Can you gain "permanent" muscle mass? What happens when you stop lifting?

Mellouk89 · January 2020

So say you have been weight training for 10 years and because of life circumstances you have to stop. After some time do you go back to where you were before you started lifting? Or is there a permanent change to your physique?

Sand_TIger · January 2020

Eventually any muscle will shrink when you stop using it. Just the same as muscle grows when you use it more. Muscle that you use a whole lot seems to take longer to shrink - my Dad still had quite a bit of chest muscle from his college days, for example, when he was forty, but he also wasn't completely idle.

MikePTY · January 2020

It in part depends what toy did during that time off. Did you eat at maintenance or a surplus? Or did you eat at a deficit? If you are eating at maintenance or above, I'd imagine you would only see minor muscle mass loss with extended time off. If you were eating in a deficit, it would probably be a bit more.

It would take some time to build your strength up again, but just because you would have lost strength does not mean that you would have necessarily lost measurable muscle mass.

Chieflrg · January 2020

No. Muscle is not permanent if you lack the stimulus to retain it. Same goes for strength.

This is even more evident once we reach mid life and advanced age where sarcopenia is more obvious.

We can produce skeletal muscle mass much easier once again if it diminishes for whatever reason if we apply all the things needed for MPS to occur.

Once again age along with training stimulus, how male you are, individual response, quality of protein has a lot to do with success or lack there of.

I might be a decent example where I was a elite athlete into my early 30s and at age 40major health issues weighed in and I chose not to train for just over a year.

It took a bit of time to recover from weight and muscle loss. Though I would hazard much quicker than somebody who didn't train for all the years before the hiatus.

cupcakesandproteinshakes · January 2020

My dad was a sad example of muscle wastage. He did have a serious illness that made him bedridden but honestly the difference is his thighs and calves after being in bed for 9 weeks. I know he will have lost fat as well of course( he was eating far less) but the loss of muscle was striking. Use it or lose it.

Actually he indirectly got me in to weight training because I was lifting him in and out of bed and wanted to be stronger. I’m determined to preserve my muscles into my middle and old age.

sijomial · January 2020

Can you gain "permanent" muscle mass?
No.

What happens when you stop lifting?
Without the stimulus to maintain your musculature it will atrophy. Use it or lose it.
Muscle protein synthesis and breakdown happen all the time - without training or activity stimulus breakdown exceeds synthesis.

When I was unable to weight bear on one leg for three months that leg lost 5" of quad circumference. The other leg that was getting some stimulus from taking my weight when walking with crutches didn't change much at all although my overall activity and exercise was much lower.
That's an example of stimulus required to maintain is a lot lower than the stimulus required to grow.

But you will commonly find that people that have previously had good muscle mass regain it quicker than someone the same age and stats who has never trained can gain it for the first time.

ExistingFish · January 2020

I heard somewhere that when you build muscle, more nucleus cells are made. They don't disappear when you lose muscle, even though the muscle shrinks. When you go to lift again later, you gain back to the point you left off faster, but not past that point.

I wish I could find that source.

gothchiq · January 2020

Muscle is use it or lose it I think. At least bulkwise and strength.

Can you gain "permanent" muscle mass? What happens when you stop lifting?

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