Ep. #220: “Muscle Memory” is Real and Here’s How It Works

[00:00:00] Hey, this is Mike and welcome to another installment in my in five minutes or less series, where I answer one common question quickly and simply, because while long form content is great, sometimes it is also nice when someone just gets right to the point and tells you what to do and how to do it in five minutes or less.

And that’s what I do in these episodes. In this video slash podcast, we are going to talk about muscle memory. Now if you’ve been kicking around fitness circles for a while, you’ve probably heard of muscle memory and you’ve probably heard from people on both sides of the fence, you’ve probably heard some people say that it is absolutely real and that there is a good physiological explanation for it.

And on the other hand, you’ve probably heard people say that it is not real and mostly just a figment of people’s imaginations. Now, in case you haven’t [00:01:00] heard of muscle memory it’s not referring to your muscles literally remembering anything. What it is it’s really a theory that’s usually offered to explain why muscle is much easier to regain once you’ve gained it the first time.

And that is a very real physiological phenomenon that most people that have a fair amount of resistance training under their belts, fair amount of weightlifting under their belts have. Experienced, you put in the work to build a muscle the first time and then for one reason or another, you become detrained, you lose size and I mean you can lose a considerable amount of size really.

And then though, when you get back at it, that muscle that you gained previously comes back much faster. It’s much easier to regain than it was before. For example, my arms fluctuate between 17 and 17 and a half inches flexed. Of course, depending on my body fat levels. And [00:02:00] what I’m doing with my training.

So how much direct arm training I’m doing and years ago, my arms were a bit smaller. Let’s say, I don’t have exact measurements from the time, but I would guess they’re probably around 16, maybe 16 and a half inches. And I fractured my wrist playing football, my left wrist. And I was in a full arm cast for six weeks, of course, unable to train my left arm.

And when I got the cast off. My left arm looked basically like I didn’t lift and I kept on going to the gym and doing what I could do. So I would do exercises for my right arm just to try to maintain at least the muscle there and I would do lower body stuff until eventually my cast smelled so bad that I had to just stop.

And that was probably for the last few weeks. I just did not know exercise whatsoever because my cast was starting to smell like rotten death. And so I get the cast off. And my right arm looks pretty trained and my left arm, again, I don’t remember taking a measurement. I may have, this was a number of years ago, but I would guess I lost a solid two inches probably [00:03:00] on my arm.

Again, it looked. Hilarious. I didn’t take pictures, which I really should have just to document it. How big of a joke have you ever seen that internet meme of the dude who jerks off all the time with his right arm. It’s like a cartoon that went around the internet a lot, right? So he has a super jacked right arm and then a string being left arm.

That was basically me when I got that cast off. And so I got back in the gym right away. And I was even was a bit limited with what I could do for my left arm because I couldn’t rotate my forearm and put a lot of weight on it. So I had to do a like hammer curls, reverse corals, but I just started doing what I could do.

A bench press was a little bit sketchy in the beginning, but within a few months, I’d say two to three months, my left arm had caught back up. to my right arm. It was back to its original pre injury size in just a few months. And that took me years of dedicated arm training to get to where I was at before I got hurt.

So that’s thing that is usually chalked up [00:04:00] to muscle memory. But how true is that? When we look at the physiology in play neurological mechanisms can explain the rapid regain and strength, but not quite the. Rapid regain in muscle size. So is it that your muscle fibers do have some sort of memory of where they were previously?

In more conditioned states in the past, and that makes it easier for them to get back to those states. To answer that question, we have to talk a bit about the physiology of muscle cells and muscle growth and how muscle fibers get bigger.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or Advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone [00:05:00] else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say. Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness. And the first thing is a rather interesting fact that muscle cells are quite large and are actually one of the few cells in your body that is multi nuclear meaning.

muscle cells contain multiple nuclei. Now, as you train your muscles and as you stimulate them to grow primarily by overloading them, as progressive overload is the primary driver of muscle growth. What happens is new nuclei are added to the muscle cells. And that process of adding new nuclei to your muscle cells is what allows them to get [00:06:00] bigger.

In fact, studies show that the number of nuclei in muscle fibers is one of the most important conditions that regulates muscle size. Now, that leads us to a question. So if resistance training causes the body to add nuclei to muscle cells, and that in turn allows muscle fibers to get bigger, what happens when you stop training for a while and then the muscles shrink?

