Most likely some muscle mass and strength due to enforced detraining and reduced activity depending on whether you carried on with home and outdoor workouts or not.

Science backed studies are showing that detectable muscle loss begins following 4-6 weeks of detraining with an average loss of 1.5% each and every month however it can occur much sooner. That is without taking into account any nutritional calamities. So during lockdown you could potentially have lost between 3-5% 0f your muscle! Then when we take strength into account, in middle aged men and women, the reductions are even more dramatic, strength losses can run as high as 20% in approximately 10 weeks. Pretty scary to think you can exercise all year and run into such decline in a couple of months.

The good news is however that once you restart training you will make your gains in much shorter time than you lost it if you follow a structured plan, so let’s get rebuilding. A study of young women who had previously not exercised, showed that taking up exercise in a structured manner for 20 weeks, before being detrained for 30 weeks and then retrained for 6 weeks allowed them to regain their strength and lean mass that they had previously gained, thats great for regular trainers who have had this enforced break. Don’t sit back and wait for the gym to open though, start right now, get into your park or garden and work with bodyweight circuits if you have no equipment

If you need a plan designed for you or P.T sessions just drop me an email, I am now back working with safe social distancing measures in place and thorough cleaning of my equipment between sessions.

Real life reasons why losing muscle is a bad day?

1. Less Muscle = Less Metabolism = Less calories burn’t in a day = A bigger waistline!

2. Less Muscle = Poor Posture = Joint issues such as Back, Shoulder, Knee & Hip = Injury = Less Sport = Less Activity & big physio bills

3. Less Muscle = Less Strength = Less Power = Less Speed on your Tennis shots + Less coverage of the court + Reduced overall performance

4. Less Muscle = Less Strength = Less Power = Less distance on your golf shots = Reduced overall performance

As in every scenario there is always a positive! If you are a scale watcher and weigh yourself on a regular basis, you will have lost weight but there won’t be any positives to me out of that as Muscle is more dense than fat!

Stay safe

MW