As summer is now in full swing, so are the gym memberships. All across the country people are trying to reclaim their once prominent body structures by trying to either lose weight, gain weight, bulking up, or simply getting shredded for the beach. What happens though when a person meets his/her fitness goals and decides to stop working out? In an article in Men's Health, Cindy Kuzma talks about the six immediate bodily responses to a reduction in physical activity.
Experts call this phenomenon “detraining,” and its consequences can weigh even heavier than what you will start to see in the mirror. Fortunately, the condition is fully reversible, as long as you get back to the gym.
1. Your Blood Pressure Soars
This effect is near-instant: Your blood pressure is higher on the days you don’t exercise than the days you do. Your blood vessels adapt to the slower flow of a sedentary lifestyle after just two weeks, which clicks your readings up another couple of notches, according to a recent study in the journal PLoS.
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2. Your Blood Sugar Spikes
Normally, your blood glucose rises after you eat, then drops as your muscles and other tissues suck up the sugar they need for energy. But after five days without exercise, your post-meal blood sugar levels remain elevated instead, according to a recent study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
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3. You Get Winded Faster
Gasping for breath after just a few stairs? Within two weeks of avoiding the gym, your VO2 max—a measure of fitness that assesses how much oxygen your working muscles can use—decreases by as much as 20%, says exercise physiologist Stacy Sims, PhD. Also, if you recently started a workout plan, your fitness gains could actually evaporate completely, notes Nikolaos Koundourakis, PhD, of the University of Crete.
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4. Your Muscles Wither
Strength lingers longer than endurance once you stop training. But depending on just how slothful you’ve become, your quads and biceps may start to shrink soon after you leave the weight room.
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5. You Plump Up
Within about a week, muscles lose some of their fat-burning potential causing metabolism to slow down, says Paul Arciero, an exercise science professor at Skidmore College.
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6. Your Brain Suffers
Two weeks on the sidelines turned these regular exercisers into a tired and grumpy group, found a recent study in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
Working out is a fab thing to most people. People go hard and train consistently over the summer and of course after the new year. Even when your fitness goals are met it is important to maintain a steady workout regimen. That doesn't mean you have to lift five days a week at high intensity training unless that is what you plan on doing. Just by working out three days a week can keep your body on track and your fitness levels from dropping. Nobody wants to lose what they have worked so hard for all summer.
You can read the entire article from Men's Health here.