How Often You Need to Train to Maintain Muscle Mass, According to Science
Top coaches reveal how not to lose your hard-earned gains.
Top coaches reveal how not to lose your hard-earned gains.
Spending two hours in the weight room might be ideal, but as life gets busier—with work, homeownership, pets, and kids—keeping up that level of training becomes harder. Plus, vacations or shifting fitness goals like marathons or Ironmans can also interfere.
If you’re concerned about losing muscle, here’s the reality: While detraining can happen quickly when you stop exercising, it doesn’t take as much effort as you might think to maintain your muscle mass.
Nick Barringer, RD, PhD, CSCS, CSSD is the chief academic officer and Dean of Graduate Studies at Lionel University and the director of the U.S. Military-Baylor University Graduate Program in Nutrition.
Susie Reiner, PhD, CSCS, EP-C is the head of science at Aletha Health and founder of TheoryEx Performance.
Gini Grimsley, M.S., C.S.C.S.*D, is the director of fitness product at Vasa Fitness.
Like most processes in the human body, tissues are constantly built up and broken down—it’s the basis of metabolism, explains Reiner. Muscle loss occurs when muscle protein breakdown outpaces muscle protein synthesis.
Muscle atrophy—the process of losing muscle mass—can occur when training frequency or intensity drops, according to Reiner. “First, a decrease in muscle protein synthesis creates an imbalance where muscle protein breakdown surpasses synthesis, often noticeable within one to two weeks of inactivity,” she says.
Not only does the actual size of your muscle fibers decrease during periods of inactivity, but neuromuscular adaptations (which are equally important in building strength) reverse, too, Reiner says. Diminished neural drive and reduced recruitment of motor units both contribute to the loss of strength, she adds.
Research shows that significant muscle atrophy can begin within two weeks of stopping training, with more noticeable losses occurring by weeks three and four (1) (2) (3).
Timeline of losing muscle:
Inactivity, injury, poor nutrition, and aging are among the most significant causes of muscle mass loss.
Inactivity is a key driver of muscle loss—“use it or lose it” applies here. Muscles need regular stimulus, like weight training, to grow. During maintenance, it’s essential to stay active to prevent muscle loss (10). Grimsley says that simply staying active when you can’t weight train can help. “Aiming for 10,000 steps per day is a great way to ensure your body doesn’t adapt to a lack of activity,” she suggests, though some changes are inevitable without strength training.
Your body cannot make new muscle tissue out of nothing—it needs enough calories and protein to build and maintain muscle. “Prioritize overall protein intake, and try to spread it out over the day,” says Reiner. “Maintaining an elevated protein intake is important when maintaining muscle, and research shows this is also important in older adults (~71 years) to protect against sarcopenia.” (11) (12)
Injuries can cause more severe muscle atrophy. Immobilization, such as from a cast or bed rest, leads to greater muscle atrophy and a tougher recovery period due to a complete lack of muscular and neural activation (13).
Muscle loss becomes more significant with age. Sarcopenia, the inadvertent loss of muscle due to aging, is exacerbated by lack of activity (14) (15).
Early muscle loss can be hard to detect. The best–and only real—way to determine whether or not you’re losing muscle is to undergo consistent body composition testing. The specific method—such as DEXA scan or skin calipers—matters less than using the same method each time under the same conditions. Meaning, don’t get a DEXA scan one month and use skin calipers the next month. Follow the rules and protocols of whichever test you go with. If testing isn’t available, progress photos and tracking lifting strength are useful alternatives.
To prevent muscle loss during periods of infrequent or low-volume training, you must provide your muscles with just enough of a challenge, on a frequent basis.
Reiner says muscle “maintenance” happens when muscle protein synthesis and breakdown rates are balanced. Providing enough stimuli to prevent excess muscle breakdown means no net gain or loss of muscle or strength.
Successfully managing this requires optimizing training frequency and intensity, nutrition, and supplementation and establishing a proactive mindset.
You won’t be able to keep muscle for long without maintaining some physical activity. Research suggests that strength can often be maintained with just one to two high-load sessions per week, especially for well-trained individuals.
According to Reiner, a single session can preserve strength (and even increase it in well-trained athletes). Research shows a single set of six to 12 reps at 70 to 85 percent of 1RM, two to three times per week, can significantly increase 1RM strength in trained individuals (16).
“While this minimum effective training dose is suboptimal compared to higher-volume programs, it offers practical flexibility when tight on time,” Reiner says. “For more effective maintenance, training should involve one to three sets at a high intensity (85 percent or higher of one-rep max) to stimulate the neuromuscular system,” Reiner says (17).
Reiner says that “daily max” training, which involves single-rep sets at very high loads, is a practical short-term approach for maintaining strength during limited training periods. “However, it’s less reliable for long-term progress, and it should be used cautiously as it can lead to inconsistent performance and an increased risk of injury in the long term,” she says (18).
Exercise selection is important, too, adds Grimsley. “Include a squat, hinge, lunge, push, and pull pattern in each workout,” she says. Compound exercises, such as squats and deadlifts, are recommended to engage multiple muscle groups and provide adequate mechanical tension and metabolic stress; isolation exercises like bicep curls and calf raises aren’t the priority when time is limited.
Protein intake is extremely important. According to Barringer, individuals attempting to minimize muscle loss during periods of reduced activity should target 1.6 to 2.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. He says that meal timing is also critical, noting that multiple meals with 20 to 35 grams of protein every 3 to 4 hours will help maximize protein synthesis and help you keep your hard-earned gains.
If meeting protein targets through food alone is challenging, protein supplements can help. Barringer also nods to creatine monohydrate. It’s a “well-researched and safe supplement to use that has demonstrated the ability to preserve lean muscle mass,” he says. A dose of 3 to 5 grams daily is clinically validated for maximum benefits (19).
Barringer says essential amino acids (EAAs) can further support muscle maintenance when protein intake is low. Studies show that 10 to 15 grams of EAAs per serving effectively stimulate muscle protein synthesis and preserve lean muscle, especially during times of reduced physical activity and caloric deficit (20) (21).
A healthy mindset is crucial when training volume drops. It’s easy to feel discouraged if you can’t maintain your usual workout routine. Grimsley encourages athletes to adjust their expectations based on current circumstances rather than comparing to past performance.
“This is just one season in the athlete’s life,” Grimsley says. “One strength training session per week has proven to be enough for my clients who are ramping up for a marathon or recovering from an injury. These sessions can’t take away from their splits if they’re running or their quality of life outside the gym.”
Whatever the reason you can’t manage more, doing “only” one or two sessions per week is still worthwhile.
Muscle loss happens quickly, but it doesn’t take much work to combat it. If life—whether a newborn baby, extended travel, or marathon training—disrupts your usual routine, two high-intensity, intentional sessions per week can meaningfully reduce the potential for muscle loss.