Muscle Memory: One of The Coolest Things About The Human Body

     As a physical therapist I know there are many things about the human body I think are amazing that the average Joe Schmo may not find all that exciting. Muscle memory, however, can be appreciated by anyone who has ever participated in strength training of any kind at any point in their life.  Muscle memory is the lax athlete's best friend.

     Basically, muscle memory is the ability of the muscle to "remember" it's previous strengthened state. This is essential for anyone who has taken time off from their workout routine. Because the muscle has this ability, when the athlete returns to their workouts after, say an injury or a 6 week (or longer) postpartum recovery period, the muscle, while it may not be as strong as it was on your last workout, will still be stronger than if you had never strengthened it in the first place. Furthermore, when you return to your workouts the muscle will return to full pre-sabatical strength in significantly less time than it took to gain that strength the first time around.

   This happens due to a few amazing properties of the human body. First of all when you teach your body to do something (like ride a bike, run, lift weights, yoga, ect) and you do it over and over again it creates a blueprint in your brain (the more you perform the activity, the more ingrained this blueprint becomes). This blueprint tells the body what specific muscle fibers to recruit at the specific time needed to perform the activity in the most efficient manner. Even after a prolonged hiatus the body will retain this blueprint. In addition, because your body has mastered the technique of breaking down the muscle and building them back stronger (as you did when you initially trained) it also remembers this process and picks up right where it left off. Perhaps the most amazing discovery of all is that exercise triggers longterm, possibly permanent changes in the muscles. Recently researchers found that exercise stimulates the muscle fibers to make more nuclei which provide the muscle with the DNA needed to synthesize protein and give the muscle strength. The best part about these newly formed nuclei is that even after prolonged rest and even when the muscles atrophy, they still maintain these extra nuclei, making the muscle better equipped to achieve strength gains once the exercise is resumed.

      So what does all this mean? In the short term it means that if you have taken a break from your workout routine, it is never too late to get back at it. You have not lost all the strength you once had. In fact, your muscles are better able to build strength now than they have ever been! In the long term, it means that exercise is more important than ever. The exercise and strengthening we do now has the ability to make permanent changes in our muscles which will keep us strong as we age. Since our ability to strengthen muscles diminishes as we get older, now is the time to act. The strength we gain now may be the difference between spending our golden years in a wheelchair or spending them doing 5Ks!


The research presented above can be found on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website.