There are a variety of reasons why you might have to stop working out for a while. May be you’re going out of town for vacation, or maybe you’re not going to practice now that the season is over. Whatever the case, it’s important to maintain your strength so that you don’t lose that muscle mass you’ve worked so hard on. While you can’t give up exercising completely and expect to keep your muscles, there are ways you can modify your lifestyle to maintain as much muscle as possible.
Have A Protein-Rich Diet
Most people know that protein is the main building block of muscle. No matter how hard you work out, you’re not going to make any gains without a protein-rich diet. The same logic applies when trying to maintain muscle.
If you’re in good shape, there’s a good chance that you pay attention to your diet as well. One way to get protein is through the foods that you eat. This could be the best way to stay in shape when you’re not actively training. This could be animal proteins, or legumes and nuts if you eat a diet without meat. If you can’t get all of your protein through your diet, you can easily supplement your diet with formulated protein products. There are plenty of options on the market to choose from, including protein bars, powders, and countless other products.
Limit Carb Intake
Loading up on carbs is important when you’re working out regularly. Carbohydrates help give you short term energy which is necessary to get through a workout. If you’re not burning those calories, though, they stick around and turn into fat.
Accumulating fat will not necessarily shrink muscles, but it will make them less visible. This is especially true for areas like the abdominals, where the visibility of abs is almost completely determined by body fat percentage. You can work your abs all you want, but you’ll never see them if you have too much fat in your abdomen.
Set Calories At Maintenance
The amount of calories you take in is directly correlated with your weight. If you take in fewer calories than your body needs, you will burn fat and lose weight. The opposite is true for taking in more calories than your body needs. Typically when you’re strength training, you take in more calories to help your body build muscle. If you stop lifting, though, these extra calories turn into fat. This is why you’ll want to limit your carb intake, as the calories in carbs are easy to turn into fat.
Setting calories at a maintenance level will give your body what it needs to maintain weight, without any excess calories that can be turned into fat.
Give Yourself the Rest You Need
When you’re out of practice, you have to remember to give yourself plenty of rest and relaxation. If you’re staying up all night, that isn’t good for your body. Sleep will help your body refresh and repair which helps you maintain a healthy body mass.
Even more important, you need to keep stress levels down. When stressed, the body releases catabolic stress hormones. These hormones add to the destruction of muscle mass and stress can cut into your sleep cycle as well.
Keep Up With Cardio
Even if you can’t perform strength training, try to keep up with your cardiovascular regime if you’re able to. Doing cardio won’t prevent you from losing muscle, but it will help slow muscle mass loss after you’ve stopped strength training.
In addition to slowing muscle mass loss, doing cardio will help keep you in shape for when you get back into strength training. Cardio exercise will help keep your endurance up, allowing you to get back into training easily. This way you won’t have to struggle to regain your endurance when it’s time to start training again.
No matter where you are in your strength training journey, having to take time off can feel like a massive setback. By following tips like these, you can maintain as much muscle as possible during the break, so that you aren’t back to square one when you start training again.
