
Originally Posted by
Warrior
I bought a copy of Muscular characteristics of detraining in humans, published in the official Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. It's only $25 and it cultivates over 50 studies and over 30 years of research into detraining...
Here is an interesting excerpt from it:
"Mean fiber cross-sectional area has been shown to change during short-term training stoppage. Bangsbo and Mizuno (3), studying samples of the gastrocnemius muscle of male soccer players undergoing 3 wk of training cessation, reported a 7% decline in the mean fiber cross-sectional area. This change, however, was primarily due to a 12.4% decline in FTa fiber area, from 6022 to 5278 μm2. Similar results have been observed in 12 weight lifters, whose FT fiber cross-sectional area declined by 6.4% in 14 d. Interestingly, increases were observed in plasma concentrations of growth hormone (58.3%), testosterone (19.2%), and the testosterone/cortisol ratio (67.6%), whereas cortisol and creatine kinase enzyme levels decreased respectively by 21.5 and 82.3%. According to the investigators, short-term training stoppage in strength athletes specifically affected FT fiber size, and changes in the hormonal milieu accompanying inactivity were propitious for an enhanced anabolic process, but the absence of the overload training stimulus prevented the materialization of such changes at the tissue level (26,28). On the other hand, 14 d of training stoppage did not result in a changed muscle fiber cross-sectional area in a group of endurance runners (27), and it even increased slightly (from 4.05 to 4.52 μm2·10-3 in ST fibers, and from 4.20 to 5.22 μm2·10-3 in FTa fibers) in a similar group of runners (31).
A 60 percent increase in GH and 20 percent more testosterone! That's pretty significant... especially for someone trying to recovery proper HPTA functioning...
I toyed with this coming off my last cycle of T. After the gear existed - following the expiration of the heaviest ester - I went on a 2-week vacation... I was a little worried but ended up experiencing an interesting effect. I notice a marked increase in disposition and sex drive the first week - within 7 days, lasting through-out the 2-week cessation.
I wouldn't advise an entire 2-week break post-cycle, but I do think that a 7-day cool off from training would help kick the HPTA into gear post-cycle. Followed by a week or two of very abbreviated training with adequate rest days.