Muscle Loss Rumor

[visionsofruin]

Is it true that supposedly you start losing mass after three days?

[Aielyn]

After three days of what?

[visionsofruin]

Three days of not exercising.

[Aielyn]

Well, it depends on how you view it, I guess.

In reality, there are always cells in your body dying, being replaced, etc. So really, you're losing some mass from muscles at all times. The "after three days of not exercising" thing is probably a typical length of time beyond which the death rate is higher than the production rate, and so the net change is negative. But as the production rate will be an exponential decay and the death rate will be roughly constant, it'll take significantly more than just the three days to undo any growth resulting from the last bit of exercise.

I don't know, though, if the three days is accurate, either for individuals or on average.

Also, don't forget that you might have mass loss, but that doesn't always work out to be a bad thing - if you take a week's rest every few months, it usually helps your muscles to grow faster once you return.

[visionsofruin]

how does taking a week break make them grow faster? Just gives cells a chance to relax in production or something?

[mewletter]

Human Biology Class Basics 101 starts. When you train, you actually damaging the muscle fibers. It takes at least a day just to repair the damage done. As for growth, it takes even more time depending how well your nutrition & recuperation are. For short, Rome isn't built in a day.

[Aielyn]

Originally Posted by visionsofruin

how does taking a week break make them grow faster? Just gives cells a chance to relax in production or something?

I don't know the details, but as I understand it, it's basically about giving your body a chance to "catch up". I suspect there's also a small factor of letting a little bit of muscle loss occur as a way to improve efficiency, and thus allow you to push harder afterwards.

But mostly the "catching up" part. The healing process is, as I said, exponential in nature. As a result, it won't actually be 100% healed after a week, although it will be close. Each workout, you push it just a little farther, and it all accumulates. An extra week of rest every once in a while lets your muscles essentially "reset", which helps to make them grow again. Do it too often, though, and the muscle loss factor will be too large, so every 12-18 weeks or so is a good, safe frequency.

[kyle]

I am a bit confuse can you explain a bit.

[The Magus]

Basically, our bodies evolved to adapt. When we work out, we damage our muscle fibres, and our body adapts by making more of them, making them bigger, stronger, etc. And not just our muscle: blood flow improves, heart rate, digestion, and the way our brains work all change a little bit to ensure less damage happens to our muscle fibres.

After weeks of good, heavy training, our bodies haven't just become better at lifting the weight, they have also become more efficient at adapting: it takes more and more work to damage the fibres, and the body makes less and less effort to adapt to the load, so you end up plateauing.

Taking a week off* resets your body's adapting mechanisms, so that it stops being so damn efficient at everything and when you return, you can start making bigger gains than when you stopped.

*The week off is NOT supposed to be you just sitting on a couch. It's called "active rest" which means you should spend each day doing enjoyable activities that get your body moving: sports, basically. So long as your body is getting some sort of activity, your general fitness level won't degrade too much.

[Clayton22]

Hmm you are dropping some huge from muscle tissue at all periods. The "after three periods of not exercising" thing is probably a common time period beyond which the loss of life amount is greater than the amount, and so the net modify is adverse.