There is a shadow around our head, especially at these times of the year, to most of us who train hard for months, and it is the dreaded moment to take a break at all levels.
Whether forced or for a mere vacation, the question of how our muscles will respond to a period of deforestation round our heads. Will I lose a lot of muscle mass? Will all my sacrifice of these months be in vain?
How our body will respond during this period of relaxation is one of the most common “head” stings when taking a break, usually because of the fear of rapidly losing hypertrophy and gained muscle.
What we mean by desentreno
When we talk about desentreno we refer to the cessation of the sport that we have been doing previously in a continuous and regular, and depending on how it is done can lead to a certain anatomical loss and performance.
In order to begin to differentiate these training stops, we must distinguish between a short duration DCD (less than 4 weeks) and a long duration DLD, higher than this time.
In the same way, we could differentiate between high-performance athletes and people who train at much lower intensities or as fans of sports and fitness. In today’s post we are going to simplify and generalize the case of a person “on foot” who trains regularly and takes, for example, a respite for vacations.
How our body responds to a detention or short rest
It can not be denied that when a regular training routine is abandoned during a short duration, some physical and anatomical changes appear, such as a slightly softer musculature and even a visible loss of muscular volume.
It is clear signs that our routine has stopped temporarily, but we should not confuse these symptoms with a loss of muscle mass, but with a decrease in myogenic tone, since one hundred percent of the congestion or visual volume that we normally observe, Corresponds in its entirety to muscle mass.
As for the loss of strength, research confirms that it does not appear until after six weeks of rest and, even in these cases, the loss would turn around 5-10%. Similarly, to achieve a significant loss of muscle mass, rest should exceed three months.
If we look at the hormonal changes that appear in a period of rest or short detention, we observe that after 14 days of inactivity there is a marked increase in testosterone (in relation to cortisol) and an increase in the secretion of Growth Hormone. As you see, all benefits!
CONCLUSIONS
There is no doubt that you can take a well deserved rest without worrying about the terrible loss of muscle mass. Even a short desentreno will compensate us with benefits in our physical performance , since the normal thing is that after months of training we are not to the hundred percent due to an accumulation of fatigue.