What’s happening at a physiological level? The answer to that question really gets to the heart of the muscle memory debate because it was once learned that when you become de trained, so when you stop training for a while and your muscles shrink in size and you lose strength, you lose muscle endurance and so forth, it was once believed that your body also shed the additional muscle cell nuclei that were accumulated during your period of training.

This loss of muscle cell nuclei, [00:07:00] it was believed, accounted for the loss in muscle size and the loss of strength and muscle endurance and so forth. But, we now know that this isn’t the case. It turns out that while detraining absolutely does result in smaller and weaker muscles there’s no arguing that.

New research shows that the new nuclei that were added during the training period are retained for at least three months of inactivity. And there’s actually even evidence that these nuclei are never lost, meaning that it is very possible that resistance training actually produces permanent physiological changes in your muscles.

Simply put the old idea that nuclei are added to muscle cells during periods of training and then lost during periods of detraining is simply false. According to what we know now, it looks like it goes more like this. So you subject your muscles to overload [00:08:00] and then new nuclei are acquired for the first time.

And then you’ve trained further. You also, do what you need to do with your diet. And then these nuclei synthesize new muscle proteins and that then results in bigger muscle fibers. Then during a period of detraining, your muscles are resistant to atrophy in part because of the amount of new nuclei that they have gained during the period of training.

But if the period of inactivity goes on for too long, eventually. Protein degradation rates exceed protein synthesis rates and muscles shrink in size because muscle proteins are cannibalized. However, the nuclei that were added during the training period are not lost. Finally, when you resume training at some point in the future, your muscles are able to grow a lot faster this second time around because that first step of adding nuclei, which takes [00:09:00] time and takes work.

And that process explains why retraining is always easier and you always see results a lot faster than training for the first time. Why gaining muscle the first time around is always easier. takes a lot more time and work than the second time around or third time around and so forth. Now, I don’t know about you, but I find this research pretty encouraging because it’s nice to know that a lot of the work that we are putting in the gym is actually going to pay dividends for the rest of our lives.

In fact, some scientists believe that filling up our muscles with as many nuclei as possible When we’re young. So basically getting as jacked as possible as we can when we’re young can benefit us greatly as we get older because a building muscle and gaining strength does get harder as we get older.

It’s never too late. You can [00:10:00] gain muscle and strength at any age, but it is easier when we’re younger than when we’re older and B persistent muscle loss, sarcopenia, which is the medical. Term for it is one of the most serious health risks associated with aging. The bottom line is if we want to look and feel and function as good as possible in our 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond, then we want to have a considerable amount of Whole body muscle and strength, period.

I find the research on muscle memory encouraging also because it tells us that taking a few weeks off the gym, even if you have to take a month off, even if you have to take two months off, really isn’t that big of a setback because whatever muscle that you may lose, and just so you know, if you keep your diet at least relatively high protein, you really are not going to see any significant muscle loss.

Until about three or four weeks of inactivity. So let’s say you have [00:11:00] to take a month off the gym and you lose a very small amount of muscle. Who cares? You’re going to gain it back very quickly. Even if you have to take six months off the gym and you lose a considerable amount of muscle, it’s still encouraging to know that whatever you lost is going to come back very quickly.

This is also something to keep in mind when you’re cutting because, yes, if you do everything right when you’re cutting, if you get your calories right, your macros you get your exercise set up right, you’re not doing too much cardio, you’re doing plenty of resistance training, blah, blah, blah, you really shouldn’t lose any muscle to speak of, but if for whatever reason you do lose some muscle, and many people think that they lose muscle when they’re cutting, by the way, and it’s not actual muscle.

lean mass, lean muscle tissue that they’re losing. It’s just water and glycogen. So they look smaller and they’re a little bit weaker and they think they’ve lost muscle. But if you know that you actually have lost muscle due to, whatever it was, you did too much cardio or you didn’t eat enough protein or your calories are too low or whatever, You still can [00:12:00] rest easy knowing that, okay, finish your cut.

And then once your calories are back, around maintenance, maybe slight surplus, you’re going to gain whatever muscle you lost back very quickly. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don’t mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick comment review of it on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from.

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Lastly, If you didn’t like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife. com and share your thoughts on how you [00:13:00] think it could be better. I read everything myself, and I’m always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. Alright, that’s it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

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