Ct I have read (and it Seems to be common dense) that once a person has trained long enough, if they were to stop lifting they would not return tothe base level of strength they had when they started. Im curious as to how much strength a person can maintain after stopping (after they have Got to the point where they have sort of ‘reset’ their bodys natural weight) have you ever had experience with this?
It really is an individual thing. Generally speaking, the more lifting experience someone has, the more size and strength can be maintained. For example a friend of mine was a former member of the Canadian olympic lifting team. His best clean & jerk was 192.5kg. After not training at all for 5 years he was able to clean 150kg when he came to visit. This represents roughly 78% of his max, although he might have cleaned more than 192.5kg in training so let’s say 70-75% of his strength was maintained after 5 years.
But keep in mind that this guy had over 25 years of lifting experience and great genetics for strength.
I personally stopped lifting for roughly 6 months a one point in my life and lost about 10lbs of scale weight without a big difference in body fat levels and lost about 30% of my strength.
I’ve also known guys who trained very hard when they were younger, from 15 to 30 then got job, started a family and stopped training , lose almost everything they gained. One squatted 500lbs and bench pressed 375lbs but when he got back to training he could barely get 185 and 135.
An athlete I know was 180lbs on 5’7" and bench pressed 405, power cleaned 315 and squatted 500. He stopped training for 4 years, when he got back he was down to 165lbs and looked like a totally different person. However within 6 months he was back to his previous level.
So as you can see, it is highly individual and depends, among other factors on genetics and training experience.
Judging from my brothers, I’d be around 175lbs at 15% body fat if I never trained hard. If I stopped training now, I estimate that I’d maintain 185-190 at 10-12% body fat
Do you also think the type of training has an affect? low reps vs high reps for instance. I would think that changes made to the nervous system, tendons and bones from changing would be more permanent than muscle mass, In my mind I can see (and have heard of) strongmen keeping most of their strength into old age (doug hepburn comes to mind) but it seems ‘superficial’ muscle gained from high rep training would go disappear faster
[quote]GmG-II wrote:
Do you also think the type of training has an affect? low reps vs high reps for instance. I would think that changes made to the nervous system, tendons and bones from changing would be more permanent than muscle mass, In my mind I can see (and have heard of) strongmen keeping most of their strength into old age (doug hepburn comes to mind) but it seems ‘superficial’ muscle gained from high rep training would go disappear faster[/quote]
Maybe, but keep in mind that those who became famous strongmen where probably naturally gifted for strength, these people more easily maintain their strength. And Hepburn kept on training to a fairly old age.
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