Thread: Muscle Memory

Originally Posted by viet_jon

What is muscle memory?

I don't know the scientific explanation of why it happens...but basically...it is easier to get back what you had than to improve on what you've got.

Originally Posted by PWGriffin

I don't know the scientific explanation of why it happens...but basically...it is easier to get back what you had than to improve on what you've got.

isn't it, for example, swinging a baseball bat, or shooting a basketball?

how can a body builder benefit from muscle memory?


say squatting, you typically do 180x8, 220x5, 230x4, 240x3.

but instead you do, 180x8, 220x5, 250x1, 240x4. Is this muscle memory?

Originally Posted by viet_jon

isn't it, for example, swinging a baseball bat, or shooting a basketball?

those are examples of motor patterns...or learned movements.

You are thinking about this all wrong...a bodybuilder can't really benefit from muscle memory unless he, for some reason, has to take off a substantial amount of time from the gym.

Say I lifted for two years. In that two years I took my bench from 100lbs to 200lbs, then I took a year off cuz I severed my big toe in a freak accident. Well I start working out again and am back at that 100lb bench press....well this time, because of muscle memory, I can get back to a 200lb bench in 6 months instead of the two years that it initially took me to build up to that.

Get the point?? THAT's muscle memory....the muscle "remembering" how strong it was.

Originally Posted by PWGriffin

those are examples of motor patterns...or learned movements.

You are thinking about this all wrong...a bodybuilder can't really benefit from muscle memory unless he, for some reason, has to take off a substantial amount of time from the gym.

Say I lifted for two years. In that two years I took my bench from 100lbs to 200lbs, then I took a year off cuz I severed my big toe in a freak accident. Well I start working out again and am back at that 100lb bench press....well this time, because of muscle memory, I can get back to a 200lb bench in 6 months instead of the two years that it initially took me to build up to that.

Get the point?? THAT's muscle memory....the muscle "remembering" how strong it was.

My uncommon natural muscle growth, from working out for only 7 months (Gallery Photo)... in my estimation, is derived from the fact that I worked out in my late 20's for a couple of years. (I've been working out for 9 months after 15 years of relative anerobic inactivity.)

Those muscle fibers had reached a certain state. Though "deflated" by lack of use (obtusely simple term)... they might have been "encouraged" to resume a former state.

That's what "muscle memory" implies to me.

We need an expert here. LOL

Originally Posted by PWGriffin

those are examples of motor patterns...or learned movements.

You are thinking about this all wrong...a bodybuilder can't really benefit from muscle memory unless he, for some reason, has to take off a substantial amount of time from the gym.

Say I lifted for two years. In that two years I took my bench from 100lbs to 200lbs, then I took a year off cuz I severed my big toe in a freak accident. Well I start working out again and am back at that 100lb bench press....well this time, because of muscle memory, I can get back to a 200lb bench in 6 months instead of the two years that it initially took me to build up to that.

Get the point?? THAT's muscle memory....the muscle "remembering" how strong it was.

This is the way ive always understood what the term "muscle memory" means.

Basically, your muscles remember what it's like to be big and strong. So even after years of inactivity, you'll quickly regain most of what you once had.

If you quit lifting when you get married, stay inactive for 10 years, and then start bodybuilding again, you'll quickly get your current physical state back.

Originally Posted by Witchblade

Basically, your muscles remember what it's like to be big and strong. So even after years of inactivity, you'll quickly regain most of what you once had.

If you quit lifting when you get married, stay inactive for 10 years, and then start bodybuilding again, you'll quickly get your current physical state back.

bad example....everyone knows your test levels hit the shitter once you get married.

Honestly, I think it has to do more with learned motor programs than anything else. Possibly, there is some connection to increased enzyme and energy substrate concentrations that remain even after a decent bout of inactivity, but it's all speculation. I don't really understand the phenomenon fully.

I wonder how much of it is mental.

Originally Posted by PWGriffin

those are examples of motor patterns...or learned movements.

You are thinking about this all wrong...a bodybuilder can't really benefit from muscle memory unless he, for some reason, has to take off a substantial amount of time from the gym.

Say I lifted for two years. In that two years I took my bench from 100lbs to 200lbs, then I took a year off cuz I severed my big toe in a freak accident. Well I start working out again and am back at that 100lb bench press....well this time, because of muscle memory, I can get back to a 200lb bench in 6 months instead of the two years that it initially took me to build up to that.

