Unexpected Things That Happen When You Abandon Your Workout Routine...

You didnt plan it. You got sick. Missed a few workouts. Or you got a little hurt...or a lot hurt, and missed some workouts. Then you fell out of habit, got used to not going and that was the new habit...NOT going. I get it. It happens. I spent over a year not working out from 2016 into 2017 due to injury. Then that turned into bad habits that I kept for too long because they were easy. But if you ARE working out, its easy to lose gains...and fast. Lets look at a few issues that happen faster than you think.

Flexibility Loss Occurs Quickly You lose the benefits of flexibility quickly if you take any substantial time off from stretching, says Michele Olson, professor of exercise science at Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama. “After a bout of flexibility exercise, the muscles and tendons begin to retract to their typical resting length — particularly if you sit during your commute regularly and/or sit at a desk at your job.” Olson notes that you’ll notice a loss of flexibility in as few as three days, with even more pronounced changes occurring at the two-week mark. “Stretching should be done at least three times a week — if not daily,” she says.

Cardiovascular Fitness Starts to Tank After One Week Aerobic fitness is defined as the ability of the body to transport and utilize oxygen from your blood in your muscles. This measure, also known as VO2 max, decreases after as few as one to two weeks of inactivity, says Danielle Weis, doctor of physical therapy with Spring Forward Physical Therapy in New York City. “The functional capacity of the heart also decreases. After three to four weeks of bed rest, your resting heart rate increases by four to 15 beats, and blood volume decreases by five percent in 24 hours and 20 percent in two weeks.”

Strength Starts to Diminish After Two Weeks When you quit strength training, changes in your muscles begin to occur within days, says exercise physiologist Michelle Olson. “Muscle, when not receiving its regular challenge, will start to lose protein, which is absorbed into your circulation and excreted via urination. Small but meaningful loss in muscle protein (the building block of the contractile units for each muscle fiber) can begin to occur in 72 hours.” Noticeable changes when attempting to lift your usual amount of weight show up in two to three weeks, adds Olson.

And as with cardiovascular fitness, long-term exercisers will see a slower muscle loss than those new to exercise, says Dr. Brad Thomas. It Takes Three Weeks to Gain Back One Week Off After a period of lying around, your nervous system loses its ability to fire up as it did before you took time off, says Irv Rubenstein, exercise physiologist and founder of STEPS, a science-based fitness facility in Nashville, Tennessee. That’s due to the fact that you lose the neural stimuli that enables you to lift heavy objects with the same amount of effort. “When you return to lifting, you may be able to lift the same weights, but you will be working above your normal capacity, which could put tissue at risk. It will take a greater effort to do what you used to do and will require more rest between sets and days in order to recover. ”A novice who’s taken time off during the holidays will need to start from scratch. The athlete or experienced lifter can start back to where they were in early November and give it a month to get back to speed.

What do you think? What do you do when you don’t have time for your regular workout? Have you ever been sidelined by an injury? How long did you have to stop working out? What was your recovery process like? If you stopped because of your busy schedule, how long did it take you to recover? Share your thoughts, questions and stories in the comments section below!