Are you thinking about taking a break, or are you forced to due to a situation, but worried about what it might do to your performance?
If yes, keep reading!
As I’m writing this, I am recovering from being sick, and forced to take a break from heavy lifting for a moment. A perfect moment to write about taking a break, and what it might do to your performance. It’s a topic I’ve had many questions about. Mostly from men who are thinking about taking a holiday, and wondering what it might do to the gains they made in the gym.
This article will cover what science has to say about this topic, sprinkled with my opinion and experience.
Why taking a break is beneficial for your health.
If you’re anything like me, you’re busy every day, and working long hours. Taking on new challenges, learning new things, pursuing many goals. Leisure time generally takes a back seat.
On top of that, the world doesn’t seem to be making life easier on us either. Pandemics, wars, political and social unrest, inflation. All of these things combined can lead to a lot of stress.
Chronic stress is a major problem in modern day society. The American Institute of Stress reports that [source]:
- 77% of people experience stress that affects their physical health
- 73% of people experience stress that affects their mental health
- 48% of people have trouble sleeping due to stress
Unbelievable numbers. This means that if you think about your family, 8 out of 10 of your family members are likely suffering from stress related health problems (including you!).
You might have heard about the fight-or-flight state before. This is a state of heightened stress and alertness usually triggered by a dangerous situation. This state can be beneficial to get out of a tight spot, but when your chronically stressed, it means your body remains in this highly alert fight-or-flight state. Your body is constantly on edge, firing on all cylinders, and diverting all resources away from recovery and towards keeping your body in that active state. You can imagine how draining this will be for your body if you stay in this condition for days and weeks on end.
Chronic stress has been shown to reduce lifespan, and negatively impact workout performance, the immune system, hormonal balance, sleep, mood, digestive health, and more. (source)
This is why taking a break every once in a while is essential if you want to stay healthy, both mentally and physically.
What science says taking a break will do to your performance.
The big question most people that work out have is what taking a break will do their performance. The last thing I want is for anyone to be stressed out on their break, worrying about their gains. That would defeat the purpose of the break.
So here we go, and I have good news for you. A short break is unlikely to hurt your performance in a significant manner, and might actually be beneficial to you.
Research on taking a break from training shows the following effects on strength and muscle.
A systematic review from 2013 titled The Development, Retention and Decay Rates of Strength and Power in Elite Rugby Union, Rugby League and American Football (source) mentions in their conclusion that “strength levels can be maintained for up to 3 weeks of detraining, but decay rates will increase thereafter (i.e. 5–16 weeks)”.
Another study from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research studied the effect of a two week detraining (DT) period on muscular strength and size if resistance training (RT) was resumed after the two week period. The authors write:
“As such, our data do present evidence that 2 weeks of DT can potentially retain previous training-induced muscle mass and strength gains in young, resistance-trained men. To this respect, individuals undergoing an RT program may benefit from using short-term cycles of DT to “recover” and even train for a lesser period of time while still potentially garnering a similar maintenance of strength and muscle mass.” (source)
Both studies suggest that strength and muscles mass can be retained for a period of 2-3 weeks of rest. Detraining in this case refers to a situation in which there is little to no training stimulus, such as when you are on a holiday without access to a gym.
However, maybe you’re taking a break longer than 2-3 weeks, but you might be able to do some bodyweight exercises, or maybe you have some weights or a small gym available to you. You might ask, what is the minimum amount of exercise I need to do to keep my mass?
Great question, and the answer was published in a study called Exercise dosing to retain resistance training adaptations in young and older adults (source). In this particular study, a group of people was asked to follow a training schedule with 3 days/week of resistance training for 16 weeks, followed by a 32-week period of break in which the group was divided into 3 subgroups that performed the following training:
1. Training at 1/3rd of the volume of the first 16 weeks
2. Training at 1/9th of the volume of the first 16 weeks
3. Little to no training (detraining)
The result showed that amoung the young trainees in this study “one-third volume resulted in further hypertrophy, one-ninth volume maintained size, and detraining resulted in myofiber atrophy.”
