Post: #1

I'm looking at a several month interval of forced break from the gym due to health issues somewhere in the next year. For part of the time I would probably not be able to eat normally and will be lying in bed 24/7. Which puts all my past current gains at risk.
In the past 20 months of training (first year of them with suboptimal training routine and not-the-best diet) I have put on maybe 8-9 kg of lean muscle mass. I believe I will lose most, if not all of it.
Which is making me anxious even now (don't want to think about how it will be watching them disappear in the mirror).

I know muscle memory is a thing and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence from athletes who have recovered loss muscle mass after injuries. However, I am interested in the stories of the average Joe.
Please if you have been through an extended episode of not being able to train, post shortly your story - how long were you out, how much did you lose, how did you get back to it, and, most importantly, how long it took you to build it all back.

Post: #2

Sorry to hear about the health issue, I hope it works out for you.

Muscle memory is more about being conditioned to follow a certain procedure. For example, how police officers draw and fire their weapons or the intricate technique needed by an Olympic lifter to do a heavy clean and jerk. Muscle memory doesn't pertain to strength levels.

To answer your question: I took six months off from the gym and went from a 305 squat to a 185 squat. It took about a month to get back to 255 and another month to get back to 305. That was with a solid diet, minimal alcohol and a strict training regimen.

Post: #3

I had an eblow injury not too long ago. Was doing Shooto and going slow with a guy smaller than me, got caught in an armbar and tapped. However the guy didn't notice my tap and when he went to readjust into another technique I had thought he was releasing me, so I relaxed my arm only for it to fall into a very solid arm-bar which put me out of commission for a while.

I lost muscle mass and couldn't lift properly for a while, but I got back into it slow and steady and was able to recover and then continue past where I was before that fairly quickly. It will not happen overnight, but your recovery will be faster than those who have never been where you are.

I would assume that a big part of being able to recover is simply knowing how to lift which helps you get yourself back to where you were.

However, from your title I had a different idea of what muscle memory was. I always figured that was your body knowing how to perform certain movements from having that action drilled into them relentlessly over time.

** Want to add, if you are being hospitalized maintaining muscle mass should not be the first concern on your mind. Focus on getting yourself better. I'm a strong believer in your body following your mind, if you focus on being healthy and recovering your body will want that as well and aid in your recovery. Much like how a person who accepts death will die all the sooner, the one who fights for life will stay alive longer.

Post: #4

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...=129359637

Quote:Muscles Have A Mind Of Their Own

The study challenges the idea that muscles go back to their starting condition when you stop strength training.

"Our findings suggest that there are permanent structural changes in the muscle," says Gundersen. "We don't know if they're really permanent, but they're very long-lasting in animals, at least."

I had to take some time off due to an injury last year, and I continued to lose weight during that time. Strength came back to old levels within one to two months of training, I'd say.

Post: #5

When I was a Freshmen in highschool I could barely do 1 pullup, by my Junior year I could do 21 pullups.

I'm 31 years old now and I hadn't done pullups in a few years.
I recently started again about 2 months ago and the best I could do was 6.

This morning (2 months later) I banged out 20 in a row before heading out to the office.

Keep in mind, I have been working out consistently for the last 17 years. The only down time I have had was 6 months where I couldn't walk from a broken leg/shattered ankle injury I suffered when I was 24 years old.

Basically I believe muscle memory is real, however - my gains could have more do with my general fitness background.
Maybe a combination of both?

Post: #6

(06-13-2016 10:35 AM)ScrapperTL Wrote:  When I was a Freshmen in highschool I could barely do 1 pullup, by my Junior year I could do 21 pullups.

I'm 31 years old now and I hadn't done pullups in a few years.
I recently started again about 2 months ago and the best I could do was 6.

This morning (2 months later) I banged out 20 in a row before heading out to the office.

Keep in mind, I have been working out consistently for the last 17 years. The only down time I have had was 6 months where I couldn't walk from a broken leg/shattered ankle injury I suffered when I was 24 years old.

Basically I believe muscle memory is real, however - my gains could have more do with my general fitness background.
Maybe a combination of both?

Not to derail the thread, but would you be able to elaborate on how you recovered from your injury? Do you have any loss of mobility or stiffness still from it? I am asking because I broke my foot in two places and dislocated my lisfranc joint in a motorbike crash last January and although I would say I'm back to 95 percent now there is still a slight loss of mobility and flexibility in the foot and soreness and stiffness in the mornings and after intense training. I am curious to ask about how your injury affects you now 7 years down the line and what I should expect. Have you suffered any symptoms of arthritis as a result? I was told by my doctor to expect some form of it eventually as a result of my break.

Post: #7

(06-13-2016 11:20 AM)Blackwell Wrote:  

(06-13-2016 10:35 AM)ScrapperTL Wrote:  When I was a Freshmen in highschool I could barely do 1 pullup, by my Junior year I could do 21 pullups.

