One of the main fears in the world of the gym is the well-known catabolism. This process involves chemical reactions where the bonds of large molecules are broken, to obtain other simpler molecules. During this process, energy is released that is accumulated in the form of ATP. It is important to know what are the times in which this reaction can occur to control it and not affect our muscle gains . The three most widespread myths about catabolism are: nocturnal catabolism, catabolism during fasting and loss of muscle when you stop training. Here we explain what is the reality of this process to learn more about it.
Myth 1: catabolism during sleep
At night our body reduces metabolism by 10% compared to the state of absolute rest. That is, the caloric expenditure is minimal . In addition, the body during waking or sleeping moments does not draw energy from muscle glycogen as people think. In general, during moments of zero activity, such as the moments described, 85% of this energy comes through the combustion of fatty acids and the remaining 15% from blood glucose. Circulating FFAs (free fatty acids) are a fundamental energy source for muscle fibers.
This is especially important during the resting state since it supplies 85% of everything they need to stay alive, and only 15% corresponds to glucose. Overnight fasting further increases the need for FFA for muscle fiber. Surely when reading these you think that that 15% of glucose actually belongs to the glycogen of your muscles, but it is not like that. It belongs to liver glycogen, where the liver synthesizes glycogen and releases it depending on energy needs. Muscle glycogen only declines dramatically after prolonged vigorous exercise. Even so, between 12 and 18 hours of fasting in a resting state, the liver depletes its glycogen reserve and then the direct expenditure of your muscles will begin.
In short, you don’t lose muscle during sleep unless you’re eating a bad diet or starving. The meal before going to sleep makes sense if you have not eaten a meal in 3 hours before going to sleep or if you have not completed the total calories that you have planned in your diet, but not to avoid catabolism.
Myth 2: catabolism during fasting
It is a very common fear, that after 3 hours without eating our body pulls the muscles as if it were water, this is obviously not the case. If you exercise your muscles frequently in the gym, the body receives a signal by which it understands that it is strictly necessary to maintain them while there is another way to get energy to survive. If your fast lasts for more than 24 hours and you maintain physical exercise at a high level, muscle catabolism will then knock on your door. New studies on IF (Intermittent Fasting) found that lifting weights after about 18 hours of complete fasting has a greater anabolic response and increases growth hormone at a higher level. In addition to this, protein assimilation and insulin sensitivity improve after maintaining this fasting state. It remains to be said that it is not one of the best ways from my point of view to achieve hypertrophy but when defining it it can be very interesting. Also another myth that falls into this category is the absolute need to eat something immediately after finishing our routine. It is important to eat something afterwards, of course, but the anabolic window remains active for approximately 2 hours.
In summary, do not fear that your muscles will be consumed after 3 hours without eating anything, many articles support the possibility of gaining more muscle by maintaining a fast six times greater than the one you surely experience, so keep your diet correctly and this is not it will affect you at all.
Myth 3: muscle loss if I stop training
Detraining is that state you reach after a period of time without training in which you lose adaptation to that effort. This is not that easy, it depends on three parameters to reach that state: Physical state, type of training and age.
Regarding the Physical State, the competitive or more experienced athletes, untrain in a faster way due to their level of physical state. These athletes will start the state we are talking about in about 2 weeks after their break with the consequent muscle atrophy and loss of strength. Recreational athletes who are not professionally engaged in this sport, according to an article in the “Applied Physiology Newspaper”, arrive 12 weeks after their break, although depending on the diet it may come sooner or later.
Referring to the type of training, if your routine corresponds to a muscular resistance routine such as those dedicated to rowing, you will experience a slower atrophy since your muscles are leaner and have slow-twitch fibers. Whereas strength athletes predominantly have fast twitch fibers and it induces further atrophy upon detraining. It means that if your sport is something in the style of rowing, climbing … you will have a slower response to atrophy while if you are a weightlifter it will be the opposite.
Age is also influential, producing a phenomenon called sarcopenia that only appears in older ages and increases muscle atrophy during detraining. The genre however does not seem influential.
With all this it seems that I want to say that we must not stop training, it is not like that. The body needs from time to time (once or twice a year) an absolute rest of a week or so. This will help recovery, improve the response to training on the return to this, the metabolism will accelerate again and if you train in strength ranges your CNS (Central Nervous System) will recover.
A week of absolute leisure is necessary from time to time, however the diet must be maintained and should not become the norm since you will not advance and if it lasts too long you may enter a state of dislocation and suffer the consequences explained above. These are 3 of the most widespread fears when it comes to talking about catabolism. It is clear that catabolism exists, continuously in addition, since your body gets much of the protein it needs for its regeneration of the muscle itself, and the catabolic process is just as important as the anabolic. But it is not easy for it to lead to direct muscle loss.
