How do I get rid of muscle?
It’s an odd question I know, and one I have tackled before, but it seems people are still confused about what makes them gain and lose muscle.
We all know that people who are bedridden and on a low calorie diet lose muscle.
When I first starting writing Eat Stop Eat, and was running the idea past several dietitians for input, they all brought up stories of muscle loss in their patients who were bedridden and on a low calorie diet.
And since I am constantly saying that simple caloric restriction does NOT cause you to lose muscle if you are working out, then that leaves being ‘bedridden’ (or ‘disuse’ as they say in research) as the cause of muscle loss.
And this is exactly what research suggests as well.
Ever break your arm and have to wear a cast, or know someone who did?
Do you remember how skinny that arm was when the cast finally came off?
The arm in the cast got the EXACT same nutrition as the arm that wasn’t in the cast. The only change was in the amount that the muscles were used.
In fact, ‘casting’ is so effective at causing muscle loss that it has been used in research to study something called ‘disuse atrophy’ or muscle loss from lack of use.
In a study conducted at the University of Nottingham, 22 male and female studies had casts put on their right leg for two weeks. Their diets didn’t change, yet after only two weeks the cross sectional area of their quadriceps (the big muscles in your thigh) decreased by 10%.
NO CHANGE IN DIET…but the muscle still decreases in size by 10%.
And the decrease was across ALL muscle fiber types. From slow twitch to fast twitch, they all decreased in diameter when they were not being used.
In other words – Your muscles are not ’storage units’ like fat cells, they are contractile units.
So while your fat cells respond to what (or more correctly- how much) you eat by storing or releasing energy in the form of fat. Muscle responds to stress and challenge.
Your muscles will always try to match the challenge that is placed on them.
No challenge = no increase in muscle size.
No challenge for a long enough time = decreases in muscle size.
This is why as long as you are working out, and meeting some sort of caloric minimum (studies have gone as low as 80 grams of protein and 800 Kcals a day for several weeks), you won’t lose muscle.
However, if you don’t use the muscle, then it really doesn’t matter what you are eating, the muscle is going to shrink.
Bottom Line – Forget those people who push multiple meals and protein at every meal as the secret to ‘not losing muscle’ the best way to prevent yourself from losing muscle is to exercise that muscle.
Or, if you are trying to lose muscle (not something I suggest) simple stop using it.
BP
Most Commented Posts
Filed under: Weight Loss Science, Weight Training
Trackback Uri
56 Comments.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
-
[...] Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat, wrote an interesting post about this very topic. He shows that the key to maintaining muscle mass is resistance training – [...]
This article is a good read for anyone trying to get in shape. But what would be the reason for losing muscle? Why would anyone want to do that is the question?
But I did notice that in the previous two years the exertion on my muscles has affected its mass from time to time but not due to any body building as such.
Shayna,
I actually coached a girl who was a two sport varisty athlete and had the same issue as you so we worked out a simple exercise program for shrinking some big muscles. She wanted to make her thighs arms and back smaller.
As Brad correctly states disuse is a sure fire way to make a muscle get smaller. However long duration low intensity use is another way of forcing a muscle to get smaller.
You’re muscles do have an overiding theme of adaptation for efficiency. In other words, if you take up long duration low intensity activites like jogging you might actually be able to shrink down the big muscles of your legs.
This is an adaptation response your body has to the constant low level intensity use. Your body is trying to feed the muscle with blood, and since it doesn’t need the muscles to be so big and strong any more it learns to bring down the total size of the muscle so it can adequately feed it with oxygen and blood. hence why distance runners have that “skinny fat look”. but in most of their cases they never had the muscle mass you currently have. In your case you’ll just look nice and lean, and toned as you bring down your muscle size.
I basically put this girl on a program of ESE with moderate calories on her eat days, and then she stopped all of her heavy weight training and started running 3-4 times per week and only did 1-2 upper body only weight workouts. We cut all of her sets back by about 40% and dropped the amount of weight she used during each set by about 50%, and upped her reps into the 15-20 rep range.
She took regular mesurements of the muscles she wanted to make smaller and by the end of the summer she had lost a couple inches off her thighs, and an inch off of her arms, and a few inches off her back, everthing! So its definitely possible.
John
Mr. Pilon:
If I wanted to lose leg muscle in the shortest time possible, what would be fastest?
a) Your way (sit in a wheelchair), or
b) Rusty’s way–
http://fitnessblackbook.com/muscle-building/how-to-lose-muscle-mass-on-purpose/
I really need to lose leg muscle for a variety of reasons but don’t want to go down the wrong path for too long.
Thanks in advance,
–TBG
@Titanius Anglesmith of Cornwood
I think both methods are essentially the same, decrease the amount the muscles are challenged and they will react by shrinking in size until they are the appropriate size to sufficiently meet the challenge placed upon them.
While that could be the worst sentence I have ever typed, I hope you get the idea.
The less of a strength challenge that is chronically place on the muscle, the less that muscle needs to be ‘big’
B
@John
So John, if i was doing lots of sprinting, and jogging aswell. Would that mean my legs would be smaller than if i were just sprinting?