A question of strength and muscle memory
A question of strength and muscle memory
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CHIEF

Original Poster:

2,270 posts

311 months

Monday 3rd February 2014
quotequote all
Do the informed masses on here believe in Muscle memory?

Ok before Christmas I had a lot on for a few months, Moving home, Busy at work blah blah and I had probably at least 4-6 months off the gym.

My diet was completely st and I lost most of my strength when I hit the gym in the middle of Jan. No excuses i've been a lazy git but i've been back a few weeks and getting back into the swing of things.

Now i've had a few months lay off with the odd workout thrown in but i've noticed since i've been back for 2-3 weeks i've regained probably 90% of my strength.

No magic potions and certainly nothing dodgy i've just upped my diet with protein with a few shakes chucked in and pushed some weights.

After doing nowt for 4-6 months i'm pretty amazed that after only 2-3 weeks i've regained most of my strength.

Has anyone noticed this after a lay off?

What I will say is i'll probably struggle now to add any strength over and above what i'm pushing now and gains will probably be small.


theshrew

6,008 posts

213 months

Monday 3rd February 2014
quotequote all
Takes me longer than that maybe 6 - 8 weeks ish. It certainly comes back faster than you gain it the first time.

Juanco20

3,352 posts

222 months

Monday 3rd February 2014
quotequote all
Only from injury. I lost a significant amount of muscle from my calf after an operation and it came back a lot faster than I had expected

rog007

5,828 posts

253 months

Monday 3rd February 2014
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Easier to get there if you've been there before; muscle memory, motivation, diet and knowing what to do all help of course. Good luck!

mattikake

5,110 posts

228 months

Tuesday 4th February 2014
quotequote all
"Muscle memory" is a bro-science myth in the usual form of thick s misunderstanding basic biology and proven mechanics.

Of course muscle has no memory. They are not a brain. That is what your brain is. What is really is, is you have developed more motor-neuron connections, ultimately meaning your brain (central nervous system - CNS) and your spine/reactive muscle system (peripheral nervous system - PNS) have been trained how to activate your muscle fibres more efficiently.

This means you can activate more muscle fibres equating to more strength from less muscle and also means you can regain muscle strength faster by retraining muscle more quickly by good technique, fibre activation and CNS "learned skills" that took you months or years to gain otherwise.