What’s muscle memory, and can your muscles really remember previous strength gains after months away from training?
Amy Hudson and Dr. James Fisher break down muscle memory and how to regain your strength after a break. They explore the latest research on biological muscle memory, muscle cells, and why every strength workout leaves lasting changes. Whether you’ve taken time off because of injury, surgery, travel, or life getting in the way, this episode explains why you may not be starting from scratch. Tune in to discover how muscle memory works, what happens inside your muscles after time away from training, and why building strength today can make it easier to rebuild muscle in the future.
Show Notes
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The stimulus of strength training changes my cells to be better at gaining strength in the future, even after a break. Even that single bout is stimulating change that our body appears to be able to recall to regrow muscle. Welcome to the Strength Changes everything podcast, where we introduce you to the information, latest research, and tools that will enable you to live a strong, healthy life. On this podcast, we will also answer your questions about strength, health, and well being. I’m Amy Hudson. I own and operate three exercise coach studios. My co hosts are Brian Sagan, co founder and CEO of The Exercise Coach, and Dr. James Fisher, leading researcher in evidence based strength training.
And now for today’s episode. Welcome to the Strength Changes everything podcast. Today’s topic is going to be very interesting to those of you who strength train, but sometimes encounter the need to take A break from it for whatever reason. People travel, they have an injury, a setback, a prolonged period of time occasionally that happens where they have to interrupt their exercise routine. The topic we’re going to talk about today is muscle memory. We’re going to learn is muscle memory what it is? Is there a difference between the muscle memory involved in remembering how to ride a bike after 30 years of not riding your bike and regaining strength in your muscles after having strength trained and then taking some kind of a break. We all hope and know that there’s evidence to support that we can, after having strength trained a little bit prior to some kind of a break, we have the ability to regain some strength.
But how long does that take typically and what should we expect in that area? This is a really interesting topic, especially for those of us who already strength train or are considering starting strength training leading up to perhaps a surgery. That we know we have to undertake in the future. So Dr. Fisher is with me today. How’s it going today, Dr. Fisher? I’m doing great, thank you, Amy. How are you? I’m doing great. And so I recently took up softball and as a child, I played very informal baseball and softball in my yard with my brothers.
And I remember how to pitch and I remember how to catch. And it’s been 35 years and now I joined a recreational softball league and I’m hoping that my muscle memory there can help me not to be a terrible teammate. But my question for you is, first of all, like, is what is muscle memory and is it all the same or what are the types of muscle memory out there? Yeah, okay. So that’s Exactly the key question. And as you alluded, there are two distinct types of what we call muscle memory. The most common one that people will think of when we talk about muscle memory is actually the skill acquisition component.
And that’s what you’re talking about with your softball plane. And the example So, and the example is often given is you never forget how to ride a bike. So when we practice anything that’s skillbased that’s a specific movement, it’s effectively becomes ingrained in our nervous system, in our neurological or neuromuscular system, such that we can send those signals in a very automated way. You know, we see this at the highest level with elite or professional athletes, but it happens to us on a day today basis with our ability to maybe write using a pen or brush our teeth or as it might be play you know Softball or ride a bike or so forth. And it could even be sort of musical instruments, what many other people would perceive to be very complex skills. But if we’ve prepared and rehearsed it within our physiology to a high enough level, then it remains kind of within there and almost sits dormant as a skill that we can pick up maybe not quite the same level, but to a pretty good level when we choose to.
And that’s our skill element. Okay. And is that the same reason why sometimes people have a stroke and it really decreases a lot of their capacity or capabilities? But there are certain things that they just can do without thinking about it because they remember it. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, there are kind of case studies of people who have had stroke or significant head trauma, which have impacted some of their normal processing, maybe their speech or their memory. But yet, maybe they were at one stage a phenomenal pianist and they can actually still go and sit down on the piano and play music in the same way they once did because it simply hasn’t impacted other parts of their brain and impacted other parts of their neurology. So yeah, it’s absolutely that. It’s very much a neurological and neuromuscular element, which is the contrast to the other example of biological muscle memory, which is the muscle itself.
So if we start to move into that way We’re really talking about there is the capacity for a muscle that has once been bigger or been trained to then re attain its previous size and function after a layoff or after a detraining period. Okay. Yeah. So how does that work? And just, you know, what do you want to kind of teach us about that and how that works and why that works? Yeah. Well, this to Me is quite interesting and as a fan of kind of athletics and competitive sports, it’s actually probably the biggest argument that I ever gave for lifetime bans in doping, in kind of use of performance enhancing drugs. And that’s because once a muscle has, a lot of the research supports, that once a muscle has built to a certain size, it adds a Additional myonuclei. So myo simply means muscle, so muscular nuclei.