This study shows that even when you train at 1/9th of your original workout volume, you can maintain muscle size for a duration of up to 32 weeks! Will it be ideal? Definitely not, and there might definitely be losses in size if you are a highly trained individual carrying a lot of mass. The main take away from this study is that with just a small amount of volume you can significantly minimize muscle loss. Thus if you can get a solid workout in once a week, or do some short bodyweight workouts throughout the week, this might be enough to maintain your muscle mass for a long period of time.
What about the effect on hormones such as Growth Hormone (GH) and Testosterone?
I’m glad you asked. A 1993 study titled The effects of detraining on power athletes investigated strength and hormonal changes in 12 athletes after 2 weeks of detraining (source). The results will make you happy.
“In comparing performances pre- to post-detraining, there were no significant (P > 0.05) changes in free weight bench press (-1.7%), parallel squat (-0.9%), isometric (-7%) and isokinetic concentric knee extension force (-2.3%), and vertical jumping (1.2%).“
“Levels of plasma growth hormone (58.3%), testosterone (19.2%), and the testosterone to cortisol ratio (67.6%) increased, whereas plasma cortisol (-21.5%) and creatine kinase enzyme levels (-82.3%) decreased (all P < 0.05).”
Once again we see very little change in performance. Furthermore, we see a great increase in both growth hormone and testosterone. This might be caused due to the reduced stress during the detraining period, and finally allowing the body to properly recover.
Don’t expect magical gains however by taking time off. The authors do note that the increase in GH and Testosterone is not likely to result in any muscle gains when you’re not providing the training stimulus.
I’d like to finish with recommending a large study that investigated and summarized all the known effects of short term detraining on the body. This review includes effects on strength, size, and cardiovascular performance, as well as hormones, glycogen, mitochrondial activity, and more. It is definitely worth a read as it summarizes everything quite nicely (find it here).
How to make the most out of your break.
If you want to make the most out of your break, take a trip to somewhere else. It doesn’t have to be far, it just has to be a different environment. Very often we associate our immediate environment with the things that cause stress in our lives. A trip away removes you from the people, activities, and environment that could remind you of the things that stress you.
Make sure your vacation is a true vacation. This means you should be able to let go of all your work responsibilities. Not just in a practical sense, but most importantly, in your mind. Do anything you can to make this happen. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a beach on the Maldives, if your mind is still at work. Practical things you can do to help with this are:
— Preparing work beforehand
— Arranging a reliable person to cover for you
But perhaps most important of all is that you realize that whatever your work is, the world is not going to end when you are gone for a while. The company will survive, your colleagues will be fine, your followers will remain loyal. In fact, everybody will benefit when you come back fully recharged.
A trip can be a great opportunity for recovery. However, it’s easily wasted on greasy low quality food, excessive alcohol use, and bad sleep. A single trip to your favorite fast food chain or a few alcoholic drinks can definitely help you with the feeling of vacation. The main goal is reducing stress, so if that helps, go ahead.
But, don’t overdo it. You’ll usually find that it wasn’t as great as you imagined it, and overdoing it will definitely have the opposite effect. Below, I summarized some key points that might help you make the most out of your break.
DO
- Sleep long solid nights
- Unplug from the news and social media
- Change environment – don’t stay at home
- Leave your work at home
- Be selfish, do the things YOU enjoy, not those which you feel you should enjoy, or others told you to do
- Go outside
- Go out to see beautiful things like art, nature, culture, architecture
- Engage in low intensity activity like walking/hiking/swimming/biking/stretching/dancing
- Explore and seek adventure
DON’T
- Get drunk
- Use your phone all the time
- Get involved in drama with women
- Waste your days gaming or staring at screens
TO MAINTAIN MUSCLE
- Get your 7+ hours of sleep
- Eat at maintenance calories or at a surplus
- Eat a high protein diet
- Eat high quality nutrient dense foods
- Do a solid full-body workout once or twice a week maximum.
- Stay active
Try to do these, and you’re going to be more than fine. Even if you don’t manage to follow these guidelines, you have nothing to worry about in a time span of 2-3 weeks, as the science above has proven. Remember, you will make the most gains in terms of your overall health and longevity if you manage to reduce your stress. So don’t worry about you performance, it’s going to be fine.