Effects of a "detraining" week?

I want to do a reduced volume week, pertaining to weight training, but I am worried to lose my existing muscle mass gains. I have worked very hard to gain some quality mass and I don't want to lose it. I've been doing the RUSSIAN BEAR PROGRAM by Pavel and its been working like a charm.

Mark

1 week is not sufficient to cause muscle loss.

Just keep your calories and protein up.

out of curiosity, what amount of time would be sufficient to cause muscle loss?

Well, take the following study for example.

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/conten ... da93bba6ea

In this study subjects were assigned to 28 days of bed rest where they could only get out of bed for 5 minutes per day. One group ate extra carbs+protein over the control group and they lost no muscle mass. The control, however, did. Both groups lost strength.

So, according to this study, as long as nutrition is adequate you have at least 4 weeks. Also, consider this was an extreme example of bed rest.

Some people actually gain muscle after a deload week. Especially, the overtrained. For me, I found that cutting off work to a certain muscle group for two weeks usually resulted in flatter muscles.

Due to my work I have to take low work week every month. Some times is simply off week I find better and stronger even with the off week (if is only one, if more than one i feel I keep strenght or loose a bit)

But this is me.