Read this today .... very interesting ....

Muscle tissue does not have a "memory" of past exercise training, new research suggests.

Muscles that have trained hard in the past and those that have not trained show similar changes in the genes that they turn on or off in response to exercise, the research found.

That may be both good news and bad news for people, said study co-author Malene Lindholm, a molecular exercise physiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

"It's encouraging for people who haven't trained when they're young because you don't have a disadvantage," Lindholm told Live Science. When you start exercising, "you can adapt just as well as people who have trained," she said.

On the flip side, the findings also suggest that being a past tennis pro is no guarantee that you could quickly pick up the sport again at the same elite level, she added. [Exercise and Weight Loss: The Science of Preserving Muscle Mass] Muscle memory

Exactly how long exercise training lasts has been up for debate. On the one hand, studies have demonstrated that immediately after exercise, the body ramps up the action of many genes. These effects persist for hours to a day after exercise.

And, over the longer term, if people continue to work out, the body starts making more proteins and that leads to more long-term adaptations.

But on the other hand, it's also pretty clear that these adaptations tend to dissipate quickly if a person stops exercising regularly.

"As soon as you stop training — especially if you do something as dramatic as breaking a leg, so you stop moving completely — you lose muscle mass and endurance-training effects very quickly," Lindholm said.

To see whether any adaptations at the genetic level lingered once people stopped exercising, Lindholm and her colleagues asked 23 very sedentary people to come into the lab and kick one leg 60 times a minute for 45 minutes. The participants repeated this exercise four times a week over three months.

They took nine months off, then returned to repeat the training, but this time with both legs.

The team took muscle biopsies (which involves anesthetizing the skin and using a needle to extract muscle cells) both before and after both exercise training periods, and analyzed which genes were active in the muscle tissue in each leg. (They alternated whether people initially trained their dominant or non-dominant leg to remove the effects of handedness from the study.)

Results showed that gene expression between the two legs did not differ, even though one leg had previously trained hard for three months, the researchers reported today (Sept. 22) in the journal PLOS Genetics.

A few hints suggested that training may have induced some lasting epigenetic changes, or changes in chemical markers on the genes that affect how they are expressed, but the results were too tentative to say for sure.

The findings suggest that people's muscles don't hang on to the metabolic changes associated with exercise for very long.

That makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, Lindholm said. Maintaining muscles takes a lot of calories.

"It's a cost to keep up really metabolically active muscles or a big muscle mass, and there is no reason for the body to expend energy on that if we don't need to use the muscle," Lindholm said.

In fact, in times when food was scarce, keeping bulky muscles that weren't needed might have led people to starve, she said. True muscle memory

Although new results suggest that the muscle cells themselves do not retain a "memory" from exercise, the same is not true for the nerves that thread through the muscles, or the brain regions that control movement, Lindholm said.

"Your nerves have learned in which order to activate your muscles in order to perform a certain movement," she said.

Riding a bike, serving a tennis ball and learning how to walk when you're a really small child, are things that you can't really forget, Lindholm said.

So tennis player Venus Williams or gymnast Simone Biles likely retain an almost instinctive memory of how to activate their muscles just right for a killer serve or a double-twisting double backflip.

But the same is not true for the muscle power needed to execute a perfect jump or a serve, Lindholm said.

"If you don't train your muscles won't be able to produce the force necessary to do it, even though your nerves know exactly which order to activate," Lindholm said.

Well, people who are of higher intelligence than me have sorted much of this out, so I can only go by experiences in my own life. If it's just to erase a term as illegitimate, then it seems like a lot of effort, but I know what he's saying. That said, I think folks who have done something over a period of time, seem to have a benefit of recall much quicker of those that haven't, and that's my real life experience.

I'm certainly not in the shape I was in my teens and twenties when I played a lot of sports...mostly baseball and softball, but even when I reached 70, I could still throw a baseball accurately although not as far, and my recall immediately seemed to work fine. Same with tossing a football....maybe most 72 year old folk can't do it, but I still can toss thirty or more yards after a little warm up. And I consider that method more than strength but still has to be part of recall or some kind of memory. Dad said I had ape arms for a short guy.

But I try not to ever argue with PHD's about anything. I don't think I've used the term 'muscle memory' more than a few times in my life, and I never heard that term from my high school coaches/trainers.

nutshell. memory is neural in nature.

Yes Dan .... correct

All nerves travel into the brain, which is the neural center of the body function.

I do not believe this will fit well into the essay written by Phil (above) or not, but I would like to tell my story about muscle memory.

