Muscle Memory
Most people who have worked out have heard of the term muscle memory. When a person gets back into lifting weights after a lay off, it’s always easier for them to return to their previous levels of strength and size than it was to get there in the first place.
All memory is retrieved from inside the brain which commands all action and response. Our brains have the capacity to store data and skills learned from the past in the form of emotion and memory.
Muscle memory therefore becomes an unconscious process. The muscles grow accustomed to certain types of movement. This is one of the reasons that many activities that involve the body’s muscles, like most muscle building workout routines, learning proper technique is always emphasized.
Many elite level athletes believe that muscle memory is best developed when the same activities are practiced repeatedly time after time. Eventually the movement apparently becomes second nature. It’s as if we no longer are paying attention but of course it’s all coming from the same area of the brain that controls everything.
The longer we carry muscle mass or excess fat the more the body learns from that realism or physical state and acknowledges it as normal. The longer we affirm a certain state the more likely the body will maintain that state.
In conclusion, to get to a point or physical state that muscle memory will kick in is only after many hours of training and thousands of repetitions have taken place. As everybody is truly different and unique there is really no exact figure that you can put on it. The longer you train the more likely you are of experiencing muscle memory.
Hans K Anderson
