“What happens if I stop strength training?” That’s the audience question hosts Amy Hudson and Dr. James Fisher address in this new episode of Strength Changes Everything.

Join them to hear about the benefits and negative consequences of doing and stopping strength training, as well as a 2017 study that looked at how a group of people were affected by halting their 6-month strength training.

You’ll walk away with a better understanding of how strength training works and what will happen to your body and mind if you decide to suddenly stop doing it.

• Hosts Amy Hudson and Dr. James Fisher address a question from a listener: “What happens if I stop strength training?”.
• Dr. Fisher explains that our body will react to the demands that are imposed on it and that, when it comes to muscles, there’s a sort of “use it or lose it” dynamic.
• You can make a muscle-skill analogy: stopping practice will lead to you seeing a deficiency in that skill. The same applies to your muscles.
• The consequences of stopping strength training will depend on several factors, such as someone’s age and training history, their genetics, and how long it took to make those initial muscle adaptations.
• Ceasing strength training completely today could lead to loss of strength and muscle mass, loss of type-2 muscle fibers, loss of cardiorespiratory fitness, an increase in body fat, and body fat percentage.
• Metabolic changes, changes in sleep patterns, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease are additional issues that may arise as a result of an abrupt halt in strength training. 
• Dr. Fisher expects most people who are past their 40s or 50s to start to see the implications and effects of detraining within a 3 or 4-week period.
• Dr. Fisher shares a 2017 German study that looked at the impact of detraining, after having done strength training for several weeks, on a group of elderly people.
• After six months of strength training, those who stopped did lose strength and muscle size, but were still stronger and had more muscle mass than they did at their baseline level.
• The group of elderly people who decided to keep training on their own, after the six months of the initial supervised strength training, lost almost as much strength as the group that had chosen not to train at all.
• For Amy, the 2017 German study makes a case for “If you don’t have a great reason to stop, why should you stop?”.
• Amy lists the benefits of strength training, including improvement of your metabolic health, decreased inflammation, decreased disease risk, improved mood, and improved hormonal state.
• A quote to keep in mind: “You can have all the problems in the world, but if you don’t have your health, you have one problem.”
• Amy and Dr. Fisher explore the mental and cognitive aspects of strength training – and what may happen if you stop it.
• Dr. Fisher points out that people who go to the gym and engage in strength training on a regular basis have a sense of accomplishment in the task, rather than in the outcome itself.
• Amy invites us to be mindful of our brain: it’s always looking for excuses to sabotage the healthy habits that we intend, especially if they’re newer!
• Did you know that being weak is more detrimental to our health than being overweight? Dr. Fisher and Amy explore the “Fat but Fit” paradigm further.
• Dr. Fisher and Amy talk about the scenario in which someone picks up strength training for a month but then stops.

Mentioned in This Episode:

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Dr. Jürgen Giessing

Dr. James Steele

Previous episode – Why Most People Fail in the Gym (and How Supervision With a Personal Trainer Can Help)

Previous episode – The 6 Essential Elements of an Effective Strength Training Program with Matt Brzycki

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