I began shooting a bow and arrow as a very young boy (probably age 4 or 5), of course that was with a kid's bow and arrows with rubber suction cups for points. I am now 73 (March 2018) years old and figure I have been an archer for approximately 65 plus years.

During these years I shot as a right handed archer would. In February a year ago I injured my left shoulder, had surgery and spent much of 2017 trying PT and rehab for the 2017 fall bow season. By mid-October I discovered my left shoulder still was not able to hold a bow steady while I drew and aimed. I was devastated! I thought my 2017 season was gone!

Then somehow I discovered I could draw and shoot if I tried as a left handed archer. I bought left handed tackle and taught myself to shoot left handed and did have a successful 2017 bow season. Right now, March 2018, my left shoulder has regained strength and stability and a few weeks ago I tried shooting right handed again. My bow is only 35#, but I can do it. My shooting is compromised, but I am shooting right handed again and it is very much better that what I ever did as a left handed archer. The moves to load the arrow, draw, aim, and release are much more fluent and smoother than they ever were shooting as a lefty. I attribute that to muscle memory, pure and simple. My right handed shooting, after almost a year off, is better than my left handed shooting by far. The thousands of arrows I shot during my lifetime as a right handed archer prepared my body and muscles for a nearly year long layoff. The muscle memory I had established over 65 plus years paid off and I am back at it again. No, not like I was when I was 20, but at 73 I am still in the game and will be bowhunting again (I hope) this fall,...my 62nd. uninterrupted consecutive season.

That's my take on muscle memory. I am not a doctor or a medical researcher, but I do know my previous experiences as a right handed archer paid off for me. I believe the muscle memory I had learned in the previous 65 years paid dividends, BIG TIME!

Ted is correct.

George (in his first post) is saying the exact same thing as the study.

Dan can relax - the skills are still there, but you may have to shake off some rust.... and you probably won’t be able to get all the way through Foggy Mtn Breakdown at first, but you can get back there.

Disconnect is that when most people talk about Muscle Memory, they’re thinking in terms of neuromotor pathways and this study was ONLY about the muscle cells at the end of the line.

Which is a shame, because I sure would like to be able to “remember” how to squat #400 or jump a bit more than the height of my inseam or run like the wind or go for 45 minutes on a stair-climber machine set at 10/10 and my heart rate humming along at about 185....

But as the study found, there’s no get out of jail free card on fitness...

NUTS!!!

I don't want to argue with a Phd or for that matter George. I have often described the ability to pick up a knife and sharpen it by hand on a stone as muscle memory. Knowing how to hold the knife as you stroke it across the stone. But then what do I know.

I’ve always thought that “muscle memory” was a simplistic term for the satisfactory result of specific, repetitive physical training (mechanics). Never too concerned about what you call it; just know that it works. Personal experience from baseball, basketball and archery. But at the advanced age of 73, I'm finding out that age and muscle atrophy does limit the results. LOL

Elderly, I don't think many neural activities are not initiated by the brain. Explain how that could happen since the brain is the neural center. Even things like breathing are brain centered. Yeah, I'm a hillbilly for sure, but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express a few years ago.

Semantics.

Of course your body remembers how to do things; playing an instrument....shooting a basketball....shooting and arrow. how in the heck does Stephen Curry hit those long shots with such good accuracy.....or John Demmer shoot 300's? [of course John is in a much higher paying sport- grin]

Doesn't surprise me its not the muscle tissue itself...

Muscle memory is another of those terms that is too nebulous to avoid misinterpretation--like "instinctive shooting."

Muscle memory must have first been used to observe that the memory has the skill program to make the muscles to a particular sequence of movements. That's how skills play out, no matter how we try to describe it.

George: Reflex actions are initiated at the spinal level. Correct term may be Mediated...

But when you don’t know you’re gonna do it ‘til after you’ve done it, that’s because it happened via reflex.

Much better to yank your hand off of the hot stove before you’ve wasted a whole bunch of time noticing the discomfort, figuring out what’s causing it and then deciding what to do about it before you send the message to your shoulder muscles.

Muscle memory = reaction to stimulus.

Maybe?

I minored in genetics' in college and never heard of being able to turn on "gene's" but that was eons ago.

Bob

GF, yes...and I consider the hot stove analogy as part of the natural, instinctive fight/flight response. There's an awful lot I don't know about the brain/spine and all of the gozintos therein. That said, I don't have a problem with someone using the term 'muscle memory'....which I would equate to a response to a learned trait.

