Will I Lose All My Progress Over Vacation?
By Coach Elise Perez
It’s been a long year and you’ve been working hard on those muscle and strength gains. Now that you’ve reached the year’s end, it’s time to pack up the suitcase and return home, or wherever it is your family now resides. You sift through your laundry and come to a dilemma; should you even bother to pack your gym clothes?
Training over the holidays is not always realistic for many reasons. First, you're busy, in a different way than you normally are. You’re balancing family, activities and possibly still having to work your full-time job. Second, it may not be worth it to you to take time away from the family and friends you don’t see very often to go to the gym. Third, maybe you just want to take this time to be out of the gym, get movement in more natural ways and take advantage of having free time.
But the panicky, anxious thoughts of “Will I lose all my progress if I take this time away?...” May have you second guessing yourself.
Let us talk you down. Studies show that those who weight train regularly are less susceptible to muscle loss when training breaks take place. In these studies, there was actually NO significant drop off in muscle mass after two weeks of detraining. Even if you are not training at all, you most likely will be doing some sort of normal everyday activity. As it turns out, just walking around is actually a lot better at preventing muscle loss than being completely sedentary all day, even if you aren’t actually lifting weights.
This tells us that you won’t see noticeable muscle loss within two weeks of being out of the gym, unless for some reason you become completely bed ridden.
So far, we’ve been talking in very broad terms. Muscle loss can also be very specific to each individual. How much muscle YOU lose will depend on three main factors: physical activity, caloric intake and protein intake.
Physical Activity
As we’ve discussed, any activity (no matter how mundane) is better than absolutely no activity. By just walking around, those simple movements will, to some extent, mechanically activate most muscles. Workouts that you may consider suboptimal or have a large decrease in volume can still allow you to maintain your muscle mass for two weeks or more.
Calorie Intake
Unsurprisingly, how much muscle you lose depends on your daily caloric intake. You should eat at caloric maintenance or in a caloric surplus, if your main goal is to avoid muscle loss. Especially if you are training less or not training at all.
Protein Intake
Lastly, sufficient protein intake is crucial when it comes to preserving muscle mass. About 0.7 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight is a good range for most active individuals. Our recommendation is to aim to be on the higher end if your training has decreased.
The big takeaway here: Not all is lost. Even if you ignored all of the above and did absolutely nothing for the next two weeks, as soon as you get back into the gym and your normal routines, you will see that the gains didn’t stray very far.