
Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma - prostoalex
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190125084106.htm
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hirundo
From Wikipedia's description of muscle memory:

> When a movement is repeated over time, a long-term muscle memory is created
> for that task, eventually allowing it to be performed without conscious
> effort.

But this article is about enhanced muscle recovery and volume, not about motor
learning. I wonder if that's an abuse of the term "muscle memory" or just a
different sense. I'm not finding that sense used in a quick search. But the
term is also used in the review paper that this article is about, so
apparently it has a specialized sense in that discipline.

According to Wikipedia muscle memory as retained skills isn't about muscle
fibers, but neurons.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory)

~~~
Fricken
Developing muscle strength is mostly about training and growing the nerves in
your muscles to engage more muscle cells when they fire. If your muscles could
fire maximally they'd be strong enough to rip tendon from bone.

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wcarron
While your second sentence is definitely true, I disagree with your first.
Developing muscle strength is partially caused by training your nerves to
better engage your muscle fibers; however, simply adding fibers aka raw muscle
mass is the other main component of gaining strength. I would argue it's the
predominant factor.

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adrianN
You're both right. Improved muscle fiber recruitment is the primary way
beginners gain strength. This is a fairly fast process, but plateaus off
quickly. After the so-called "noob gains" are through, growing more muscle is
the primary way to gain strength.

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ivanhoe
My knowledge on the subject is a bit out of date as I'm not in a serious
training for more than a decade, but if I remember correctly explanation from
my coach there're 3 main aspects of strength: nerve paths to activate the
muscle fibers, the volume of muscle cells (when you get "big muscles" you
actually don't increase significantly the number of cells, but their volume),
and the capability of muscle cells to use and store glucose from the
bloodstream (cellular uptake, which is also increased by regular training).

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Balgair
This is largely true. Though, as with anything in the body, the entire system
reacts. Bones will change density, the circulatory system also changes in
relation to the increased mass, the cerebellum will re-wire due to the
increased muscle mass and usage cases, the reproductive systems may change
depending on many factors, the pancreas will change it's output of glycogen,
etc.

When it comes down to building muscle mass and 'dexterity', the physiology is
fairly well understood. For most athletes today the major issues are in
repair/strain and consistency. AKA: Sleep well, eat well, train well, in that
order. It is theorized that a lot of the recent gains in MLB pitching are due
to improved tendon repair chemical therapies and traditional steroids that
focus on bulk (no data here, I think I read it on 538 a few years back)

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abledon
"the year is 2095 and it's my first day in 6th grade. Miss Mable is handing
out our steroid candies so we will grow big and strong then have a 'bank' of
muscle memory to rely on in our secondary and tertiary life stages."

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gameswithgo
i hope in 2095 we have more targeted ways to do that.

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crooked-v
Look up Emsculpt. It's a fascinating/creepy new device that artificially
stimulates core muscular contractions, with visibly more exercised and defined
muscles after a few sessions with no changes in lifestyle.

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whatshisface
I use my motor neurons to electrically stimulate muscle contraction and it
doesn't cost me anything. I mean come on... the wires are already hooked up
right in to your brain...

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EamonnMR
But it requires discipline, while attaching wires to yourself does not.

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janekm
As many people who bought previous muscle stimulation "as seen on tv" devices
bought, it certainly does still require discipline to shock your muscles for
an hour or so daily ;)

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sundvor
I'm going to argue that it would be easier to just go and squat out those
5x5s.

The size of the squat rack is another issue however.

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SmellyGeekBoy
Also if your diet is shit and your gut hangs out over the top of your trousers
electrically stimulating your abs isn't going to make the slightest bit of
difference aesthetically. At least by actually lifting you're also burning
calories.

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yorwba
Electrically stimulating your abs also burns calories. Using your muscles
requires energy, no matter whether they're activated artificially or not.

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drakonka
I've read about this concept somewhere before and found it really inspiring. I
would think that knowing that my gains are "preserved" in some form would
actually make me more lazy since I'm less afraid of completely reverting all
progress, but in reality it just drives me more to build a nice bank for the
future. It's super cool knowing that the effort you put in now will keep
paying off years down the line, makes working out feel less futile somehow on
an emotional level...

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kypro
Being a naturally skinny guy it took me ages to bulk up in my late teens and
early twenties. I find it hard to motivate myself to get back in shape today
because I know how hard it would be. But this has inspired me.

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drakonka
I think I can relate! I'm also a naturally skinny woman who started working on
building up my fitness in my early 20s - first with running and now more with
lifting. I have managed to stay relatively active throughout the ten years
since, but sometimes do have lower activity periods when other things get in
the way. After such a hiatus I have noticed that when I do ramp back up with
the exercise I am able to get back up to my "fittest" levels and rebuild
muscle much faster than the original effort. Now I am putting an effort into
doing more running along with lifting again for the first time in years and
even though I'm still not as fast as I used to be, I'm surprised at just how
quickly the performance is improving, and how quickly my running form falls
back into place.

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Invictus0
This is a pretty disconcerting study. What's to stop athletes from using
steroids if this is the case? Use steroids to train to a PR, take some time
off to let the steroids leave the body, and then just recoup those gains. I
think we will start to see this happening in competitive sports, especially in
countries like the Dominican Republic, where recruitment into the MLB can pull
an entire family out of poverty; I'm not sure that it will be possible to do
anything about it.

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hellllllllooo
I genuinely question why people are so concerned if people use science to
achieve better results at sports. It often seems like some kind of puritanical
moral outrage over drugs.

Edit: I understand the reasoning behind why testing is done. I just question
if it is really led by safety concerns, fairness and science or just our
default knee-jerk "drugs are bad" culture. There are plenty of other safety
concerns in sport that are ignored.