I think several issues are being confused here. Memory=remembering how to do something. Maintaining muscle mass as opposed to atrophy is something else. I can't debate the technical terms but I am observant. Some examples I have noticed. You get use to drawing a 60 pound compound. The muscles are used at the start of the draw. It don't transfer to a 60 pound stick at all. The reverse of that you get where you can hold a stick and the muscles don't want to react at the start of a compound draw. You can creep with a stick,the CP will snatch it away from you. Letting down is a completely different thing. The two are not easily switched. Something is learning somewhere. Not sure how it relates but you can draw a 25 pound bow 10,000 times. It will not ever make you capable of drawing a 100 pound bow?? Just a couple of observations that are archery related. >>>----> ken

The last six paragraphs in the OP should not come as a surprise to anyone. It makes sense. Deep down we knew a lot of this stuff, but did not know the scientific explanation behind it. I’m not down playing any of this. Science is fascinating in all facets. We all benefit from the knowledge gained. Sorry for the rambling.

This site sure has gotten cerebral lately.

Hope this doesn’t turn out like the archers paradox thread.

MP

True, Phil. I never thought otherwise. Jawge

I never understood the term muscle memory. After all muscles haven't a mind to remember anything. I think a better term might be ingrained memory. If you do something often enough it becomes part of you. No one can take a baseball the very first time and throw strikes. You must learn how to throw the ball and then learn how to throw strikes. Once you learn you never forget. "Like riding a bike." Frank

Sensory input of feeling from the nerves is all it is.

Basically, you're just remembering how something feels, or is supposed to feel when it's "working right" for you.

You get to that familiar spot, and your brain goes - "Ahhhhh, that's the sweet spot."

Sex is a good example of that, although by now I probably have forgotten most of what I used to know.

8^) X 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Rick

We call it muscle memory, but actually it is just your senses, you remember how it feels to shoot a bow, there are a lot of things going on when you do that, it's all related, there isn't just one thing in your body that does it all. Like riding a bicycle you never forget.

Kind of like riding a bike.

Muscles may not have memory but like in a golf swing, you know when you are in the postition at the top by feel. Same on the downswing, impact, and follow through.

Like others said, you know how it feels to be at full draw and expansion, release, and follow through.

muscle memory?Or subconscious utilization of well trained muscles.

"Muscle memory" is what we are told is happening when the intention of a movement has the expected result without us thinking how to do it while doing it. There the 3 stages of "muscle memory": - "Oh Sh*t!" stage - "Yeah, it felt good" stage - "Nailed it!" stage

A whole bunch of you are the kind who don't bother to read all the posts, aren't you.

I know that with my life style if I didn't exercise I wouldn't have any muscle memory, because I'd be dead. It's just the opposite of smoking.

Bowmania

All the posts? Not really. Just the first post because is interesting to see on what some are spending money: trying to demonstrate that there is no real "muscle memory" literally when that expression is just a pseudo-scientific expression used to scare people to train hard.

We use the term 'muscle memory' because 'neuro-muscular memory' is awkward.

Draven, if one has to be 'scared' into training hard, they will never excell.

Muscle memory is merely another, shorter way of saying, "practice makes perfect". And ultimately it's the BRAIN that you're "training" more than the muscles. Semantics is right!

DanaC, how do you think BAD HABITS are ingrained? Through this "muscle memory" that it doesn't exist according to the study. "Muscle memory" literally doesn't exist - take out the brain from the equation and you have just meat.

Train hard now,,,,so you dont bleed later

For me training hard it means I am 100% mentally "there" while doing the "learning" part of the training. If someone is very honest with himself, is not the normal thing that is happening during an usual training session. It's good to see army slogans, but nobody is saying how many times the Sergeant or Corporal was cursing the recruits for not being "there". "Muscle memory" is the result of a complex process of adding specific motor movements to the brain’s memory, not a result of a specific movement of the muscle "ingrained" in its fiber.

I’ve always viewed “muscle memory” as how it relates to the brain. If I’m sitting at a stoplight, and I’m in a hurry to go somewhere, my right leg is cocked and locked to hit the gas the second that light turns green. That said, if a green arrow lights up first, my leg will instantly react, then relax when I see it’s only a arrow...??

..... however, just to put the cat among the pigeons ....I read this today which I thought was interesting....

