Am I losing muscle?

jerb00

I stopped lifting weights a few months ago and switched to bodyweight exercises. After 1 1/2 years of lifting and increasing weight and eating at maintenance or slightly below my measurements never changed. I felt like I looked better than I had before lifting (even though before lifting I consistently practiced Pilates) and showed more definition - which is my goal. But in the last few months of practicing 10 core body weights exercises my measurements in my thighs has done down by 1/8 inch. This is a big deal as I have been measuring consistently with no change. I am up to 50 reps a day on upper body exercises - push ups/dips/horizontal rows, and 125 lower body exercises - hip thrusts/flute ham raises/Bulgarian split squats and shrimp squats. So, I now understand progressive overload as it pertains to calisthenics and time under tension. So I do three seconds lowering and 1-2 seconds coming back up. My arms back and shoulders are def more defined. So my question- I always read over and over that weights are the way to go when you want to change body composition, gain mass, etc. so, I am still eating the same as I always have at maintenance but my thigh measurement went down. Since I am not moving any additional weight, should I assume I am losing muscle? Not really what I want and I don't want to go back to skinny fat but I really feel good after I am done exercising - like I worked really hard without the depleted feeling I was beginning to have after using weights. Thoughts?

usmcmp

So your upper body is looking leaner, but your legs are getting skinnier and you are maintaining weight. It could be recomposition with a bit of overall leaning out and your upper body benefiting from the work you are doing. There is a chance you are losing lean mass in your lower though. You might need to figure out how to add some weight to your leg days. I know that I reached a point very early into my glute ham raise training where I absolutely had to add weight because there was simply no slowing the tempo down any more.

jerb00

usmcmp wrote: »

So your upper body is looking leaner, but your legs are getting skinnier and you are maintaining weight. It could be recomposition with a bit of overall leaning out and your upper body benefiting from the work you are doing. There is a chance you are losing lean mass in your lower though. You might need to figure out how to add some weight to your leg days. I know that I reached a point very early into my glute ham raise training where I absolutely had to add weight because there was simply no slowing the tempo down any more.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, my upper is looking the best ever but I am concerned that you are right about the lower body. But the problem is that adding weight to squats, dreads, and thrusts was really draining me. That's why I stopped in the first place. If I add weights, but very low weights, I will eventfully have the same problem right?

lorrpb

jerb00 wrote: »

usmcmp wrote: »

So your upper body is looking leaner, but your legs are getting skinnier and you are maintaining weight. It could be recomposition with a bit of overall leaning out and your upper body benefiting from the work you are doing. There is a chance you are losing lean mass in your lower though. You might need to figure out how to add some weight to your leg days. I know that I reached a point very early into my glute ham raise training where I absolutely had to add weight because there was simply no slowing the tempo down any more.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, my upper is looking the best ever but I am concerned that you are right about the lower body. But the problem is that adding weight to squats, dreads, and thrusts was really draining me. That's why I stopped in the first place. If I add weights, but very low weights, I will eventfully have the same problem right?

Add weights 10-20% less than what was draining you. You could try reducing reps instead.