Injured Gymnast? What to Eat During Time Off to Heal and Keep Muscle

Does the thought of time out of the gym make your injured gymnast’s (or your) skin crawl?

I get it. I HATED missing a single day in the gym as a gymnast, especially because of an injury. Every day out felt like lost time to build skills and condition. Climbing the steep hill of “getting back in shape” sounded awful. And I worried (more often than not) about my body changing and being called “lazy” or “out of shape.”

Here’s the thing: injuries happen to almost every gymnast at some point. What she eats while she’s out can make a BIG difference in how fast she heals, how much muscle she keeps and how she feels when she walks back into the gym. In this guide, I’ll walk you through what an injured gymnast should eat, how fast muscle is actually lost, and what to do about body changes.

By Christina Anderson MS, RDN, CSP, CSSD · Updated October 2026

The biggest mistake an injured gymnast can make

When most gymnasts get hurt, the knee-jerk reaction is one (or both) of these:

• Cutting way back on food out of fear of weight gain or body changes
• Over-exercising out of fear of getting “out of shape” or losing skills

Neither one helps. Both make it harder to heal and harder to come back. Underfueling is also one of the biggest reasons gymnasts get hurt in the first place (more in Gymnast Injuries: How Nutrition Affects Recovery and Performance), so eating less during an injury can set her up for the next one.

How much should an injured gymnast eat?

Probably more than you think. Healing is hard work for the body. Repairing bone, tendons, ligaments and muscle takes energy, and so does the inflammation that kicks off healing. Even getting around on crutches or in a boot takes more energy than normal walking. That’s why researchers say an injured athlete’s energy needs don’t drop as much as you’d expect, even when training stops.

Most competitive gymnasts need around 2,000 to 3,000+ calories a day depending on age, level, growth and training. Even injured, many still land in that range. And if she’s behind on growth and development and her body is finally catching up (which often happens during time off), she may need 3,000 or more. Catch-up growth is a GOOD thing. It’s not the time to restrict.

If she was underfueled before the injury

And if she was underfueled before she got hurt (which is true for a LOT of injured gymnasts), her body can’t fully heal until that’s fixed. With low energy availability, the body runs on survival mode: it covers the basics first and puts growth, repair and bone building on the back burner. Until she’s eating enough to get her growth and development back on track, healing stalls, and she’s set up for the next injury.

What to cut back (and what to keep)

What CAN come down is the extra “performance nutrition” that fuels long practices: the pre-practice snack and the carbs during a 4-hour workout aren’t needed for an hour of PT and conditioning. Keep her regular meals and snacks. For most young athletes, three meals a day just isn’t enough, so plan on 3 meals plus 2-3 snacks.

Her appetite may drop a bit with less training, and that’s OK to follow, as long as she’s still eating regular, balanced meals. If she’s been restricting, her hunger cues may not be reliable yet, and she’ll need to eat because she knows she should, not only when she feels hungry.

This is where closing the recovery gap matters most. The recovery gap is the difference between what her body NEEDS and what she’s actually getting, and an injury doesn’t make that gap disappear. It just changes what she needs.

How fast does an injured gymnast lose muscle?

It depends on the injury. In a body part that’s immobilized in a cast or brace, muscle loss starts fast. In one study, just 5 days with a leg in a cast shrank the thigh muscle about 4% and cut muscle building after a meal roughly in half.

The rest of her body is a different story. If she’s still moving, conditioning and doing PT, general muscle and fitness losses are much slower. For young athletes, it takes about four weeks of reduced training to see significant changes.

The good news? Muscle memory is powerful. She’s been conditioning and doing the same basic skills for YEARS. Her body won’t forget them after a few months out of the gym.

How to keep muscle during an injury

1. Eat enough food

The worst thing she can do for her body during an injury is drastically cut food out of fear of “getting fat.” When she doesn’t eat enough, her body breaks down muscle for energy, no matter how much protein she eats. Eating enough is the foundation for everything else. Build meals with all the food groups, like the high-intensity performance plate, and adjust portions to her activity.

2. Keep protein up

Protein is the building block of her muscles and tissues. Most gymnasts need about 1.5-1.7 g/kg of protein a day, and that doesn’t change just because she’s injured. Even if she’s eating a bit less overall, don’t cut her protein.

Spread it out across 3 meals and 2-3 snacks so her muscles get a steady supply all day. High-quality protein foods like chicken, beef, fish, eggs, Greek yogurt and milk are the most effective for repair, and a dairy-based snack before bed is an easy win.

3. Keep the muscles working

I’m not a strength and conditioning coach, but I do know that whatever conditioning, cardio and PT she’s cleared for helps keep her from “detraining.” Muscle that’s being used holds on to the protein she eats much better than muscle that’s resting. Follow her doctor and PT on what’s safe.

Does she need collagen or other supplements?

Short answer: fueling comes first. No supplement can make up for an injured gymnast who isn’t eating enough, and that’s where we put almost all of our focus.

You may have heard about collagen for injuries. A study from Keith Baar’s lab at UC Davis, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that vitamin C-enriched gelatin taken an hour before exercise doubled a marker of collagen synthesis, the building block of tendons and ligaments. That’s why some sports dietitians use it for specific tendon and ligament injuries. But it only helps on top of enough food, not instead of it.

The same goes for vitamin C, omega-3s and calcium. Most of what she needs comes from balanced meals and snacks. The one worth checking is vitamin D, especially with bone injuries and stress fractures, because it’s a “test, don’t guess” nutrient. (See bone health for the gymnast.)

Bottom line: if she’s eating enough, her body has what it needs to heal. If she isn’t, supplements won’t fix it.

What about weight gain during an injury?

First, I want to validate this fear. In her mind, her 20+ hours in the gym are what keep her body looking the way it does. That’s only partly true. Her appetite will adjust to less training, but she still needs a lot more food than she thinks just to heal and grow.

As a gymnast, I was out for 2+ months with a fractured back, and my body hardly changed. Was I a little “softer”? Maybe. But I didn’t obsess about it at the time. I did what I could in the gym, which was very limited, visualized skills and focused on resting, because I knew that would get me back faster than ignoring my doctors. I kept eating regular meals and snacks and listened to my appetite. It wasn’t until years later, when I really started to struggle with food and my body, that my injuries didn’t go as well.

If her body feels “different,” a few things could be going on:

• Fluid shifts. She may feel “less toned” simply because she’s not training and her hydration has changed.
• Some muscle loss, especially around the injured area.
• Normal growth. Intense training and underfueling hold back a lot of gymnasts’ growth. Time off gives their bodies a chance to catch up. That’s NORMAL, and it often leads to more strength and power once she adjusts.

Sometimes a gymnast does gain some extra body fat during time off, usually when emotional eating or a restrict-then-binge cycle is going on. The answer is NOT dieting. Starving herself to “lose weight” usually backfires into more bingeing, disordered eating and poor performance. Getting back to regular, balanced meals is what helps her body settle. (More in Gymnast Weight Gain: What’s Normal and When to Worry.)

Frequently asked questions

How to help your injured gymnast

An injury is hard enough without food and body stress on top of it. The best thing you can do is keep her fueled, keep her protein up and remind her that her body is working hard to heal, even when she’s not in the gym.

Not sure if your gymnast is eating enough to heal? Take our free Underfueled Gymnast Check. And if you want more than a generic meal plan, The Balanced Gymnast® Program is our 1:1 program, built by a former gymnast, nationally rated NCAA/USAG judge and pediatric sports dietitian who lives and breathes this sport. We build her plan around HER: her injury, her growth, her return to the gym and the foods she actually likes.