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Muscle Memory Defined

PillarofBalance

PillarofBalance

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Feb 27, 2011
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I had a small argument with a couple of friends this morning... One of them is much older than me, but he was one of those Venice Beach bodybuilder types; knows a bunch of the bodybuilders from the 80's and such... He hasn't trained for years but recently has re-upped his membership in the lifestyle.

Its hard work of course, but he finds that regaining what he once had is quite simple and he repeatedly used the term "muscle memory." We disagreed stating how the hell can a muscle have a memory????

Came across a few articles on the subject that I thought were good and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

From The Myth of Muscle Memory - Sports Nutrition Articles - The Cory Holly Institute

The Myth of Muscle Memory


When accepted as truth by large numbers of people without investigation, a false myth can cause profound cultural change. Consider the vast numbers of people who have been seduced into drinking milk as a staple thinking one thing when the opposite is actually true. The dairy industry is well aware of the damage to health caused by consuming processed cow's milk derived from animals that are neither well or fed correctly. We are what we eat eats. So what corporations often do to protect their bottom line is claim the opposite of truth as fact and then make this claim to fame their crowning marketing virtue.

Most people have heard of muscle memory. When a person starts lifting weights after a lay off, it's much easier for them to return to their previous levels of size and strength than it was to get there the first time around. It also takes less time. Therefore the muscle fibers must obviously "remember" their former state.

Muscle fibers do not remember anything. Muscle fibers do not have a separate independent "mind" of their own. All memory is retrieved from inside the brain which commands all action and response. Like everything else on this planet muscle fibers simply adapt to the environment in which they are exposed to or bathed in. If they are forced to contract with a specific load causing stress, disruption and microfilament damage, they will adapt and remodel provided the conditions required for such adaptations are met. If there is insufficient or no load they will return to their former state and continue wasting in the absence of sufficient stimulation. What we don't use we lose. It's called disuse atrophy.

Here's the reason why progress is made more quickly the second, third or whatever time around, provided ones current state of health does not act as a biochemical hindrance. Our brains have the capacity to store data and skills learned from the past in the form of emotion and memory. The portion of the brain associated with memory includes the cortex of the frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobes, parts of the limbic system including the hippocampus and amygdaloid nucleus, and the diencephalon.

Think of the first time you learned to ride a bike. As a father, I watched each of my three children move from training wheels to none. Itメs one of life's greatest moments, but I noticed that the transition time was different for each child and relative to desire. The more they wanted to ride without training wheels the less time it took to master the process.

Once the ability to balance a bicycle in motion is acquired and stored in our neurons it is never lost. There might be an initial wobbly period if we hop on a bike 20 years after our last ride, but the brain, not the muscle fibers that perform the work, will kick in and command the body to fulfill the desired request using whatever systems and muscle fibers are required provided they are functional and in good working order. The information stored as memory is drawn from deep inside the brain which then controls and commands everything else, including voluntary skeletal muscle fibers.

The education, knowledge and information we acquire originally when we first start training is never lost. After a lay off no time is wasted developing a relationship with the equipment. Like our first dinner date compared to 20 years of marriage, we don't experience the same initial stages of bumbling, shyness, formality and integration each time we sit down for dinner. After 6 months to 2 years of training for the first time, most of us develop an understanding of exercise training gained only by experience. We learn how to train. We get the feel of it. We learn how we respond individually to free weights, machines, cables, pulleys, weight stacks, sets and reps on so on. It's called a learning curve and it;s a one time deal. If we knew what we now know when we first started, we would have saved ourselves both time and energy. In other words muscle memory is simply the retrieval of information previously learned and applied with greater efficiency.

Physiologists know that any skeletal muscle activity that is learned can become essentially automatic with practice. Muscle memory is therefore a common term for neuromuscular facilitation, which is the process of the neuromuscular system memorizing motor skills. We know that repetition is the mother of skill and that practice makes permanent. After repeating the same movement over and over again, the movement seemingly becomes second nature. It's like we're not paying attention but of course it's all coming from the same region of the brain that controls everything.