Get the point?? THAT's muscle memory....the muscle "remembering" how strong it was.

i dunno....your usually spot on, but this time I think you might be wrong. *i think*

ARTICLE

Originally Posted by article

When an active person trains at a wellness center, a gym, or health club, he or she continuously performs movement after movement, often of the same exercise(s), in an effort to stimulate the body's adaption process. Ultimately, the end result is to induce a physiological change such as increased levels of fitness, body composition, strength, flexibility, endurance, weight loss, blood sugar control, blood pressure control, cholesterol reduction, etc.

Exercisers rely upon the body's ability to assimilate a given activity and adapt to the training. The body's ability to remember a given exercise, repetition after repetition, induces it's own form of muscle memory and adapts to the training by increasing its physical fitness in preperation for the next training session. As a body adapts to training, the subsequent changes are a form or representation of its "muscle memory". The very same concept holds true for the bowler-athlete attempting to develop or enhance his or her skill level.

Muscle memory, a layman's term for neuromuscular facilitation, is the process of the neuromuscular system exhibiting a motor skill. Without sounding scientific, there are two types of motor skills, fine and gross. Fine motor skills are very minute and small skills we perform with out hands such as brushing our teeth, combing our hair, or using a pencil or pen to write. Gross motor skills are those actions that require large body parts and large body movements like running, jumping throwing, golfing, swimming, or lifting weights.

Muscle memory is fashioned over time through repetition of a given motor skill. When you first began to learn how to crush your teeth, comb your, or even drive a vehicle, you quickly realized it was not as easy as it looked. As you reinforced those movements days after day after day, your neural system learned those fine and gross motor skills to the degree that you are no longer required to think about them, but merely react and perform. Today, if you pick up your hair brush, you automatically have a certain motion, style, number of strokes, and amount of pressure you comb your hair without thinking about each. It just happens. That's muscle memory.

I started this thread because I discovered something very interesting while training this week.

I misinterpreted what Dale said about the program he does. He outlined it as Power movement, then push/pull/legs 4x8x4 undulating, then ESD. By that, I thought he meant squat 4x8x4, chins, 8x4x8, dips 4x8x4 etc.

As I went through these repranges, on the last set of 8x4x8, I hit PR's all week.

Say bench for example, usually 70's for 6-7 reps was my PR, using incremental weights.

This week I did.
60x10 (warm-up)
70x7
80x4
70x8

Did my upper body 'get use to the weights' of 80lbs DB's on set two? Which helped break my PR for set three?

muscle memory is one of the terms that gets thrown around at times. Perhaps we all have different definitions of the term.

What the article is referring to is the development of motor patterns....it literally says so. That is something I am familiar with, just never heard of it referred to as "muscle memory".

Originally Posted by PWGriffin

muscle memory is one of the terms that gets thrown around at times. Perhaps we all have different definitions of the term.

What the article is referring to is the development of motor patterns....it literally says so. That is something I am familiar with, just never heard of it referred to as "muscle memory".

must be.

this article describes it in the sense that you explained.

i find that alot with BB terms.

Originally Posted by viet_jon

i dunno....your usually spot on, but this time I think you might be wrong. *i think*

ARTICLE





I started this thread because I discovered something very interesting while training this week.

I misinterpreted what Dale said about the program he does. He outlined it as Power movement, then push/pull/legs 4x8x4 undulating, then ESD. By that, I thought he meant squat 4x8x4, chins, 8x4x8, dips 4x8x4 etc.

As I went through these repranges, on the last set of 8x4x8, I hit PR's all week.

Say bench for example, usually 70's for 6-7 reps was my PR, using incremental weights.

This week I did.
60x10 (warm-up)
70x7
80x4
70x8

Did my upper body 'get use to the weights' of 80lbs DB's on set two? Which helped break my PR for set three?

Your nervous system was firing on all cylinders by the time you hit that last set because you had moved up in intensity. That's my guess.

Originally Posted by CowPimp

Your nervous system was firing on all cylinders by the time you hit that last set because you had moved up in intensity. That's my guess.

alwyn cosgrove recommends wave loading in one of his books...it was purely a mental trick.....so ur idea may very well be 100% accurate.

I remember hearing something that muscle fibers or muscles are covered by a dense layer of connective tissue (fascia) and that this really does inhibit muscle growth as there's not enough room for what ever factors cause growth, yet once they're stretched there's ample room to absorb everything that is needed and grow.

Another perspective - who knows?