Sometimes life happens and we are unable to train for one, two or even three weeks. Other times, we become injured or sick so we take extended breaks from training. If this has happened to you, it’s inevitable that you start to wonder if and when you will lose your progress. 

In reality, that's a hard question to answer precisely, because many variables play a role in dictating how quickly we can get back to our previous levels.

Age, training experience, injuries, time length spent de-training and also nutrition can definitely have a big impact in determining it…

Also, in reality we don’t actually “lose” muscle because muscle fiber appears to have “epigenetic memory”...so even though we experience loss in muscle size after a period of not training we don’t actually lose the number of myonuclei. Myonuclei might remain for 15 years or more in human muscles.This phenomenon has been called “muscle memory”.  Making it much easier for our muscles to return to their previous size.

So gaining muscle initially can be kind of hard while regaining it for the second time is much easier.

A good rule of thumb that we can use is the "Half-the-time" rule which can give us a close estimate as to the time-length it will take us to get to our previous strength & muscle levels... 

You take the time you spent NOT training and divide it by 2... that's a good estimation of how much time you'll need to get back to where you left.

The evidence suggests that both trained athletes and beginners can maintain their strength, muscle, and endurance gains for at the very least 2-4 weeks without much training. During detraining, muscles carry less glycogen and water so they seem smaller. The good news is that it's relatively easy to maintain gains in short periods of time. 

Source:  https://sci-fit.net/detraining/

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