What happens to your body if you skip working out for a month?

You missed practice? And then another one? Don’t panic, everyone has to deal with it sooner or later. The problem is different: a break can have a bad effect on your form.

Let’s find out together with fitness trainer Olga Andrianova how long you can “skip” training without consequences for your performance.

Olga Andrianova

Fitness trainer

Expert of “Championship”⠀

How quickly can you lose shape if you neglect training?

Let’s start with the fact that it’s okay to skip a workout once in a while. A few days without exercise won’t turn your muscles into fat. Short breaks are even good for you – your body needs time to recover, and muscles grow not in the gym, but during rest. Recovery time depends on the level of exertion – on average it is from 48 to 72 hours. If you skip classes more often, it can still affect your figure.

But how quickly it happens depends on the duration of the “skipping” and the level of physical fitness. Those who train regularly, it will be easier to return to the former shape. We are talking about three or four sessions a week, not just one training session every six months. Muscles remember everything, so being trained will play to your advantage. Newbies will have a harder time – until your body gets used to the strain, taking a break can have a big impact on your fitness. So you should not delay training too long.

Olga Andrianova

fitness trainer

During training, the body is under stress, so a small break, on the contrary, will be beneficial. After a little rest, the indicators of strength and endurance will be even higher than before. For the first few weeks, there is no reason to worry at all – no matter if you are a professional athlete or a beginner. That is, for the first time all sports performance will be within the normal range.

What happens to the strength and cardio indicators after 2-4 weeks without training?

Two weeks

Strength performance: with a sedentary lifestyle (walking to the nearest store doesn’t count), muscles will start to lose their appearance after two weeks. “During this time, muscles shrink in volume – this is due to water loss in the muscles. Without training, glycogen production decreases, so the muscles “deflate”. But this is reversible – two to three weeks after you start training, they return to their former shape,” says the fitness trainer.

Endurance: for cardio enthusiasts, the situation is different. Compared to muscle strength, which is more tolerant of “absenteeism”, endurance performance drops faster. “Without training, the heart muscle functions poorly, because it needs to be trained constantly. In the first time after stopping exercise, MPC – the maximum amount of oxygen that the body consumes during exercise – drops sharply. After 10 days, these indicators decrease by 7%, and even later – by 15%,” explains the fitness trainer.

Four weeks

Strength indicators: with light loads (climbing stairs, walking to the subway) muscle strength decreases after about four weeks. This is the conclusion reached by scientists from the American College of Sports Medicine. They studied the degree of influence of a break in training on the strength performance of track and field athletes and weightlifters. And this is what they found out: athletes began to lose shape only after four weeks without training. In track and field athletes, slow muscle fibers were the first to be “hit” – the very fibers that can withstand a large number of repetitions and are used mainly in cardio training. Weightlifters suffered from fast muscle fibers – large muscles, which are not designed for repetitive work.

“A month after rest, glycogen stores in the muscles decrease. The thing is that there are certain nuclei in muscles, which in the process of training become larger. But if you stop exercising, they decrease in volume,” says the fitness trainer.

Endurance: after four weeks without training, endurance deteriorates by 20%. In 2018, scientists found that MPC (maximum oxygen uptake) values decreased in runners four weeks after stopping training. A year earlier, scientists analyzed the athletic performance of soccer players after the end of the competitive season and came to a disappointing conclusion. Running speed and the state of the cardiovascular system deteriorated.

Olga Andrianova

fitness trainer

Endurance is lost much faster than muscle strength, especially if there is no physical activity for a month. This is due to the fact that the volume of blood plasma decreases. Blood becomes more viscous, which “inhibits” the flow of H2O into the tissues.

How to start training after a long break?

• After a long rest (three months or more) you have to start from scratch – it is a long and laborious work. Increase the load slowly and gradually – both in cardio and strength, says the fitness trainer.
• A break of six months will cost you 1.5-3 months of recovery. It’s unrealistic to get your muscles back to their former shape in a month.
• The first two weeks of training after rest, the body will resist. But after three or four training sessions it will be easier to train.
• If the absences were not more than 10 days, you can start with light walks. Then switch to more active sports, where the heart rate zone reaches 125-150 beats per minute. In this case, the heart muscle works more actively, aerobic capacity increases, concludes the fitness trainer.