol, I literally reached new lows.

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2 weeks ago, # |
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I took a break for 2.5 years and yes, my performance dropped alot by the time i came back (which was like 1-2 months ago). I'm not sure that I've reached the level of my peak in the past, but it is refreshing once you come back and solve some problems and regain back those knowledge. (Ps. The things I forgot the most are probably theories (string, number, game), dp base case, and speed)

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2 weeks ago, # |
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I had to take like 1/2 month breaks from cp, I don't think I feel better after breaks. My performance usually dropped by 50 points or so. But taking 1 week or a few days of mostly well increase my performance, idk why

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    just like people who train muscle if they rest for 3 to 5 days every now and then they will allow their body to heal completely and build muscle but if that period extended 10 days they will immediately start to lose significant amount of muscle. now I don't know if the same apply here but there might be some similarities

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2 weeks ago, # |
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I took a break of 2+ years. Still rusty. Missing easy observations. But I am pretty sure that I will get better than what I was earlier.

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2 weeks ago, # |
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4-year retirement, then coming back and still challenging my college's new faces. Not reaching old peak yet, but I believe I could with better focus.

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2 weeks ago, # |
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Well it definitely decrease. The time you need to come back to your level is related to how long is the break. Just look at my profile.

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2 weeks ago, # |
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I was very busy of working for two weeks then I realized that my rating became nearly 200 below of the before-break one, but I reached back to it in nearly a week or two (even my work is also programming :) )

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2 weeks ago, # |
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300iq this may help

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