--- title: Muscle Memory: Why Getting in Shape Can be Hard description: A new study shows muscle memory doesn't last when people take substantial time off exercise. canonical: https://time.com/4504240/why-getting-back-in-shape-is-so-hard/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-22T18:00:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:28.779Z article:section: Health og:title: Muscle Memory: Why Getting in Shape Can be Hard og:description: A new study shows muscle memory doesn't last when people take substantial time off exercise. og:url: https://time.com/4504240/why-getting-back-in-shape-is-so-hard/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd000c933213ff61/6987789c524fc00bbcdebc37/health-weight-exercise-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: TIME.com stock photos Weight Loss Health Exercise Weights og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Muscle Memory: Why Getting in Shape Can be Hard twitter:description: A new study shows muscle memory doesn't last when people take substantial time off exercise. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd000c933213ff61/6987789c524fc00bbcdebc37/health-weight-exercise-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Getting Back in Shape is So Hard > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Sep 22, 2016 6:00 PM UTC  Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Sep 22, 2016 6:00 PM UTC Taking a month or two off of regular exercise may not be so benign. A [new small study](http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006294) shows that when muscles take a break, they maintain very little muscle memory from the prior exercise. The goal of the new study, published Thursday in the journal _PLOS Genetics_, was to gain a better understanding of how exercise influences the body on a genetic level. [As TIME recently reported](http://time.com/4474874/exercise-fitness-workouts/), exercise carries a whole host of benefits for the body, from aging to brain health to a stronger ability to fight infections. But how that exercise translates to changes in genetic activity is more unknown. In the report, 23 people trained one of their legs for three months by kicking and pulling a bike-like contraption 60 times a minute for 45 minutes (see below). They did this training four times a week for three months. After that, the people in the study took nine months off. The study authors took skeletal muscle biopsies from both legs before and after and found that the cells in the muscles expressed over 3,000 genes in different ways after a person exercised. However, after the fitness hiatuses, the scientists couldn’t detect any exercised-related genetic changes between the people’s trained and un-trained legs.  This is an example of what the leg training exercises looked like. Karolinska Institutet “We couldn’t see any differences at the gene activity level,” says study author Maléne Lindholm of theKarolinska Institutet in Sweden. “Most effects are lost by a month or two of no training.” After that, 12 of the people in the study started training both of their legs. When the researchers compared biopsies of the two trained legs, they once again saw changes in genetic activity, but the leg that had undergone training nine months early looked virtually the same as the newly trained leg. “We did see some differences in the response but not substantial enough to claim some type of memory,” says Lindholm. Lindholm says the study could be interpreted in a couple ways. It underlines fact that exercise can spur healthy biological changes, and that keeping up the practice is important to ensure those healthy changes are sustained. On the other hand, she says that the results can be encouraging to people who are sedentary. It suggests they can achieve the same benefits from exercise as anyone else. “The study could be used as positive encouragement,” says Lindholm. “It’s never too late to start training from a muscle perspective.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4504240/why-getting-back-in-shape-is-so-hard/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4504240/why-getting-back-in-shape-is-so-hard/"},"headline":"Why Getting Back in Shape is So Hard","datePublished":"2016-09-22T18:00:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:28.779Z","description":"Muscle memory doesn't last","url":"https://time.com/4504240/why-getting-back-in-shape-is-so-hard/","keywords":["Exercise","fitness"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd000c933213ff61/6987789c524fc00bbcdebc37/health-weight-exercise-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd000c933213ff61/6987789c524fc00bbcdebc37/health-weight-exercise-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TIME.com stock photos Weight Loss Health Exercise Weights","caption":"TIME.com stock photos Weight Loss Health Exercise Weights","creditText":"Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/exercise/","name":"Exercise"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4504240/why-getting-back-in-shape-is-so-hard/","name":"Why Getting Back in Shape is So Hard"}}]}] ```