~~~
geargrinder
As a competitive athlete, I value a fair playing field. I don't want the
winner to be the one with the best scientific team behind them. That just
becomes a race to spend more than anyone else and also happens to leave a
trail of damaged or dead athletes. It would be totally de-motivating if I
thought everybody was doping and it was just the best doper who wins.

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amnandkishore
I fully respect this view towards athletic competition. But to what extent do
you think this is the case now (even if we assume drug testing catches the
cheats perfectly)?

I'd struggle to believe that a person could succeed in, say, an Olympic
athletics event without a top-quality nutritionist and team of trainers,
probably including in-depth analysis of their biomechanical patterns and
minute adjustments they need to make. Even with famous stories like Usain
Bolt's McDonald's habits, he's probably had a nutritionist evaluate and design
a custom diet based around his liking of McNuggets.

In some very real sense, the poor kid who doesn't have access to this team
will never be able to compete, regardless of his 'natural' talent. The same is
probably true across a large, large proportion of elite sports.

Now, obviously, we have a system where if you demonstrate enough talent you
ideally get pulled into academies or teams or structures where you do start to
get access to these teams and facilities - but then if that's the case, how
does it matter if the teams are providing non-drug-enhanced meals designed for
peak performance or drugged-enhanced meals designed for peak performance?

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5partan
There are exceptions to the rule though, Donald Thomas jumped higher at his
7th attempt at high jumping as a basketball player (not measuring his run-up,
shoes without spikes, arms behind back to land on the mat as if breaking his
fall), than years later at the olympics. Sometimes natural talent beats all
the science of the world.

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amnandkishore
Thanks, this is an interesting story I wasn't aware of. Having said that, I
think it only partly suggests that 'sometimes natural talent beats all the
science of the world.' After all, even when he first tried high jump, it
sounds like he was on a collegiate basketball team, where he'd have been going
through closely monitored training. (Not as precise or dialed in as an average
Olympian, but still, probably pretty solid). To me his subsequent decline in
high-jump suggests one of two possibilities:

1) He was gifted at jumping, but got exceptionally unlucky with timing in that
his natural abilities were at their peak when he first tried jumping and
basically declined constantly thereafter.

2) High-jump training is far from optimized (at least for all athletes), and
potentially has a lot to gain from adopting basketball training techniques,
since clearly those worked better for Thomas.

In either case, I'm not sold that this story is representative of a general
trend whereby the science of the world can only take you so far - simply
because those with incredible natural talent, more often than not, also have
incredible science already backing them these days. At the elite levels, my
strong belief is that it takes both.

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vanderZwan
From age 12 to 18, I biked 20 km to school and back every day. It's been two
decades with a very sedentary life style and the occasional attempt of trying
to get in shape. I notice every time that my legs regain strength a _lot_
faster than any other part of my body.

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atoav
When I started playing an instrument again, that I stopped playing ten years
ago, all came back. Ofc you need some muscles to play it well (especially when
you play something demanding on a bass), but it felt like riding a bike after
a long winter.

~~~
ptidhomme
Same here, I'm currently experiencing this and it's very impressive. After 15
years not playing the guitar, it's been 1 month since I've started again and
it's like everything is coming back really fast, even some good practices I
had mentally forgotten.

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wmil
Here's an interesting question. If it's proven that there are long term
benefits to moderate steroid use, is it ethical to ban them for non
competitive athletes?

