How Fast Do You Lose Muscle?

There are a lot of different things that change in your body when you train frequently. Unfortunately, a lot of them revert when you stop. Different things take different amounts of time, but most people that have taken time away from their exercising know that when you stop, one thing that does happen is that you lose muscle mass.

It happens for a primitive and natural reason, but it can be annoying regardless. Sadly, just because you have put in the work, you don’t keep the results – that is not how the human body works. We will be exploring more in the article below.

Want to move fast? Jump to the right section below.

• Why Do You Build and Lose Muscle
• How Does The Body Build Muscle
• When Do You Start To Lose Muscle
• Muscle Memory

Why Do You Build and Lose Muscle

The human body builds muscle as you do more exercise. Your body is designed to adapt to make things as effective and efficient as possible. For example, as you’re lifting weights regularly, your body increases the size of the cells in your muscles through hypertrophy. This allows it to handle the stress of working out more easily the next time you do it.

When you stop working out, you don’t need the muscles anymore! All of this energy spent on maintaining your muscles is now wasted. You don’t need your muscles to be that big since you’ve stopped using them.

How Does The Body Build Muscle

As a result of not training and not needing the muscle anymore, your body reduces them back again so that you’re saving energy wherever you can. Talk about efficiency! A lot of it is dependent on diet. As time goes on, your body takes away some of the mass placed into the muscle to make better use elsewhere and save calories as needed.

When Do You Start To Lose Muscle

So, when it happens is often the next question. If you take a week or two off weightlifting, you will probably be okay. Any more than that, though, and that’s when it starts happening. It’s a constant rate, and the longer that you leave it without training, the more muscle you will likely deplete.

Different muscles have different timings, like endurance muscles against power muscles. Everyone is different, and your diet plays a massive role in it. If you still have an active lifestyle without weight training, you’ll be doing good for your body, and the process will slow.

Muscle Memory

There’s a silver lining to all of this. Once you’ve put in the work to get your body where it is, you can get it back with relative ease. Muscle memory is a term that’s thrown around a lot, but it is actually a thing. Your body remembers what it used to be able to do, and it quickly makes sure that you’re back there again as soon as possible. Usually, after one month, you’ll see some significant changes back to your old self!

Before beginning any exercise or nutrition program, consult your physician, doctor or other professional. This is especially important for individuals over the age of 35 or persons with pre-existing health problems. Exercise.co.uk assumes no responsibility for personal injury or property damage sustained using our advice.

If you experience dizziness, nausea, chest pain, or any other abnormal symptoms, stop the workout at once and consult a physician or doctor immediately.