How quickly can you lose shape without training?

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

And what to do to prevent this from happening.

Vacation, illness, financial difficulties, a business trip to the end of the world - whatever the reason for the break, long weeks without a gym will reduce your performance. But don't be discouraged: fitness does not go away so quickly. In addition, it is in your power to save it without access to the gym and quickly return to previous indicators.

How quickly do you lose strength

For the first 3-4 weeks without strength training, you don't have to worry about taking a break. And for beginners,,, and for experienced athletes, muscle strength remains at the same level. But you can notice a decrease in muscle volume after two weeks without exertion. However, in doing so, you are not losing protein, but water.

When you exercise, your muscles increase the accumulation of glycogen, the fast fuel from glucose. It binds water, which makes the muscles look fuller. When you stop exercising, you lose glycogen, and with it the accumulated fluid, as a result of which the muscles "deflate". But when you resume training, glycogen stores will replenish and your reliefs will return to the previous level.

Even if the time without exercise drags on, it will not be so difficult to regain shape: as your muscles grow, the number of myonuclei increases in them. And after the cessation of training, the volume goes away, but the nuclei remain.

Therefore, resuming classes, you will build the old muscles much faster than absolute beginners will achieve the same result.

What's more, taking a little break from your workout can even be beneficial. The body adapts to regular strength training, and over time, the response to anabolic signals decreases. Taking a three-week break can decrease adaptation and increase anabolic hormone levels, so when you get back to your regular routine, your muscles will grow faster.

What to do about it

To maintain strength indicators for 8-12 weeks without training, it is enough to exercise once a week and perform only a third of the previous volume of loads. You can easily maintain the desired level, exercising at home on a horizontal bar, with dumbbells or elastic bands-expander. These compact shells will load all muscle groups and help maintain strength.

If you cannot buy dumbbells and resistance bands, do exercises with your body weight. This will help maintain muscle mass until the moment you gain access to the gym again.

Experienced athletes are advised to perform more eccentric movements, since such loads help to maintain strength performance longer. These are any exercises with an eccentric phase increased in time, in which the muscles are under load in a stretched position. For example, in the squat, this is the lowering to the squat, and in the pull-up, it is the return to the hang.

How soon stamina is lost

Unlike strength, endurance goes away faster. The fact is that after 4 weeks without training, the volume of blood plasma decreases. And the less plasma, the more viscous the blood becomes, which slows down the transfer of oxygen to the tissues of the body.

The maximum oxygen consumption (MOC), the amount that the body is able to use, also rapidly decreases. Within a week and a half without exercise, the BMD drops by 7%, although later the decrease slows down and reaches 15% only by the third month without training.

Without cardio, you can lose 4 to 25% of your stamina in 3-4 weeks.

And if experienced athletes lose from 6 to 20% of their VO2 max, in a month without exertion, then beginners in the same time fall back to the initial level.

What to do about it

Aerobic work doesn't necessarily mean running, cycling, or other types of cyclic cardio. You can easily accelerate your heart rate at home by doing light exercise sessions.

Moreover, you can do them both in the format of continuous work at a heart rate of 130-160 beats per minute, and in the form of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) - this is when periods of maximum intensity alternate with rest or quiet exercise.

This training regimen pumps up the work of the heart, increases the BMD and improves the aerobic capacity of the body.

You can also use bodyweight exercises to maintain endurance. Several studies at once,,,,, confirm that such power loads have a positive effect on both the VO2 max and endurance in general.

How quickly extra pounds will accumulate

Stopping exercise will cut your energy expenditure and may slow your resting metabolism. If at the same time you consume the same or more calories than usual, you can build up excess fat stores, mainly in the waist area.

What to do about it

You can easily maintain weight if you change your diet in time to a new level of energy consumption and add physical activity. Short but intense HIIT workouts are good for maintaining your figure.

They will help you burn out more calories and increase your resting metabolic rate due to oxygen debt. If this format is not to your liking, try long, medium-intensity aerobic sessions - they also burn calories well.

Don't quit your workout. Work out in your hotel room and outdoors, weather permitting. Run, do push-ups, pull-ups, and try new moves with your body weight and available furniture.

And remember that a short break will not put an end to your performance: you will quickly get back in shape as soon as you start practicing again.