How quickly does muscle start turning into fat in your experience?

[G3nghisKhan]

How many days off can you take before you start losing muscle in your experience?

 

[KvanH]

Well, muscle doesn't turn to fat. But generally I've seen usually said, that you'll lose muscle at about the same rate, that you put/can put it on in 'normal' situations. So say you train and eat well for a month and then you don't train at all, but still eat ok for another month, then you'd be about where you started off. I think I would be sooner back to starting point myself.

Several things have an affect on the rate of losing muscle, like nutrition, sleep, general activity, hormone levels, how fast the muscle was obtained, like noob gains or with gear, did you stay on maintenance for awhile and 'solidified' the gains or stopped working out immediately after acquiring the muscle mass etc.

 

[Smont]

How many days off can you take before you start losing muscle in your experience?

 

[scoooter]

Interesting question - I have no idea. I also used to believe that fat was converted to muscle but that is old school myth that should have died out years ago !

There are probably studies on "wasting" when a body is say in a coma that may have a calculated rate of muscle loss but for any active person I think you're way over thinking the topic. Other possible studies could be found looking into eating disorders (anorexia), there will be many cofactors involved.

Taking an off day or week is often beneficial to the recovery process and doubtful that any muscle would be lost.

 

[Resolve10]

How many days off can you take before you start losing muscle in your experience?

Depending on what you mean by this and depending on what you mean I could go on at length beyond what anyone probably cares to read, so I won't, but if you expand or if anyone is specifically interested I can depending on what the actual question is.

Measuring both the accrual and loss of muscle is pretty complicated for a variety of reasons and it depends on what you mean by "muscle", but in general and depending on age probably 2-4 weeks before any appreciable losses to strength, power, muscular endurance, and "muscle" loss are noticed and then potentially at a faster rate after that point. These different things also probably are "lost" and "gained" at different rates just as an FYI even though your question centered around muscle.

There are a lot of variables, but if your question is more in line with worries about losing muscle between training sessions I can pretty much offer up that is not going to happen unless in some quite unusual scenarios.

Interesting question - I have no idea. I also used to believe that fat was converted to muscle but that is old school myth that should have died out years ago !

There are probably studies on "wasting" when a body is say in a coma that may have a calculated rate of muscle loss but for any active person I think you're way over thinking the topic. Other possible studies could be found looking into eating disorders (anorexia), there will be many cofactors involved.

Taking an off day or week is often beneficial to the recovery process and doubtful that any muscle would be lost.

No one probably really wanted to know, but for immobilized limbs you can lose roughly 1% of strength .5% of muscle per day.

 

[G3nghisKhan]

Well, muscle doesn't turn to fat. But generally I've seen usually said, that you'll lose muscle at about the same rate, that you put/can put it on in 'normal' situations. So say you train and eat well for a month and then you don't train at all, but still eat ok for another month, then you'd be about where you started off. I think I would be sooner back to starting point myself.

Several things have an affect on the rate of losing muscle, like nutrition, sleep, general activity, hormone levels, how fast the muscle was obtained, like noob gains or with gear, did you stay on maintenance for awhile and 'solidified' the gains or stopped working out immediately after acquiring the muscle mass etc.

I know muscle doesn’t directly turn to fat but muscle does get converted to glucose via gluconeogenesis and that can lead to fat gain. Ime ppl who stop working out tend to put on body fat and not just loss their muscle mass which would make sense from an evolutionary standpoint as your body would want to hold onto as many calories as possible and fat is the most efficient form for calorie storage

Depending on what you mean by this and depending on what you mean I could go on at length beyond what anyone probably cares to read, so I won't, but if you expand or if anyone is specifically interested I can depending on what the actual question is.

Measuring both the accrual and loss of muscle is pretty complicated for a variety of reasons and it depends on what you mean by "muscle", but in general and depending on age probably 2-4 weeks before any appreciable losses to strength, power, muscular endurance, and "muscle" loss are noticed and then potentially at a faster rate after that point. These different things also probably are "lost" and "gained" at different rates just as an FYI even though your question centered around muscle.

