What happens when you stop working out?
1. You will lose muscle: Muscles decrease in size 3 to 4 weeks from the time you stop working out. The decrease rate depends on your diet(Low calorie and protein intake will accelerate muscle loss) intake and general activity except for the exercise. Muscles need more energy to be maintained so your body will stop providing the maintenance if you are not working out. The muscles will decrease glycogen retention which in turn decreases water storage in muscles (carbohydrates which are converted to glycogen require a fair amount of water to be stored) thereby reducing its size.
2. You will decrease strength: As the muscle starts to shrink after three weeks the same goes for the strength and the strength loss accelerates further with time. But there is good news too if you take 3 weeks break and then return to working out then your strength gains can be equal to the person working out regularly in long term.
3. You can regain muscle faster than it took you to build it: But this must not be the reason to stop and take break as there are other disadvantages. Myonuclei (Centres of each muscle fibres) is responsible to add muscle to the body which takes a little bit of time to build showing your speed to build muscle but if once delivered to the muscle it stays there almost forever.
4. Endurance goes down: It happens because the capacity of your body to exchange gases like oxygen in cells decreases. Exchange of gases depends on Alveoli (Workhorses of respiratory system) in Lungs. Fewer capillaries in lungs also decrease the endurance as they also contribute to exchange of gases. Both also lead to decrease in blood volume and red blood cells. Finally, you are left with decreased capacity to filter out carbon dioxide from your blood and providing less oxygen.
5. Heart muscle strength decreases: As the endurance decreases the capacity of the heart to transfer the blood also decreases thereby decreasing the volume of blood transfer throughout the body.
6. VO2 Max reduction — VO₂ Max is volume of oxygen effectively used by muscles, lungs and heart during exercise. Your muscles fatigue faster due to lack of oxygen. The rate at which your VO₂ max decreases depends on your past activity. Greater the activity slower the decline. The people who continuously take breaks of three weeks or more will completely reverse the VO₂ max gained. To calculate your VO₂ Max, Click Here.
7. Sleep quality and quantity goes down: Exercise helps you sleep faster, longer, and deeper which has amazing benefits like improved concentration, enhanced insulin sensitivity and reduced risk of heart disease. A study found that insomniac people slept 45 minutes longer after 4 months of regular exercise. 45 out of 100 people who are inactive experience very bad quality of sleep. If you stop exercising this will be the most common problem that you will face.
8. Your blood pressure will increase: Being sedentary is bad for your health, it stiffens arteries hence blood pressure needed rises. If you were working out to decrease the blood pressure, then you will observe that the blood pressure does not decrease if you stop working out just for 2 weeks.
9. Obviously, you will gain body fat: Fewer calories burnt is equal to more body fat produced. Less sleep quality also leads to more fat accumulation in body.
10. It affects your brain: While exercising body produces Endorphins, Dopamine, Serotonin, Norepinephrine and Endocannabinoids which improve your moods and as you stop you are no longer getting them thereby creating depression and anxiety. Blood flow to the brain (8 regions including left and right Hippocampus responsible for learning and memory) also decreases by almost 20% to 30% after just 10 days of stopping exercising which makes you less sharp. A study suggests that exercising regularly can increase your grey matter which helps in processing data. The amount of cognitive decline also increases without exercise. This shows that exercise does not only build muscle but also improves your brain health.
Exercising adds life to your years and years to your life.
Treat exercise like brushing your teeth, even if you stop without a gym you should find a way to do it.
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Peace.
