What aren’t we using? And when do we lose it?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for, maybe your whole life, you would have heard the term:

“If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it”

It’s been used heavily in the health industry, often referring to physical skills like running capacity, coordination and muscular strength. In other areas, people have coined the phrase in relation to ones’ mental capacity, regarding their ability to complete mathematics based work or proficiently use another language.

It’s become a phrase that I’ve been trying to steer clear of more in recent years. Not because the messaging is wrong or outdated by any means.

When explaining to clients what can happen to the body with ageing, or when they reduce their activity load, this phrase is echoed back to me 95% of the time. Most often with an exasperated voice and a slight (polite) roll of their eyes.

Clinicians

Our clients have heard this all before. More than likely from their GP on several occasions. We do not need to be reiterating it every time. It gives the same feeling as when your mum tells you to do a job that you were already going to do, but now that she’s asked you want nothing more than to resist the request. You will have more success in behaviour change for you client if you are able to communicate this information in a different, more enabling way.

Now, I could just remove this discussion completely from any interactions with my clients. But that would just be doing a disservice to you. An alternate lens to view it through is by understanding the principles of fitness, and more specifically, the principle of reversibility.

While you’re still being active, your body is making adaptions to align with the workload, keeping you functioning for as long as it’s required. Once the activity ceases, the adaptions your body has made with will reverse. In your body’s sense, they are no longer required.

What are the basics to be aware of?

• Aerobic training (i.e. running, swimming, cycling): reductions can be seen in 4-6 weeks.
• Strength training (i.e. lifting weights or usual physically demanding work): reductions can be seen in 2 weeks.

It’s not all bad news though! Your body does retain muscle memory when you’ve been completing activities for extended periods. This means that after a period of stopping an activity, your body will remember how it was done when you return to completing it. This will make it easier for you to return to your previous capacity (unless you stopped due to injury – that is a whole different topic for us to cover).

Easiest point to take from this – as hard as it is to start moving, your body will adapt to new stimuli. Once it adapts, it’s much better for your body to keep going long term than to continuously stop and restart. Find a health professional who can support you on the rollercoaster, so you continue moving your body in every way it allows for as long as it can manage.