Seeing your muscles waste away can be tough, but can you reverse muscle atrophy?
We’ve all had times when we either got lazy or had an injury which forced us to take time-off lifting weights.
Especially with an injury, it’s not great seeing your muscles start to fade away. Before long, you see a skinny reflection in the mirror, wondering where it all went wrong.
But don’t worry, you CAN restore atrophied muscle.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- What is muscular atrophy?
- Common causes of muscle atrophy
- How to restore atrophied muscle
- Best way to maintain muscle mass
- Conclusion
What Is Muscular Atrophy?
You probably know what muscular atrophy is if you clicked on this article. But just in case you don’t we’ll explain everything you need to know about it in this section.
Basically, muscle atrophy is the official term for when you lose muscle mass.
Common causes of muscle atrophy
The most common reason for it happening, is if you went through a long period of heavy training, then suddenly took a break from weight lifting.
Why? Because your body will have gotten used to your weight-training and being active, with your high-protein diet being used to fuel your muscles.
However, a break in training usually coincides with a break in your diet too; not eating enough protein to maintain your muscle mass can lead to your body using them for fuel instead.
Of course, we’re talking about muscular atrophy caused by lack of training. If you’re experiencing this because of a medical issue, please talk with your doctor for solutions.
How To Restore Atrophied Muscle
Luckily for you, a loss in muscle mass isn’t the end of the world. You might be slightly demotivated and miss your old biceps, but the important thing is, you can earn them back.
More good news: you’re likely to see muscle gains much quicker when aiming to get back what you lost.
Why? Because of something called ‘muscle memory’; your muscles ‘remember’ your previous strength, so you find it easier to get back to speed, faster than you did originally [1].
So, if you left off bench pressing around 100kg, then you’ll find it easier to make progress to lift that weight again. Ultimately, this also means that you’ll find it easier to build muscle mass, leading to you restoring atrophied muscle.
Quick Section Summary: The best way to restore atrophied muscle is to stop complaining and get your *ss back in the gym! The sooner the better, and you’ll find yourself making both strength and muscle gains, and get back your previous physique faster than you think.
Overtraining Can Also Cause Muscular Atrophy
Alright, so we’ve mentioned that taking time away from the gym is the most common cause of muscular atrophy.
However, it’s actually possible to lose muscle mass from training too much. The official term for this is ‘overtraining’, and it’s something that can be easily done if you love weight-lifting.
So why do you begin to lose muscle mass from training too much? Well, overtaining has scientifically proven to lower your testosterone levels, and we all know how important this is [2].
In case you don’t; lower levels of T can lead to erectile dysfunction, as well as lack of muscle gains, confidence and libido [3] [4] [5].
For this reason, it’s important that you remember to rest while you train for hypertrophy. If not, then you might even start to suffer from muscular atrophy – not what you want bro.
Quick Section Summary: Overtraining raises your cortisol and decreases your testosterone levels, resulting in increased risk of muscular atrophy.
But You Can Prevent Muscular Atrophy
Here’s the good news. You can actually prevent muscular atrophy, especially if you’re only taking less than 1 month away from the gym (whether it’s through injury or a busy lifestyle).
Here’s some information that should help put your mind at ease; the longer you managed to keep up your weight-training, the more likely you are to maintain your gainz brah.
So if you’ve been training for years and was forced to sit on the sidelines for a month or 2, then you don’t have much to worry about.
So as we’ve previously mentioned, simply begin weight training again, and you’ll have your gains back in no-time.
Continue following a high-protein clean diet
The biggest mistake you can make if you’re taking time-off from weight-lifting, is forgetting about your diet and eating junk food.
Ultimately, if you don’t consume enough calories or protein to maintain your muscle mass, it’ll go – it’s as simple as that.
For this reason, in order to give yourself the best chance of keeping your hard-earned gains during a layoff, continue following your high-protein diet.
Testosterone Booster Supplement
In case you skimmed past the previous sections, we mentioned that overtraining can increase your cortisol and decrease your testosterone levels; this isn’t good news for your gains.
Ultimately, lower testosterone levels will mean that you’ll find it harder to make gains, and maintain your muscle mass too.
So what can you do to combat this? Well, here’s where testosterone boosters come in…
If you choose the right product, it’ll encourage your body to raise its testosterone production, so you’re risk of suffering from muscular atrophy will be significantly reduced.
In fact, we found that Vitamin D3 deficiency was a leading cause of muscular atrophy [6]; by keeping yourself properly fuelled with this nutrient, it’ll help prevent you losing your hard-earned muscle mass.
Fortunately for you, a few companies have started to add optimal dosages of Vitamin D3 to their test booster supplements. So it became one of the key things we looked out for.
On our search, we tried and tested dozens of different test boosters, to find you the most effective and reliable option…
– See our complete Best Testosterone Boosters page here –
Conclusion
At some point in our lives, all of us will experience muscular atrophy. Sometimes you can’t help take a layoff from the gym, whether it’s due to work or family commitments, or an injury.
But the good news is that you CAN gain back the muscle you lost, much easier than you think too!
So next time you look at yourself and are demotivated at some loss of gains, stop your sulking and do these things:
- Return to the gym as quickly as possible
- Continue eating a clean, high-protein diet at all times
- Choose a test booster to supplement to prevent muscular atrophy
References:
[1] Kristian. G. Muscle memory and a new cellular model for muscle atrpohy and hypertrophy. J of Exp Bio. 2016; 219: 235-242 d [2] S.L Halson. Does overtraining exist? An analysis of overreaching and overtraining research. Sports Med. 2004;34(14):967-81. [3] J. Rajfer. Relationship Between Testosterone and erectile Dysfunction. Rev Urol. 2000 Spring; 2(2): 122–128. [4] R. C Griggs. Effect of testosterone on muscle mass and muscle protein synthesis. J Appl Physiol (1985). 1989 Jan; 66(1): 498-503. [5] Testosterone and sexual desire in healthy women and men. Arch Sex Behav. 2012 Dec; 41(6): 1471-84. [6] Bhat. M. Vitamin D deficiency-induced muscle wasting occurs through the ubiquitin proteasome pathway and is partially corrected by calcium in male rats. Endocrinology. 2013 Nov; 154(11): 4018-29.
