Muscle Loss: The Facts

Muscle Loss: The Facts – Taking a few weeks off of training will not negatively impact your gains. If you stop lifting entirely for a few weeks, yes, you may lose some size. But once you get back into your regular gym routine and stay consistent with it, you’ll ultimately end up at net zero loss in gains. You may even see an increase in growth beyond your pre-detraining levels.
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One study concluded that a 3-week detraining break followed by a 6-week retraining cycle yielded similar muscle hypertrophy in men compared to 24 weeks of continuous resistance training. When taking time off from lifting for a short period of time, your muscle mass levels don’t revert back to where they were pre-lifting. Moreover, if the retraining phase is longer than the detraining period (e.g. 3 weeks detraining followed by 6 weeks retraining), mass may ultimately increase.
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How Much is Enough? – Another study tested the minimum dose required to maintain resistance training-induced adaptations. They found that training once per week was sufficient to maintain positive neuromuscular adaptations. This means that maintaining muscle mass is actually fairly easy as long as you’re getting in a little bit of training.
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What about when you don’t have access to your regular equipment? Perhaps you do have some resistance bands and lighter dumbbells (and your own bodyweight). Remember that your muscles don’t know what exercise you’re doing; they only know the mechanical stimuli placed on them. So, if you can make a workout sufficiently challenging, you can absolutely maintain your current level of muscle mass, at the very least.
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Bodyweight workouts – or sessions with minimal equipment – are certainly better than nothing, and some mechanical stimulus is absolutely better than nothing at all. –