There are a lot of variables, but if your question is more in line with worries about losing muscle between training sessions I can pretty much offer up that is not going to happen unless in some quite unusual scenarios.



No one probably really wanted to know, but for immobilized limbs you can lose roughly 1% of strength .5% of muscle per day.

Yeah ime the rate of muscle loss seems to increase after a certain period of time.
I’m wondering how long you can take away from the gym before you start losing *any* muscle mass if you’re not on gear

 

[Resolve10]

Yeah ime the rate of muscle loss seems to increase after a certain period of time.
I’m wondering how long you can take away from the gym before you start losing *any* muscle mass if you’re not on gear

Again that probably depends on a lot of factors. Even with barely any training you can hold on to most of it pretty well. Completely stopping or going sedentary the first week losses would probably only really be changes in water content, glycogen, and blood flow leading to a "flatter" feeling. Depending on your definition of muscle after that point it still hangs around for a decent bit (like around a month) before things would really start to decrease.

Honestly though idk why it would matter if you need to take that long off from training then there are probably more important things going on than worrying about muscle loss.

 

[G3nghisKhan]

Again that probably depends on a lot of factors. Even with barely any training you can hold on to most of it pretty well. Completely stopping or going sedentary the first week losses would probably only really be changes in water content, glycogen, and blood flow leading to a "flatter" feeling. Depending on your definition of muscle after that point it still hangs around for a decent bit (like around a month) before things would really start to decrease.

Honestly though idk why it would matter if you need to take that long off from training then there are probably more important things going on than worrying about muscle loss.

I’m just trying to educate myself so I can make better informed decisions when I’m really busy but could technically make it into the gym if I was determined and made some fairly mild sacrifices.

but also I’ve been using the Boditrax machine at my gym to track my stats and stuff and the changes in my stats had been making sense until a few weeks ago and in the last few weeks things have gone kinda wack so I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. Thereve been a bunch of unhelpful factors that would’ve been detrimental to my physique to various extents. One thing is that these last 2 PPL cycles I’ve had 10 and 11 days between consecutive workouts of each type and I’m wondering how impactful that would’ve been

 

[Smont]

I’m just trying to educate myself so I can make better informed decisions when I’m really busy but could technically make it into the gym if I was determined and made some fairly mild sacrifices.

but also I’ve been using the Boditrax machine at my gym to track my stats and stuff and the changes in my stats had been making sense until a few weeks ago and in the last few weeks things have gone kinda wack so I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. Thereve been a bunch of unhelpful factors that would’ve been detrimental to my physique to various extents. One thing is that these last 2 PPL cycles I’ve had 10 and 11 days between consecutive workouts of each type and I’m wondering how impactful that would’ve been

If your taking a 10 day break once every 2-3months probably no big deal, if your taking a 10 day break every few weeks I'd expect progress to stall out and very very slowly go backwards.

Time management, I work 2 jobs that total about 60 hours a week. I have to spend a few hours a week going over people's meals plans and sometimes make workout adjustments too, I have 2 kids and I'm still in the gym anywhere from 45min to 2 hours 5 days a week, there's always time.

Last year I was on the road 5am-6pm, 8-10 hrs piledriving, welding and loading 80lb rods into a drill 80-100x a dayfeating and drinking out my cooler 3-4x a day and still managed 45min 4 days a week in the gym. Honestly that 6 months was nuts and I probably was overtrained between work/gym/5hrs sleep and I don't suggest that. All I'm getting at is there's 24 hours in a day, 16-18 of them your awake and you can always squeeze in a workout. Start packing a gym bag and a cooler for work every day and you will figure it out.

 

[G3nghisKhan]

If your taking a 10 day break once every 2-3months probably no big deal, if your taking a 10 day break every few weeks I'd expect progress to stall out and very very slowly go backwards.

