Do you mean in strength training terms? I've never really liked that term, I think it's more to do with generalized motor programs, once you have a schema for a movement it's not really going anywhere or if it does leave it's going to be a very slow process that will be recovered as soon as you restart the activity. The muscles obviously adapt to their commands from the nervous system so there are physiological changes, I think everything influences everything and it's too complex to just call it 'muscle memory'. What are your thoughts Scrap?
:huh I know very little about the subject, but if we're talking about muscle memory in terms of developing neural pathways for certain movements then it's much more than just a reflex. It's not a sport specific term as far as I'm concerned, stuff like learning to walk or ride a bike will come under muscle memory. I've got no idea how it actually works or the mechanism behind it, but I was reading about it in the Lounge (I'm fairly sure it was a post by carrot4u, but my memory's ****) and he was suggesting that if you only did bicep curls (for example) on your right arm for two years and no work whatsoever with your left, your left bicep would still increase in size and strength, even if it wasn't by the same amount as your right arm. I can't get my head around how that would work if it's true, but I've heard you also develop your upper body strength purely by doing squats, so there could be something in it.
well reflex would be a more encompassing term then. like when some one punches at you its your reflex to block where as how you block would be the muscle memory from blocking thousands of times in sparring. like with riding a bike, if you are going off balance your reflex is to correct your balance. how you correct your balance would be muscle memory. i though that nural pathways is more along the lines of how well your brain can activate muscles. like if you work out your chest enough eventually you can flex it, then if you continue to work you ches you can flex it like arnold swarz. not that your training your chest to do something specific, but that your improving the control of your chest as you pave the nural pathways.
Lefty,i t is complex, but other than the Heart, and the Brain, theres no muscle memory. Its all down to the Chemical Balance.
Its a term that i believe was over used to explain abilitys before it was understood how the body performs actions on auto pilot, as humans we like to watch other people, we do this because we like to put ourselves into their positions, try to experience, feel what they may be feeling, its not just an eye thing going on there. we do this to learn actions. we also do it out of interest for the activity were watching or the person. but we all do it so theres a reason. This makes me think maybe rather than 'setting' these 'railway line' type muscle memory actions by doing which has always seemed a bit primative to me anyway, it may be the feel thats more important. i think its more about feel, also knowing in and out what you want from the body during a certain task, having that mental template to 'do', then feel as much as your own capability will allow as you do it. Thats what im starting to think and feel about it anyway lol. just my opinion at this moment in time, it will be different next week lol The muscle memory theory has always been challenged from the start, i remember years back talking to a guy in the local gym, we called him ''muscle memory kid'' he would refer to everything as muscle memory he was obsessed, i remember reading some solid pieces with good references at the time and we talked about muscle memory in terms of training for size, a few times, his theory was like most, the muscle remembers where it was and can quickly get back there in terms of developing non contractile and contractile tissue, simply because its been their before, i was scepticle then and even more so now, id been reading around the time that the rapid muscle re-gain that was being explained away by ''muscle memory'' was seemingly largly due to previously stretched fascias, rather than a form of memory. i would also say but this is just my opinion, experience in lifts and in doing them and what they are for is a massive influence on the phenomena, then control over the muscle, if one thing resistance training gives it gives good control over the muscles, a good feel, you 'feel' when your using them and which ones your using, what for, how much. these are all important factors that were often overlooked when talking about muscle memory. With how things are going at the moment down ur end scrap im starting to believe feel and the heart, the brain, thats whats being refered to as muscle memory, theyre all involved. we understand so little about ourselves yet, i like the way things are heading at the moment, the heart no doubt does much more than just pump blood around it seems, now you think about it, it is a primative conclusion to come to about one of the most important organs lol, the one that kickstarts human life? just a pump? really? Whats your take on it scrap? what have you found out? lol
I've heard of 'Muscle Memory' used this way: Say a person starts with a 100 lb bench press, and in two years he is able to increase it to 200 lbs. The same person then takes a year off from training, and then decides he wants to exercise again. He goes to the gym and his bench is 100 lbs again. But instead of 2 years, it takes this guy 3 months to get back up to 200 lbs. This is 'Muscle Memory'. It's basically the CNS operating more efficently due to effective motor patterning. May to be the same of what you are talking about, but that is the idea that comes to mind when I think of 'Muscle Memory'.
I would say motor unit patterning? That's just a guess of course. Through training the CNS can develop patterns to fuction more efficiently. And sometimes your body remembers or retains these patterns.
