Muscle Memory

Good Morning all,

I have a quick question about muscle memory and a cycle going forward but first let me give you a bit of my background that will hopefully allow for a clear answer.

My current stats are:

Age: 27
Height:178cm
Body Fat: 14-15% (Estimation)
Current weight: 73Kg's
Years training: 4 years

Anyways, I started training 4 years ago as I was generally always very skinny and thought I need to do something with my life to improve both my physical appearance and mental fitness. When I started training I was weighing in at 59 kg's. 4 years later of hard training I increased my weight to 78 Kg's (My goal was 80).

I have done 2 cycles back in the past, one of them was a Tbol only cycle for 5 weeks and a year later (March 2014) I did a cycle of test 250 + Tbol for 10weeks.

Due to a lot of stress and work related issues the past 4-5 months have been relatively difficult for me to train and keep my diet on check so it has virtually been non existent. I have dropped in weight to 72-73 Kg's and picked up body fat with a fair amount of muscle loss.

I started training again this week as I have found my passion again for ripping it up in the gym again .

Now my question is:

1. How long will it take for muscle memory to kick in and for me to be back to my old size?

2. Also how long should I train for before thinking of started a course again?

1. Don't know, everyone is different and depends how you train and eat. Don't focus on the muscle memory as much as thinking of you're starting fresh and now you're moving forward as you should. If you keep comparing yourself to the past you might disappoint yourself which can affect your motivation. So just work hard and be consistent.

2. I Would say go until you reach a plateu on your weight and strength, and knowing your diet and training habit is up to scratch. First sort out the foundation with nutrition and training before thinking about a course.

ian_stagib wrote: 1. Don't know, everyone is different and depends how you train and eat. Don't focus on the muscle memory as much as thinking of you're starting fresh and now you're moving forward as you should. If you keep comparing yourself to the past you might disappoint yourself which can affect your motivation. So just work hard and be consistent.

2. I Would say go until you reach a plateu on your weight and strength, and knowing your diet and training habit is up to scratch. First sort out the foundation with nutrition and training before thinking about a course.

Solid advice

Thanks for the solid advice bud.

Is there a specific way I should be training to pick up size and to activate my muscle memory.

As for the diet, I'm gonna go in hard with a hefty protein intake and no carbs after 3. Want to try gain the muscle mass without the excess body fat.

tyronegmc wrote: Thanks for the solid advice bud.

Is there a specific way I should be training to pick up size and to activate my muscle memory.

As for the diet, I'm gonna go in hard with a hefty protein intake and no carbs after 3. Want to try gain the muscle mass without the excess body fat.

I guess the main compound exercises would be a good way to go, but you should be training hard enough that you are sweating and out of breath after each workout, so whatever really. Do the 5 day split, make sure you attack the various angles of each muscle group you're working. Don't go heavy, rather do a superset or shorten times between sets to keep the intensity up. Going heavy just ends up with injuries and you get better results if you focus on intensity. As for your food, don't knock carbohydrates. I've dropped very difficult body fat whipe keeping a high carb diet purely because I ate absolutely clean. That means I still had rice and potatoes and veggies and oats and all that but I didn't have sauces or sugar or oils or unhealthy fats. So I suggest trying that, keep the complex carbs til lunchtime and then switch to easier carbs after that. Easier is sweet potato and green veggie type carbs.