Time management, I work 2 jobs that total about 60 hours a week. I have to spend a few hours a week going over people's meals plans and sometimes make workout adjustments too, I have 2 kids and I'm still in the gym anywhere from 45min to 2 hours 5 days a week, there's always time.

Last year I was on the road 5am-6pm, 8-10 hrs piledriving, welding and loading 80lb rods into a drill 80-100x a dayfeating and drinking out my cooler 3-4x a day and still managed 45min 4 days a week in the gym. Honestly that 6 months was nuts and I probably was overtrained between work/gym/5hrs sleep and I don't suggest that. All I'm getting at is there's 24 hours in a day, 16-18 of them your awake and you can always squeeze in a workout. Start packing a gym bag and a cooler for work every day and you will figure it out.

I get what you mean, I’m just trying to figure out how big of an impact this is likely having so I can weigh up the cost:benefit ratio of missing stuff more accurately and avoid misdiagnosing the situation.

To clarify, I mean 11 days passed between consecutive pull days, 11 days between consecutive push days, and 11 days between consecutive leg days. So sort of like what Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates used to do. I know it worked well for them but they were on gear and I don’t know if resting each muscle for 11 days between workouts is too much for a natty

 

[KvanH]

I get what you mean, I’m just trying to figure out how big of an impact this is likely having so I can weigh up the cost:benefit ratio of missing stuff more accurately and avoid misdiagnosing the situation.

To clarify, I mean 11 days passed between consecutive pull days, 11 days between consecutive push days, and 11 days between consecutive leg days. So sort of like what Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates used to do. I know it worked well for them but they were on gear and I don’t know if resting each muscle for 11 days between workouts is too much for a natty

I'm sure they changed things up every now and then and did different things along their careers, but with the basic principles of Yates HIT muscle groups were trained once a week and Mentzer's HIT principles had higher frequency.

If you tend to miss WO's or can get to the gym only 2-3 times a week, then I'd do full body WO's or some kind of a 'hybrid' split, so your training frequency won't get so low. I personally almost never train muscle groups less, than twice week. I realise that several variables go in to determing the optimal training frequency, individuality being one, but based on my research, training most muscle groups 2-4 times a week is optimal for most, theoretically at least.

 

[Smont]

I get what you mean, I’m just trying to figure out how big of an impact this is likely having so I can weigh up the cost:benefit ratio of missing stuff more accurately and avoid misdiagnosing the situation.

To clarify, I mean 11 days passed between consecutive pull days, 11 days between consecutive push days, and 11 days between consecutive leg days. So sort of like what Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates used to do. I know it worked well for them but they were on gear and I don’t know if resting each muscle for 11 days between workouts is too much for a natty

Yates and Mike Mentzer didn't really train like that, it was sensationalized for today's modern society that is lazy. Mentzer in his prime was in the gym just as much as everyone else, layer in his career he started smoking meth and training less and his physique got way worse. Dorian trained 4 days a week every week to absolute failure and beyond.

If yiur not hitting a muscle at least once a week your probably moving backwards on that body part. So if your doing a ppl and your not getting at least a p-p-l each week (3workouts) your likely not going to progress, the less muscle you have the less noticeable it will be. If your 225 with abs then you likely will be taking 1 step forward and 3 steps backwards

 

[Resolve10]

I get what you mean, I’m just trying to figure out how big of an impact this is likely having so I can weigh up the cost:benefit ratio of missing stuff more accurately and avoid misdiagnosing the situation.

To clarify, I mean 11 days passed between consecutive pull days, 11 days between consecutive push days, and 11 days between consecutive leg days. So sort of like what Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates used to do. I know it worked well for them but they were on gear and I don’t know if resting each muscle for 11 days between workouts is too much for a natty

Is there a reason you need 11 days between sessions of the same body part? You can maintain performance and muscle on some pretty low volume and frequency, but making gains will be pretty tough with a schedule that infrequent.