..."Muscle memory and a new cellular model for muscle atrophy and hypertrophy Journal of Experimental Biology (2016) 219, 235-242

Memory is a process in which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved. For vertebrates, the modern view has been that it occurs only in the brain. This review describes a cellular memory in skeletal muscle in which hypertrophy is remembered such that a fibre that has previously been large, but subsequently lost its mass, can regain mass faster than naive fibres. A new cell biological model based on the literature, with the most reliable methods for identifying myonuclei, can explain this phenomenon. According to this model, previously untrained fibres recruit myonuclei from activated satellite cells before hypertrophic growth. Even if subsequentlysubjected to grave atrophy, the higher number of myonuclei is retained, and the myonuclei seem to be protected against the elevated apoptotic activity observed in atrophying muscle tissue. Fibres that have acquired a higher number of myonuclei grow faster when subjected to overload exercise, thus the nuclei represent a functionally important memory of previous strength. This memory might be very long lasting in humans, as myonuclei are stable for at least 15 years and might even be permanent. However, myonuclei are harder to recruit in the elderly, and if the long-lasting muscle memory also exists in humans, one should consider early strength training as a public health advice. In addition, myonuclei are recruited during steroid use and encode a muscle memory, at least in rodents. Thus, extending the exclusion time for doping offenders should be considered.

I am putting it out there that her experiment really means zilch sedentary people could not do what you quoted.ie 60 kicks a minite x45 minites=2700 kicks.The majority of people would struggle to do 100 continuis kicks when they are considerd sedentary. Whats the downer on roids+gh when taken as hormone replacement Its the massive overdoseing by bodybuilders thats the real problem.

I’m not sure if this fits into this conversation; In 2014 I injured the ITBand(Iliotibal Muscle) in my right leg. My entire right leg was totally weak. When I asked the Dr. why it was so weak, the Doctor told me when a muscle is injured, the surrounding muscles shut down, so you can’t do further damage to the muscle. This to me sounds like a collabrative effort between the muscle group and the brain.

" If you do something often enough it becomes part of you. "

That statement is (quite literally) 100% Anatomically Correct.

When you learn something new, you grow a new neurological circuit in your brain. Just a wispy little thing that will wither away quite quickly if it only happens once.

But if you reinforce the learning, the circuit that you've built in your brain will grow, as will the connections between that circuit and the motor neurons that were involved. Every time you repeat the learned action, the circuit gets bigger and stronger and faster and better coordinated. And the difference between that neuromotor circuit in a top-end athlete and a beginner is the difference between the copper wires in your household phone jack and a transatlantic fiber-optic telecommunications cable.

And as some of the guys said about "being there" mentally while you train - the more carefully you build that circuit, the faster it will grow and the more precise it will be. If you build the circuit for an action carefully enough, your body will literally NOT KNOW HOW to do it wrong. In our application, that means that if you make it a habit to settle into your anchor point in precisely the same spot every time that you draw your bow, the nerves and muscles will work together to locate your nock in exactly the same spot every time.

In the beginning, you HAVE TO study it and focus on it, but ultimately that circuit will be so potent that it will run with a high level of precision on auto-pilot. And the reason that so many people seem to put the Stink in "Instinctive" is that they are taking the advice of a guy who is a good bowyer/accomplished bowhunter who wrote a bunch of articles and a couple of books, and they are trying to begin at the end-point, rather than reading up on what the cutting edge science says and committing to the work of dismantling the existing circuit and building a new one much more carefully...

"I am putting it out there that her experiment really means zilch sedentary people could not do what you quoted.ie 60 kicks a minite x45 minites=2700 kicks."

I had the same thought, but if you want to be taken seriously with a challenge like that, you have to read the paper and find out exactly what they mean by "kicks". Not many sedentary people can kick a soccer ball half the length of a field once, but most would have very little difficulty sitting in a chair swinging their leg back & forth once/second...

Sorry GF, I can see what you're getting at but neural plasticity doesn't quite work like that.....

... you said " When you learn something new, you grow a new neurological circuit in your brain. Just a wispy little thing that will wither away quite quickly if it only happens once" ... the neural pathways already exist. The learning process is establishing multiple motor neuron pathways to the same motor neuron end plate

I don't see yet how "muscle memory" as in "brain coordinated action of the muscles through a learning process" is a failure. I see pieces of the puzzle not working when are not used in the system.

“I hope your Doctor didn't tell you the IT band was a muscle. It is a fascia.” Deep Fascia is the connective tissue associated with the muscle.

There were many things we knew long ago, but then there were some, we never did know.

George, I find the title of the topic absurd, not the study.

Only speaking for myself, Draven. Others mileage can vary. As I stated above a ways, I have no problem with the term as it seems to apply in many contexts.

Oh my God, did that original post really say " instinctive memory" Lol.... Of course it is a team effort of the mind and body, mostly mind and genetics..

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