Muscle Memory…Does it really remember?
For me, yes it does. If you’ve read my previous blogs then you know i had a serious injury in August. If you didn’t, well here’s a quick update. I broke my fibula, fractured the fibula from the top to the bottom (my leg was twisted), multiple tibial plateau fractures and sprained ligaments in my ankle and my knee.
Obviously i was barely moving for weeks. No walking, no cooking, no cleaning and no driving. I broke my right leg. 
When it was time to start walking again, there was little to no muscle left in my right leg. It was half the size if not smaller than my left leg.
I’ve been going to physiotherapy for 4 weeks now and i’m not having any problems getting those muscles to work for me again. I’ve tripled the weight i press in just 2 weeks. I’ve also started back at the gym. Nothing to heavy, full body w/o 3 times a week. I didn’t realize how much muscle the rest of my body lost until i started training again. I’m still really weak compared to what i was lifting before.
Now i’ve always thrown around the statement “thank god for muscle memory”. Then i thought about it, i really don’t know what that is. I did some research and most of what i found states that it’s neurological. That your brain is what remembers, not your muscles. This didn’t make sense to me. If i think back to when i was a mechanic for 5yrs, i had gained a lot of strength and muscle in my upper body due to my profession, and when i stopped being a mechanic, i lost most of that muscle. When i started training again in Jan 09, which is years later, it took less than a month to gain most of my muscles. I just figured “muscle memory”, right? But if it’s neurological, why would they come back so quickly when i had lived for years without them.
So i did a little more searching and found one article which quotes a study done on muscle fibers before resistance training, during resistance training and after 3 months of detraining. My understanding of this article is that when you engage in resistance training you actually change your muscle fibers, and leaving you more fibers for growth when you start training again than what you had to begin with.
I believe this. Unfortunately i can’t find anything else that backs up this statement.
http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/haycock/muscle-memory.htm
If you’ve found something else about muscle memory don’t hesitate to post it.
October 31, 2009 at 8:05 am
It’s good to see you back! I’m glad that you’re recovering so well from your injury!
I agree with you on the muscle memory. But I think it might be a combination of neurological and actual muscle "memory".
Our brains remember movements that are repetitive in nature (this is why if you have proper form with exercises and then don’t exercise for years and then restart, your body will "remember" the correct form). But I also know that when I stopped working out for years and then started again, it didn’t take me long at all to regain the strength I had lost.
October 31, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I’m glad to be back.
4 weeks a go i was 150lb again and i’m back down to 141lb. I know a lot of it is water but not all of it.