What Two Weeks of Being Lazy Does To Your Body

If couch surfing is your sport of choice this summer, it turns out you may be losing muscle tone and strength faster than you can regain it, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen sought to find out what happens to your body after being sedentary for two weeks. The scientists used knee braces to immobilize one leg of 17 young men (average age of 23) and 15 older men (average age of 68) for two weeks. The participants used crutches and to avoid doing any weight-bearing activity with the out-of-commission leg.

Not surprisingly, the guys lost strength in the immobilized limb — specifically, the young men experienced a 28 percent reduction in strength from baseline, while the older men showed a 23 percent decline. For the younger guys, this is like aging 40 to 50 years in a matter of days, said study author Andreas Vigelso, who also noted the loss is similar to what would happen if you were to take a couple weeks off from the gym.

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The decline in strength was also accompanied by a decrease in lean mass — but only in the younger study participants. The 20-something guys lost about one pound of lean tissue in their immobilized leg, probably because they had more muscle mass to begin with. “The more muscle you have, the more you’ll lose,” Vigelso said. “Which means that if you’re fit and become injured, you’ll most likely lose more muscle mass than someone who is unfit over the same period of time.”

After the two-week immobilization period, the participants were made to work out for six weeks — three times the duration of the sedentary time, and it wasn’t enough to restore the men’s losses. After the retraining period, which involved both steady-pace cycling and interval training, the participants regained some of their strength, but still hadn’t returned to their baseline levels, even though the younger men built back all of the lean mass they’d lost.

Vigelso speculates that this is because cycling doesn’t improve strength very efficiently. In other words, spin class may not be the place to start after a long stint out of the gym, although the training did help decrease the men’s total-body fat mass.

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The moral of this story is to avoid taking too much time off from the gym, but if you do take a break — strength training is the ideal way to recover your losses, according to Vigelso. Aerobic exercise can be added to your regimen, but shouldn’t be relied upon alone — even if done in explosive bursts — to help you rebuild lost strength and lean mass. And even if you hit the weights hard, “it is important to accept that it takes time to recover after an injury or short-term inactivity,” Vigelso says. Stick with it long enough, and your body will bounce back.

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Curated Article and Photo Credit from Yahoo Health