How Long Does It Take To Lose Muscle Mass After You Stop Training?
Here are some general rules to keep in mind if you are looking to take time off, or are forced to:
You can take a full week off and not lose any strength or muscle mass.
A common misconception is that any time away from the gym leads to muscle atrophy and strength loss. This is not the case.
It can actually be to one’s benefit to do so. After a good few weeks or months of training our bodies can get masked in some fatigue which could lead to diminished strength output. Accumulating fatigue is difficult and happens most often with professional athletes or die-hard fitness enthusiasts.
More commonly, when life gets in the way or you take a vacation, you may have to step away from training or “downgrade it” on the road. In this case, you will feel different upon returning to your routine but it isn’t at a physiological level, meaning not enough time has passed to change the mechanisms in your body that would affect your strength and muscle mass.
Around about 2 weeks you will begin to lose your strength gains.
This can be attributed to our neuromuscular & central nervous system (CNS).
Our motor neurons are the nerves that attach to our muscles to contract and relax them. When we lift heavy weights we excite and awaken dormant nerves.
Strength training will, over time, allow those nerves to send faster and stronger signals to the muscles. This is how we grow in strength and into lifting heavier weights. When we seize to use those nerves, our strength diminishes. Unfortunately for us, that happens in just around 2 weeks.
Our strength is directly correlated with how much muscle mass we carry, our mental state, our mood, and our confidence, not to mention an increase in mortality rate. Some studies have shown that we can lose 20-40% of our strength and 35-40% of our muscle mass between the years of 20-80. All the more reason to stick with your strength training and not get too stuck on taking a few weeks off. In the long run, your body will bounce back.
Between a 3–6 week period, you will begin to lose muscle mass.
Though this varies from person to person due to individual differences, it’s at this time that we know that muscles begin to atrophy (loss of muscle).
Another factor that can contribute to how soon the muscle begins to break down has to do with how you train. As I like to say, it’s not what you lift, it’s how you lift.
For the majority of us, training to optimize our health and wellness to live fuller lives, taking this period off will impact us more than, say, a professional athlete would, due to the volume and intensity of training.
What can we do to stave off muscle loss during a period like this? Focus on your nutrition. Maintain the protein profile you've been eating while training as best you can while reducing carbs and fats where necessary. This will keep you lean and more likely to lose body fat.
People often make the big mistake of stopping all the other things they were doing to maximize their gains when they stop training. Don’t fall into this trap.
The longer you have been training, the easier it is to retain your gains.
If you have been training for 5, 9, or 15 years consistently and you have to take 3 or 4 months off you might not lose a whole lot of muscle mass or strength compared to someone who only trained for a year and takes that same time off.
It is a general rule of thumb that it takes about the same time to recover your lost gains compared to how much time you took off.
For example, if you took a 3-week vacation to SoCal and did no training on your trip, it would take around 3 weeks of training to get back to your previous state.
Now there will always come situations when you’re short on time or can't stick to a strict program due to a tight schedule. Know this, even doing one training session a week or a quick 5–10 minutes of exercise a few days of the week can help you retain your gains a little longer and slow down your losses.
In review, here are a few takeaways:
Take a week off from weight training once in a while if you feel fatigued and it can reveal some hidden strength. This is known as deloading.
If you wish to keep your strength gains year-round, try to keep any rest or vacation to less than two weeks.
Any exercise is better than no exercise, so try to stay active even if you're not on a program or in the gym.
Control your environment, don’t let your environment control you, living a health-conscious life.
Keller, K., & Engelhardt, M. (2013). Strength and muscle mass loss with aging process. Age and strength loss. Muscles, Ligaments and Tendons Journal, 3(4), 346-350. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3940510/
Lu, J., Sun, H., Liu, N., Qiu, J., & Xia, X. (2022). Correlations between muscle strength and psychological health in Chinese adolescents: A cross-sectional analysis. PeerJ, 10. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14133