Also like some people hinted at this in sibling threads, I think it's different between purely abstract skills, and skills that involve muscle memory. For instance, I could probably stop using my bicycle for a very long time, and still not unlearn how to use it, or learn it again really quickly. Maybe it is because abstract skills are inherently more complex and require more cognitive effort and connections to knowledge overall, and are therefore more fragile.
And if you went 3 years without exercising, you'll be able to get your muscles back much quicker than had you never had the muscle before.
It's pretty comparable to skills. You don't need to practice as hard to maintain a skill than you do to build it. And if you let the skill atrophy, it's much easier to recover the skill compared to building it from scratch.
This very much depends on age. I went on statins about 18 months, which destroyed about 15lbs of muscle over the course of a year (160->145). Along with that muscle loss came about a halving or more of the weights I could lift in any given exercise. I interpreted the "do you have any weakness on this medication" question as inability to function levels of weakness, it wasn't until I showed my training logs to my physician that she asserted that I was having weakness.
It's been a year since I went off them and I'm still lifting barely what I could in high school. I'm exploring some different training plans, but AFAIK, there isn't much research into if different weight/volume breakdowns work better for older guys.
I’ve got 20 inch lean arms - I know far more about muscle building and retention than you. I train just as hard to maintain them as I did to get them there.
The people who say “oh it’s easy to maintain” LOL it’s easy to maintain 16 inch arms.
I am a competitive bodybuilder…
> I train just as hard to maintain them as I did to get them there.
Are you enhanced? Were you enhanced when you built the 20” arms? If so, yes I agree.
Edit: With 20" arms, there's nearly 0% chance you're natural. You can't compare your enhanced experience to naturals.
I noticed it myself with cycling. Took 8 years off the bike, when I started up again I was nearly back to my old FTP in about 2 months despite starting from basically zero. Muscle memory is real, where I am now as a returning cyclist would take a pure beginner cyclist at least 4+ months to get to, fitness wise.
That said, you do have to work somewhat hard to maintain. With cycling, just 2 weeks off the bike is enough to see a VO2 max drop of anywhere from 4 to 7%. After just 4 weeks, your glycogen storage capacity decreases and you start rapidly losing fitness. After 2 months, you are basically now out of shape.
Detraining happens faster than most people think. And therein lies the danger with over reliance on LLMs for your cognitive skills. Detraining there happens just as fast, skills atrophy in a matter of weeks, not months or years.