~~~
ekanes
Unless I'm misunderstanding, I don't think steroids are banned for non-
competitive athletes. Who would test them and why? They're not competing
anywhere.

~~~
prescription
As a manner of speaking, the word “banned” indicates a rule forbidding use in
formal competition, under penalty of disqualification.

But, in the medical sense, there are a number of layers that restrict access
to substances, even over the counter drugs are subject to regulation and laws,
as well as prescription drugs, research chemicals, known toxins, and hazardous
chemicals. All for many different reasons.

The class of anabolic steroids that body builders and weight lifters use are
definitely going to land you in jail if you have them or provide them to a
peer.

It doesn’t mean they are completely unavailable, but really, they are almost
entirely outlawed to the same degree as crack, meth and so many other drugs
around the world. Often veterinarians are the black or grey market source.

They cause harm, to the point of leaving behind a wake of debilitating
destruction among the lives of users, causing awful damage that emerges later,
in ruinously subtle ways, or suddenly killing without warning, by way of
cardiac problems or strokes.

People use them, the results can be frightening and permanent, and a few years
later, deadly.

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JamesBarney
> They cause harm, to the point of leaving behind a wake of debilitating
> destruction among the lives of users, causing awful damage that emerges
> later, in ruinously subtle ways, or suddenly killing without warning, by way
> of cardiac problems or strokes.

> People use them, the results can be frightening and permanent, and a few
> years later, deadly.

This is exaggerated. There is an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and
maybe irritability at high doses. Closer to the risks of taking a medication
than a street drug.

~~~
cf141q5325
>Closer to the risks of taking a medication than a street drug.

Which street drugs? The comparison reminds of making the distinction between
"natural" and "chemical" drugs. Sounds nice if you want to convey an image but
not a sensible generalization. You will find quite a lot of street drugs that
are less dangerous then some types of medication and vice versa.

~~~
JamesBarney
Everything besides cannabis? The most prevalent street drugs besides cannabis
are cocaine, heroin, ecstacy, and methamphetamine.

All of those are quite a bit more dangerous than the average medicine you get
prescribed by our doctor just because of addiction potential and inconsistent
quality of the end product.

~~~
cf141q5325
What is an average medication? Its an extremely broad generalization that
doesnt make much sense. It includes everything from chemotherapeutic agents
over Fentanyl over Aspirin to coal tablets. There are quite a few medications
that are a lot more dangerous than the drugs on your list. And they are more
dangerous for a reason, as they still have fewer side effects then the illness
they are trying to combat.

Unless you are talking about the purity of the product, i dont see a sensible
case for the comparison of street drugs with pharmaceuticals.

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dublo7
Hasn't this been known for a while? My personal trainer has a degree in this
stuff and he was telling me muscle mitochondria never go away once grown and
that was years ago.

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HeadsUpHigh
I thought it was the nucleus on the muscle cells, not the mitochondria but I
might be wrong.

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empath75
This explains how Christian Bale is able to do what he does, gaining and
losing weight for roles.

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Rapzid
Yes. This doesn't feel new to me. I was just researching last year on "muscle
memory" trying to understand what I could expect by getting back to lifting
myself from an actual science and study point of view. This versus the bro-
science-cum-common-wisdom of muscle memory.

What I was turning up didn't seem particularly new, but the consensus seemed
to be you could expect return to previous performance levels(in strength
anyway) in about 12 weeks or so of proper training and diet.. Almost
regardless of how long you have been off. Obviously there are exceptions and
extremes that probably don't play out that way, but this has also been about
my experience of on-and-off again body building and strength training for the
past 15 years.

Often the nervous system recovers too fast in my experience. One can ramp up
work effort way faster than the muscles and tendons are prepared for,
particularly stabilizing components, resulting in strains and pains. Sticking
to a ramp up plan is, IMHO, almost as hard as quitting smoking but crucial.

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Shmebulock
Are there any safe, easy to acquire steroids that I can use _once_ so that I
can gain the long term benefits?

~~~
stefanmichael
if you are male you can go to a testosterone therapy clinic and essentially
just say that you are tired and or depressed and get prescribed 200mg of
testosterone per week

