Gyms reopening: how long does it take to recover muscles?

The reopening of gyms, ahead of its time, is scheduled for 24 May. On that day, finally, the Italians who wish will be able to return to training indoors. Good news, even if many months of home fitness or, in the worst case, of inactivity will make returning to sport a little more complicated. It will take some time to regain lost form and revise your muscles. How much?

Muscle memory

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The answer, in fact, it depends on our muscle memory. The good news is that in trained people, this memory it is very effective. This also applies to beginners, according to research published in 2020 that analyzed the muscle memory of a small group of athletes, finding that those who trained intensively for a period were able to maintain strength even after 5 months of inactivity. . It’s a mechanism that has to do with our genes, as the researchers explain: “Several regulatory genes and proteins involved in muscle adaptations to endurance exercise are influenced by our previous training history. Although the relevance and mechanistic explanation of the research findings need further investigation, they support the existence of muscle memory in response to training ”.

How long does muscle memory last?

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Gyms in Italy have been closed for more than six months. But that shouldn’t be a big deal. According to the scientist Anthony Blazevich, professor of biomechanics at Edith Cowan University’s School of Medical and Health Sciences, even those who trained for a couple of years as a young man and then resume after 10 years still have the ability to gain muscle mass and strength faster than than he had done before and the same goes for aerobic exercise. And hypothetically, the longer you train, the faster your muscle memory will activate when you resume training after a break.

How long does it take to recover muscle capacity?

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In an interview with the New York Times, Brad Schoenfeld, associate professor of exercise science at Lehman College in New York, explained, “If little or no training was done during the pandemic, it is good to start at 50% of the volume and intensity of previous workouts.” the first week, you can gradually intensify your workout, returning to around 75% of former lifting loads by the second / third week and 100% by the third / fourth week. But for some, it may take more than a month to safely return to previous levels.

In reality, it also depends on age: Science tells us that from the age of 30 onwards, we naturally lose muscle mass and strength gradually (the phenomenon known as sarcopenia) and by the time we reach 70, we may only have 50% of the muscle mass we previously had. There are many physiological changes that occur in muscles as we age, which are linked to their loss of mass and function, but regular exercise can slow the loss of overall muscle mass and strength.

How long does it take to get back in shape?

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Unfortunately, recovering muscle and aerobic capacity does not automatically mean returning to the previous form: several studies have found that even if strength returns quickly after a relaxation and recovery phase, the regrowth of muscle fibers, once lost, takes longer. A rough estimate is that a non-professional athlete could take a little less than half of the time that was stopped to recover the previous fitness. Anyone who has done their homework and kept going during the months in which the gyms were closed, with the reopening of the gyms on May 24, could well be optimistic in sight… Summer holidays.