Can you waste Muscle Memory gains .. ?

[Khryz]

.. by dieting?

See, I haven't lifted in 2 years because of a shoulder injury, had surgery in December, and am not lightly and slowly getting back into lifting. At the same time, I was considering dieting down to drop some BF before beach season but am having second thoughts.

With 2 years being inactive, and me currently have at least 20-25 pounds less muscle than 2 years ago, that I will regain that rather quickly, especially in my legs. Whatever response that is heightened in the body due to muscle memory "remembering" where I left off, I already feel it working very much, but I have also been restricting carbs/calories the past 2 weeks.

I can care less about 1 summer in the grand scheme of things, where eventually I want to put on serious muscle and get stronger again and then after worry about dieting again. So my question's answer seems obvious but I was just curious:

Can you "waste" the muscle memory response to regain size and strength by dieting, even if months down the line you start eating to gain again? Will I have lost that response forever?

I want to take advantage of whatever gains I will experience now while everything is coming back to me, but I just wanted confirmation.

Thanks fellas.

 

[goku_kakarot77]

bump to this

 

[oso0960]

lol if it's obvious then how are you curious to know a fact that you already know? It's kind of hard to know exactly what you're asking. IMO I think that you would gain most of your strength/muscle back even when dieting. You know how people say that beginners can lose fat AND gain muscle at the same time? That may be how your body will react up until your close to where you left off at. At least that's what I think. Anybody else know?

 

[Khryz]

Thank you. I feel like I know the answer though. It's like taking a powerlifter now who is benching 3x his BW and then suddenly putting him on a bodybuilder diet -- will be grow even though he is not making as much gains and when he increased his bench so much while restricting calories?

Doubt it.

 

[BigBrothaD]

I dought your body will change its set point, but I also don't like confusing the hell out of my body by constantly changing things either. If i'm making good gains from muscle memory i'll keep it on that "roll" until I decide to cut. Then when I cut I CUT until the job is done. 2 years ago I had an L1T12 fusion from a car accident and had to stop training for 6 months. Lost about 30lb of lbm and gained about 15lbs of fat. When I started training I just ate maintenance calories and lost fat and built muscle. Only took a year to get better then pre accident. Just listen to your body. If ou eat maintenance cals the worst that can happen is not losing any fat while still building muscle, atleast until you're back to normal that is.

 

[SaiBoT]

Not only I think you will regain your former "self" but I also think that by eating cleaning, not necessarily on a caloric restriction you will have greater gains. My experience tells me fullbody workouts are the best for accessing muscle memory and even surpass it! For that matter I also had large lay off before one of them was in fact over 2 years length and manage to gain muscle and lose bf at the same time and eating junk food sistematically, all this completely drug-free!