It is now well known that the effects of nutrition and training significantly influence genetic expression. The longer we carry muscle mass or excess fat the more the body learns from that reality or physical state and recognizes it as "normal". This is known as the set-point theory. Our physical and mental state influence precise neurological, immunological and hormonal feedback loops that in turn influence our state. The longer we sustain a certain state the more likely the body will maintain that state, however, there are other forces outside of ourselves to contend with, such as oxidation, glycation, gravity and entropy. Left unattended all lean functional mass slowly slips away because as a whole, life as we know it is primarily catabolic.

A recent theory known as multi-nucleation might also be related to the phenomenon of muscle memory. Resistance training is known to create higher numbers of nuclei in muscle fibers. These nuclei may be retained even during non-use so that when skeletal muscle is once again exposed to resistance exercise and optimum nutrition, new protein synthesis can occur at an accelerated rate.

The next time you lift a weight ask yourself this, "Who's lifting the weight?". The answer is always the same. Put your mind in your muscle and your muscle in your mind. When the two become one you have now achieved something few people will ever experience.

As always, stay well

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PillarofBalance

PillarofBalance

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Feb 27, 2011
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Another article I came across

Muscle Memory | Weight Training Article

rom Brain to Bicep
Muscles are like your brain – they have a memory and can be trained to be more efficient and stronger. Just like your brain, the less you use them the less well they function. But similarly if you go back to a previous activity you will find that your memory soon returns with the information you once learned.

Have you ever taken a break from training, and then gone back to the gym to find that it is only a few short weeks before you are back to where you were before? This is the memory that each of our muscles posses. Scientists call this 'kinaesthetic memory' or 'neuro-muscular facilitation'. This way of learning is referred to as 'sensory-motor' learning, since you are combining sensory input (what you see, hear, touch, smell and taste) with motor output (i.e. moving your body).

A Simplified Explanation
Let me explain how memories in your brain are created. The brain contains 100 billion individual nerve cells (neurons) that form connections with one another every time we experience or encounter something new. They are mapped to activities you know how to do such as walking and running – everything you have learned in life to date. When you learn a new activity, your brain creates new connections and this 'path' of memory communication increases in strength every time the activity is repeated. Sort of like skiing over the same set of track lines down a slope as the person who has gone before you. The more those track lines are ski’d over, the more they will become set in the ground.

If these neurons are not regularly used, neural pathways weaken and their communication strength fades away leaving only a trace element of the original memory. But when the activity is re-assumed, the chemicals reignite and the paths are once again strengthened. This is exactly the same principle whereby muscles increase from training, and conversely the way they can atrophy through under use.

How Can this Help in Practical terms? So the work you do now CAN actually count for years to come, even though you might take a break from the activity and then come back to it. So then it would make sense to build your foundations now. Although slightly deviating from the subject at hand, sticking to good form to ensure balanced and maximal development will only help to instil a good foundation for the future. After a break you will find, following the initial period of re-acclimatisation that you can pick up where you left off and go forward from there.

An Old Concept
Have you ever heard of those studies where two groups of people are taken and one group is given coaching in a sport and given practical exercises, whereas the other is just shown videos of the same sport and told to mentally visualise performing? Well, you need to apply the same concept. You need to imagine your neurons forming these new connections, the communication between the neurons increasing and getting stronger, and in time this will happen and hold you in greater stead for performance in the future. Whether it be weightlifting, endurance running, bodybuilding or a specific sport, your performance now and for the future will be improved by having a greater grasp o how your mind works in conjunction with your body and visualising the results you want. Not only are you what you eat, 'you are what you think'!

Planned Formatting
So taking the concept of a computer, when you format the hard drive you wipe almost everything on there. Trace elements of data can remain though and, in the case of your brain, this will be useful to you. Now I am not suggesting you smash your head in order to delete certain “files”, unless it is related to a minger you accidentally slept with over a drunken New Years party, but I am suggesting a temporary file purge whereby you abstain from a certain activity for a few weeks.