I'm 31 years old now and I hadn't done pullups in a few years.
I recently started again about 2 months ago and the best I could do was 6.

This morning (2 months later) I banged out 20 in a row before heading out to the office.

Keep in mind, I have been working out consistently for the last 17 years. The only down time I have had was 6 months where I couldn't walk from a broken leg/shattered ankle injury I suffered when I was 24 years old.

Basically I believe muscle memory is real, however - my gains could have more do with my general fitness background.
Maybe a combination of both?

Not to derail the thread, but would you be able to elaborate on how you recovered from your injury? Do you have any loss of mobility or stiffness still from it? I am asking because I broke my foot in two places and dislocated my lisfranc joint in a motorbike crash last January and although I would say I'm back to 95 percent now there is still a slight loss of mobility and flexibility in the foot and soreness and stiffness in the mornings and after intense training. I am curious to ask about how your injury affects you now 7 years down the line and what I should expect. Have you suffered any symptoms of arthritis as a result? I was told by my doctor to expect some form of it eventually as a result of my break.

Things have definitely changed, although I have found ways to mitigate the change.
1) Prior to my injury I never had gout in my right foot, now I do.
How do I mitigate the pain from Gout Flare-Ups?
I have found that prescription medication does nothing for me, only THC helps with the Gout pain.
If I am having Gout Flare-Up or noticing the oncoming symptoms, I smoke pot before bed and this literally works miracles.
2) Prior to the injury I never had problems with my Sciatic Nerve, now I get terrible debilitating Sciatic Nerve pain a couple times a year.
Again, I have found prescription medications does nothing for me.
Again, the only thing I have found that helps is THC.
If I get a Sciatic Nerve Flare-up or feel the symptoms coming on, I smoke pot - its a fucking miracle worker. Works BETTER than morphine and pot is OTC in my State (Oregon).
3) When I run or jog, I look goofy for the first couple minutes or so. Things just aren't "lined up" the way nature intended.
Haven't found a cure for this.
4) General Daily Pain - I have 2 metal brackets and a boatload of screws in my right leg. Also 1 giant bolt going through my right ankle.
Sometimes, for reasons unknown to me - this hardware causes me physical pain.
Solution: I take 6 large Fish Oil capsules every single morning on an empty stomach. This has helped me more than prescription medicine or even THC can.

Basically, a combination of Cannabis and Fish Oil has alleviated a majority of my issues. I still look goofy as fuck when I start running/jogging until my body "figures it out" but I have a working plan (listed above) for pain mitigation.

Post: #8

I bet it is. I know guys, who started going to gym, started to take a lot of suplements and after 6 months they were really ripped. But then they stopped for some weeks or months and totally lost it, like they never did something.
On the other hand, I worked out without supplements since my 15. I made a lot of pauses, but muscles never disappeared and I can easily get back into shape, 2 weeks of regural training and the difference is big.

Post: #9

Definitely real. I have had to leave the gym for extended periods of time due to injury and lost muscle/strength, and it has always come back faster when I went back.

One of my boys got back in the gym recently after a long time out and his strength gains came back quickly too.

Post: #10

It's real. About six years ago I had some significant health problems. Months and months later, and numerous surgeries, I had dropped from over 200lb to 165lb. Once I was given the all clear to resume training again, I began to gain muscle at around 2lb per week - After around four months I was back to my original weight.

Post: #11

Strength gains stick around quite well. Muscle grows quicker. Less injuries - tendinitis etc.. it's great.

Post: #12

Don't worry at all man - muscle memory is very real. It's actually function of the structural changes in the muscle. Not just neural learning, conditioning the movement pattern. Training creates more nuclei in muscle cells and they stick around, pretty much permanently. Your mass will come back alot more quickly than it took to gain it.

Personal experience: I absolutely gain many times faster the second and subsequent times around.

Here's some of the biology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_mem..._training)

"The extra muscle nuclei obtained by a strength training episode, seems to be very long lasting, perhaps permanent, even in muscles that are inactive for a long time"

IME a few months off = about two months of training to get back up to 95% of where I was.

Another time I had a limb entirely immobilized for 2 months, withered away to just skin and bone. On one side I was muscle, the other, just nothing. Looked awful. After two weeks rehab, took me about 6 weeks of lifting to get back to muscular and symmetric.

Actually, this has had a weird side effect for me. I grew my chest a shitload from benching in my 20's. Too much, and I looked unbalanced. I've stopped benching completely but my chest is still large, only from the marginal stimulation it gets from back and tricep work (rows, pullups, close/overhead presses) Haven't benched in years.

Post: #13

BTW I find this principle to hold in many domains. Mental abilities, language learning, game, social skills, etc. Once you've built it, even if you take months/years away from it, it's still there, dormant - waiting to be reactivated in a fraction of the time it took to build it. You can use that to your advantage in many arenas.

If you can mitigate age-related decline (physical and mental), which is getting easier and easier to do, you can keep adding capacities and skills to your repertoire, and age like a fine wine, haha.