(03-08-2018 02:08 PM)H1N1 Wrote: I'm curious, and this isn't a call out on zatara: who has ever actually come across someone whose body has shed all the muscle they painstakingly built?
It seems to be common wisdom on the internet that if you stop lifting for a while your strength disappears, your body whithers, and within a few months to a year (generally, depending on what you're reading) you're close to being back to square one.
In my experience, going on the people I know in real life, guys who got big and strong at one point in their life, who spent many years getting bigger and stronger, retain a quite notable degree of musculature well into old age - really until the final, fairly rapid decline that comes at the end.
I can think of plenty of guys who were big and powerful chaps in their youth who are still strong and solidly built (even if far from their prime) well into old age. I have literally never come across anyone that I know of who used to be strong and muscular who is now a scrawny weakling.
I honestly think that if I were to stop lifting now, I would still be able to lift 80% of what I can lift now in a year or two, and probably 70% of what I can lift now in 5 years - and that would still make me notably stronger than most guys. I'm not even a massively muscular guy either. I just reckon that all the work I've put in over the last 10 years or so mean that I will always be a passably strong guy.
I'm not suggesting it's advisable to stop lifting or anything, I'm just suggesting that if you've built any kind of muscle and strength over time, that even a year or two out of the game probably wouldn't be that big a deal if you aren't on a quest to top 1% physicality. That's just what it seems like to me from all the people I know who are still better built and stronger than average aged 60+, 30 years or more since they last lifted a weight.
You're right in that some amount of muscle will stay on someone's frame long term, despite inactivity. But nowhere near enough that one could decide to just workout biceps, and nothing else, and expect to have a decent physique. The residual effects just aren't that strong.
First, anecdotally: I lose almost 1KG a week when I'm not working out, if I go over a 3 week break or so. I've lost as much as 15KG when taking an extended break from lifting due to injury. I also have friends that have had similar experiences. It depends on how much muscle you're carrying around to begin with, but if you're at a significantly increased size to your natural one then the muscle will melt off when you stop training, rapidly.
Secondly, sports science tends to disagree with you completely too: the accepted norm is that if you're carrying a lot of muscle on your frame due to years of bodybuilding / strength training, but then stop suddenly, the muscle starts atrophying after as little as 3 weeks of inactivity. Different athletes lose the muscle at different rates, but there are consistently huge drops in both muscle strength and size.
There is absolutely loads of stuff out there about this, if you just Google "how long does it take to lose muscle" you can start reading on it. But for some starters:
Quote:Muscle size, however has been shown to change slightly after 3 weeks of inactivity. One study found a 6.4% decline in mean fiber cross sectional area among weightlifters who stopped training over a 2 week period.
Bangsbo, J, Mizuno M. Morphological and metabolic alterations n soccer players with detraining and retraining and their relation to performance. In: Science and Football: Proceedings of the First World Congress of Science and Football, Liverpool, England, 1987
Quote:Longer periods of inactivity however do result in more significant declines in strength performance among strength and sprint based athletes, losses range from 7-12% during layoffs ranging from 8 to 12 weeks.
Hakkinen K., Komi PV, Tesch PA. Effect of combined concentric and eccentric strength training and detraining on forcetime, muscle fiber and metabolic characteristics of leg extensor muscles. Scand. J. Sports Sci. 1981.
They're both focused on the short to medium term, but provide a useful guide to how fast you start to lose muscle mass and strength. More accessibly / less academic, and focusing on more of a long term:
Quote:But, "within two weeks you'll probably start to show a 7-10 per cent loss in strength levels," Dr Boutagy said.
"Most data suggests that you'll lose at least 70 per cent of the adaptation you've built through exercise after about three months."
Quote:Your body will stop building them up. You're demonstrating to your body that you don't need those muscles anymore. If you're otherwise eating fine, your body will not consume your muscles, but it won't repair them. Over time your body will revert to a stable state that's adapted to the workload that you're giving it.
Some athletes see a loss of about 6% muscle density after three weeks. Some power lifters see losses of as much as 35% after seven months.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/...bae73714d3
http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-0...ss/8426246
etc
edit: just to be clear, I'm not arguing someone whos done 10 years of serious bodybuilding is going to waste away to be a skinny weakling after a couple years off. But just that its not enough to think "oh, I was strong/big years ago, I'm probably still strong/big now". There will be significant muscle and strength loss after any length of time off, but in particular after long-term time off. For guys who were 100KG+ of muscle they're going to have much more residual strength and size. But for an average 80-85KG male who worked out a few times a week for a few years there isn't going to be a huge amount left after years not training. (I'm assuming nomadbrah is an average sized guy, until told otherwise!)