eli5 Why/how do muscles shrink?

Question

You get sore muscles when you train, because you muscle strings rip and when they heal, your muscles grow. As far as I know. So why and how do they shrink?

In: 213

Answer 1

Humans have a survival trait that let’s our muscle mass adjust to stave off hunger. We will digest our muscles to keep our organs going. With most predators it is the opposite. They keep a set amount of muscle mass to hunt and will starve much sooner without eating and resting. We are the extreme survivors of the animal kingdom.