Pick any activity or exercise you have been intensely focused on for many months, and leave this activity for a good eight to twelve weeks. After this period go back to the activity. Two to three weeks is all it will take to get back on track, and then you will see the progress you now start to make again. It will be like a new lease of life! I have tried and succeeded in this way of thinking in various different weight training activities – such as the deadlift and bench press – and found it an invaluable way of moving forward. I completely recommend it based on my experience and that of my clients’.

In Summary:
Muscle will rebuild more quickly after taking a break from training than it took to build originally.
A medium to long break can often be a good way to make progress.
The foundations you build in your physique now could last you for years to come.
Imagine the communication between mind and body increasing, and this WILL be the case.
 
SAD

SAD

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Can't wait to hear some thoughts on this. I know what I believe and that is that muscle memory is real, although the verbiage used is misleading. I am away from home right now, but when I get a chance I'll post some studies showing not only that muscle memory is real, but that AAS induced muscle growth can permanently improve size and functional strength.
 
PillarofBalance

PillarofBalance

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Feb 27, 2011
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Can't wait to hear some thoughts on this. I know what I believe and that is that muscle memory is real, although the verbiage used is misleading. I am away from home right now, but when I get a chance I'll post some studies showing not only that muscle memory is real, but that AAS induced muscle growth can permanently improve size and functional strength.

Awesome bro can't wait... MAYO has some good thoughts on this too!
 
MAYO

MAYO

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Um, not really thrilled with that approach. The idea that the brain's familiarity with bodybuilding excercises lead to faster growth seems ill-founded.

What I know, and will post studies to prove when time permits:
Your muscle cells are long, slender fibers, unlike other body cells which are primarily sperical in shape. They maintain themselves by employing multiple nuclei strategically placed throughout the length of the cell to carry out synthesis, waste disposal and general maintenance. As one trains, the muscle cell becomes larger, thus greater in volume. The nuclei cannot keep up with the tasks of maintaining the growing cell and disposing of its wastes, so they produce new nuclei. The bigger the cell gets, the more nuclei. Now, as mentioned in an above post, when we don't use the cell, it shrinks. BUT, even though the cell shrinks, the additional nuclei will remain. It is unknown for how long, but some studies speculate that the majority are kept for at least 4 years. So what we have is an atrophied muscle cell inundated with nuclei. When the owner of said muscle cell begins to train again, what do they have? Ultra-efficient muscle cells with higher than normal numbers of nuclei to facilitate cell maintenance and growth. The cell in previously conditioned individuals grow faster because they still keep the nuclei required to "run" a larger cell. The brain has little to do with it.
 
PillarofBalance

PillarofBalance

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Awesome info guys thanks!!!
 
Rottenrogue

Rottenrogue

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The same theory could be used in fat people.You never truly lose fat cells they just get smaller .If you lose track of what you are doing I would expect a fat person would gain weight easier and quicker than a non fat person????AM I even close.
 
MAYO

MAYO

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Sep 27, 2010
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The same theory could be used in fat people.You never truly lose fat cells they just get smaller .If you lose track of what you are doing I would expect a fat person would gain weight easier and quicker than a non fat person????AM I even close.
That is a really interesting thought RR....I don't know if the nuclei of fat cells proliferate like those of muscle cells, but definately worth looking into. RR discovered "Love Handle Memory"
 
SAD

SAD

TID Board Of Directors
Feb 3, 2011
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The same theory could be used in fat people.You never truly lose fat cells they just get smaller .If you lose track of what you are doing I would expect a fat person would gain weight easier and quicker than a non fat person????AM I even close.

A formerly fat person will absolutely gain weight back faster than a person who hadn't already been fat at some point in their lives. I don't think it is the same theory necessarily, but pretty damn close.


That is a really interesting thought RR....I don't know if the nuclei of fat cells proliferate like those of muscle cells, but definately worth looking into. RR discovered "Love Handle Memory"

:)) :)) :))
 
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