5 Things That Happen When You Stop Working Out
Ever wonder what happens when you quit exercising? (Photo: Uber Images/Adobe Stock)
It happens to the best of us: You get injured, find yourself working around the clock or are otherwise forced to put exercise on the back burner for a while. And when the holidays roll around, you’re also provided an incentive to eat and drink and skip your workouts until January. But a day or two can easily stretch into weeks or even months, and you’re right back to square one. In technical terms, you’ve become “deconditioned.” In fact, 25 to 35 percent of adult exercisers quit working out within two to five months of starting, according to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). How quickly your fitness level declines depends on several factors – some may surprise you.
1. Cardiovascular Fitness Starts to Tank After One Week
Aerobic fitness is defined as the ability of the body to transport and utilize oxygen from your blood in your muscles. This measure, also known as VO2 max, decreases after as few as one to two weeks of inactivity, says Danielle Weis, doctor of physical therapy with Spring Forward Physical Therapy in New York City. “The functional capacity of the heart also decreases. After three to four weeks of bed rest, your resting heart rate increases by four to 15 beats, and blood volume decreases by five percent in 24 hours and 20 percent in two weeks.”
2. Strength Starts to Diminish After Two Weeks
When you quit strength training, changes in your muscles begin to occur within days, says exercise physiologist Michelle Olson. “Muscle, when not receiving its regular challenge, will start to lose protein, which is absorbed into your circulation and excreted via urination.
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Small but meaningful loss in muscle protein (the building block of the contractile units for each muscle fiber) can begin to occur in 72 hours.” Noticeable changes when attempting to lift your usual amount of weight show up in two to three weeks, adds Olson. And as with cardiovascular fitness, long-term exercisers will see a slower muscle loss than those new to exercise, says Dr. Brad Thomas.
3. Aging Affects Fitness Loss
You lose strength and overall fitness twice as quickly as you age, says Dr. Brad Thomas. “It’s largely due to hormone levels. As we age, we have lower levels of human growth hormone (HGH), which makes it harder to recover.” We also lose our ability to handle stress and recover from the resulting stress hormones, such as cortisol. As we get older, this same mechanism results in greater fatigue after a workout. Older athletes take longer to recover from workouts in general, according to several studies, including a 2008 article published in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity.
4. Fitness Levels Decline Faster When You’re Sick
Someone who’s healthy and takes a break from exercise loses muscle mass and cardiovascular fitness more slowly than a person who stops exercising due to an illness or injury. The latter will lose fitness levels twice as fast, says Dr. Brad Thomas. The stress of an illness or injury takes a greater toll on the body than simply taking a break when you’re healthy. Whether you’re an athlete or recreational exerciser, if you’ve taken a few weeks off from your routine, your level of deconditioning will be pretty low, says physical therapist Danielle Weis. “If you are recovering from a fracture, surgery or have been on bed rest, it can take up to and longer than 12 to 24 months to fully recover.”
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5. It Takes Three Weeks to Gain Back One Week Off
After a period of lying around, your nervous system loses its ability to fire up as it did before you took time off, says Irv Rubenstein, exercise physiologist and founder of STEPS, a science-based fitness facility in Nashville, Tennessee.
That’s due to the fact that you lose the neural stimuli that enables you to lift heavy objects with the same amount of effort. “When you return to lifting, you may be able to lift the same weights, but you will be working above your normal capacity, which could put tissue at risk. It will take a greater effort to do what you used to do and will require more rest between sets and days in order to recover.”A novice who’s taken time off during the holidays will need to start from scratch. The athlete or experienced lifter can start back to where they were in early November and give it a month to get back to speed.
The original article “These 9 Unexpected Things Happen When You Stop Working Out“ appeared on LIVESTRONG.COM.
By Linda Melone
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