The concept of muscle memory is controversial. Most bodybuilders have experienced this phenomenon, yet virtually no discussions of this topic have appeared in scientific and athletic publications. While there is some speculation herein, these ideas are certain to help you far better recognize your body’s response to training after a layoff.
Prior to you know it, a month has gone by. Two months. Six months. I’ll get back to it sometime soon, you keep saying. You’re finally ready – a year later.
Don’t worry. Life can get in the way of even the most dedicated bodybuilder’s workouts. Be glad that you are ready to commit to consistent training once more. For those of you who haven’t attempted a tiny comeback before, here’s great news.
Gaining muscle size seems to be easier the second time around – even should you starting from the same place. That’s suitable. It appears that your muscles can reach their former size (their size whenever you stopped working out) in a considerably shorter time than it took to accomplish that size that initial time you trained.
If you’re an experienced bodybuilder who has returned to square one more occasions than you wish to bear in mind, you possibly know exactly what I mean. The truth is, even quite a few scientists and coaches are convinced this phenomenon occurs – having witnessed initial hand. No one has a clue how this happens. Why really should you pack on muscle size quicker when ‘retraining?’ It just doesn’t make sense.
With a lot of athletes and other people observing this mystery of the iron game, some plausible explanation should exist. I’ll describe some possible reasons why your muscle may appear to have a memory. Though understanding that the following ideas may possibly assist you to make a comeback, maintain in mind that these are just good guesses – not dogma.
Mind Games
Certainly, we can’t overlook the possibility that muscle memory doesn’t actually happen at all. In other words, it’s entirely probable that these modifications have nothing to do with muscular adaptation. Then why do muscles seem to progress quicker during a comeback? Well, it could all be inside your head. Here’s what I mean.
The initial time you trained consistently, you were likely a bit hesitant with the weights. You weren’t too positive how your muscles would respond and most importantly, you didn’t have a great idea how much weight you could lift. So you were cautious when it came to massive weight increases – at least until you felt you could handle the heavier weight safely.
When generating a comeback, that initial fear is gone. You know it is possible to manage heavier and heavier weights due to the fact you’ve performed it before. You most likely expect to attain your former strength soon, anyway. For these reasons, you are a lot more likely to add weight to the bar at a quicker rate – pushing yourself as never prior to. Needless to say, this progressive overload will lead to quicker gains in strength and size.
The Nerve of those Muscle Cells
Maybe the most likely explanation of muscle memory involves the neurons (nerve cells) that stimulate your muscles. These neurons tell all the muscle fibers (muscle cells) they innervate to contract. But, depending on the amount of weight being lifted, only a tiny percentage of neurons innervating a certain muscle may be recruited to stimulate their fibers. A lot more weight on the bar – additional neurons involved and more fibers stimulated. Basic sufficient, suitable?
Here’s some thing genuinely fascinating. Even during maximal voluntary contraction (attempting your max on any lift), you’re still not recruiting all the muscle fibers inside your working muscles. The truth is, it is this discrepancy in between the percentage of fibers we typically recruit and what we theoretically can recruit (100%) that may account for those rare, but documented feats of superhuman strength.
What has that got to do with muscle memory? Properly, one way your muscles may adapt to the stresses of consistent training would be to boost over the long run the total percentage of fibers recruited during maximal and near-maximal lifts. Here’s the feasible scenario:
The first time you trained, you recruited a certain percentage of muscle fibers throughout maximal lifts. As you trained far more and more, this percentage increased. Then you stopped working out. When creating a comeback, this ability to recruit a greater percentage of muscle fibers remains intact. For that reason, you are starting with a capacity to develop far more force within a muscle (because much more fibers may be activated). Compared to the initial time you trained, you are one step ahead.
In case you can develop more maximal force, then it is possible to lift much more weight – you’re a bit stronger. Though you may feel you are starting from the same location, this greater strength will enable you to progress more rapidly, resulting in an ability to regain muscle size at a quicker pace.
The second way that neurons could be involved in muscle memory deals with skill development. Once you start working out, your muscles interpret most of the lifts as new movements. So your neurons must develop the appropriate pattern of stimulation to get the weight up. Keep in mind how shaky the bar was the first time you tried the bench press?
Fibers must be activated in just the correct sequence to perform complex movements like the bench or the squat. And understanding a new skill (just like trying to swing a golf club, and so on.) may take quite a long time. The 1st time around, it might have taken you weeks to feel steady on the bench. Now those neural patterns have been developed and though they may be rusty, they can return incredibly swiftly after a layoff. What could be happening here is that after you quit working out you lose some of those neural patterns. Once you function out again the neurological modifications come faster. This accelerated restoration of neurological control will enable you to stimulate your muscles a lot more efficiently, eventually causing the leveling off you reach in muscle strength and hypertrophy to be higher. You may be stronger and bigger when the neural patterning is performed the second time around.
Muscular Adaptations
Another feasible explanation of muscle memory concerns particular changes in your muscles that common training might create. Your muscles may possibly adapt in two techniques that could translate into faster gains during retraining. First, you may be able to enhance the capillary bed surrounding muscle cells, creating a higher blood supply to the working muscle. If this happens, and quite a few scientists believe it does, you would then be able to improve the nutrient (glucose, branch-chain amino acids, etc.) availability to the muscle cell. Also, you may well eliminate the waste products of repeated muscular work and energy production (lactic acid, heat hydrogen ions, and so on.) at a quicker rate. Because these waste products can limit performance, with the increased capillary bed, you would be in a position to train harder and longer.
Either or both of these situations would likely enable you to produce a far more helpful muscular stimulus. This is the key in terms of muscle memory. These positive adjustments from an enhanced blood supply would be restored soon after a comeback because the capillary beds would swiftly reopen. Thus you would have the advantage of a higher muscular stimulus from the start of retraining. This would lead to a greater adaptation – stronger and bigger muscles – and give the illusion of muscle memory.
Second, the enzymes that are involved in essential bio-chemical reactions could be responsible for muscle memory. For example, we know that enzymes in reactions leading to the storage of glycogen (your energy source during anaerobic function) could be enhanced with training. It’s plausible that enzymes involved in protein synthesis may well boost in concentration and activity following repeated muscular stimuli and damage. It may truly be those enzymes that have a memory, speedily returning to their former increased concentrations and turning on these processes earlier. If this occurred, you’d have the ability to work out harder, possibly recover quicker, and gained muscle mass more speedily than when you 1st trained.