So it’s added these nuclei to the cell or to the muscle body itself, which means it always has that physical capacity. So if we take, you know, a pro bodybuilder or if we take somebody who is, you know, maybe taking performance enhancing drugs and steroids, they’re Their capacity to build muscle Steroids, their capacity to build muscle when they take those steroids is enhanced, but they’ve also altered their physiology to such an extent that they realistically are now capable of rebuilding muscle to that extent. And so, for example, in maybe athletics, if we see a sprinter that’s taken performance enhancing drugs and then served a ban, well, there’s an argument that they should actually get a lifetime ban because. Their capacity to improve their physiology back to that previous state still exists. And that’s one of the kind of one of the big things around muscle memory that we’re saying these nuclei allow us to synthesize protein, allow us to grow our muscles back to that state, which of course has the capacity for muscular size and function, so and strength and so forth.
There’s a statement here from a paper that I wanted to read actually that just relates to this. So, and I’ll unpack this afterwards, so please bear with me. So it says, The myonucleic domain is kept relatively constant by adding additional nuclei, which is supplied by the muscle satellite cells during muscle fiber hypertrophy and nuclear loss, so nuclei loss, by apoptosis. ” So what we’re saying in that is when a muscle fiber grows or when a muscle grows, it adds satellite cells, which helps it grow bigger, or it can shrink down it can lose cells through apoptosis. However, data from recent Animal studies suggest that my nuclei that are added to support muscle fiber hypertrophy are not lost within various muscle atrophy models. So.
This is all a lot of this is kind of theoretical based on animal models or in vitro based on muscle cells. There’s not a huge amount of research on in vivo, so live human beings and human cells within the body. But what this is saying is that once we’ve added those myonuclei. Our capacity to rebuild muscle to that extent always remains. And they go on to say such myonuclear performance has been suggested to constitute a mechanism allowing the muscle fiber to regrow more efficiently during retraining, a phenomenon referred to as muscle memory. So hopefully that kind of lays it out a little bit. I appreciate some of the terminology, and that’s not lay. But adds some detail to it. Yeah. So, is this just saying then by strength training at a cellular level, the stimulus of strength training changes my cells to be able to be better at gaining strength in the future, even after a break? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So.
The analogy that’s often given is this people talk with this is people talk about the skill element as learning to drive a car or learning to swing a golf club or play softball. Well, this is not that. This is physiological, this is biological in the muscle. So it’s almost like saying, if I renovate the house now. It will make any future renovations easier. So it’s saying there’s a physical change to the structure that means that in the future, I don’t have as much to have to do if I ever want to tidy or rebuild or so forth. Okay, interesting. Yes. I’ve taken the time now to level the floor and level the ground level so that all of the additional cabinets I may build or whatever on top is easier. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, so just to add. A layer of depth to this as well, which you know I always like to do.
There’s also sort of two types or two thought processes around this kind of biological muscle memory. There’s cellular, which is exactly what we’ve talked about, that’s the myon nuclei. So as we stimulate muscle fiber hypertrophy, the satellite cells donate myon nuclei, they stay within the cell, they increase our capacity to regrow. Muscle fibers and to regrow the muscle size and function. But there’s also an element of epigenetics muscle memory, and what this is saying is that our body has changed the way it treats processes. So, there are natural anabolic and catabolic processes within the body. So, for example, within the muscle, there is muscle protein synthesis that’s the building of proteins and the building of muscle fibers. And there’s muscle protein breakdown, and that’s the natural breakdown. Our body is constantly searching for this homeostasis. Some amount of building, but some amount of break down to get rid of kind of old, old cells. And the same happens within bone with osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Well, when we add an environmental change, such as resistance training.
We tip the way that our genes treat the stimulus. So we actually kind of recode kind of epigenetic components of this. So now our body is engaging in resistance training and that makes our body more responsive to the genetics of muscle protein synthesis or improving bone mineral density through osteoblasts. And so there’s another kind of thinking around muscle memory is. That when we engage in resistance training for a long enough period and we build muscle, we are effectively kind of period and we build muscle, we’re effectively kind of providing some degree of reprogramming or at least signposting to that reprogramming so that our body, when we reengage in resistance training. Can pick back up on that epigenetic memory much quicker. That is super interesting. It’s almost like we talk about rebuilding yourself from the inside out or sort of rewiring yourself. So I’m picturing somebody adding muscle because they and strength because their strength training and that process.
Having that additional muscle and having strength training makes that person’s body better at appreciating that stimulus in the future and gaining more positive adaptations from it anytime in the future because they’ve done it initially, if that makes sense. Is that, am I missing anything on that? No, that’s exactly it. And we often say, you know. You’re never too old to start strength training because we know that the benefits that older adults can get at any age from engaging in strength training. But we could also flip that on his head and say, hey, if you’re in your 30s, you don’t need to start thinking, you don’t need to think, well. I’m going to wait until I start losing strength to build it. You can build more strength and build more muscle now, or at least retain what you’ve got so that you don’t lose it. But it would also mean that should you have an illness, should you have an accident or a surgery or have to take time away from training where you do lose muscle.
That it’s easier to rebuild it back to the previous state based on obviously the cellular and the epigenetic components that we just talked through. So, you know, it’s almost like you’re never too young to start training either. Okay, so then now my burning question here is, how long and does it take, you know. What does research show about if I’m taking a break let’s say six months or something, or three to six months, how long might it take me to get back to the place I was, is sort of the question that we even hear often from clients who take a break. Absolutely, and really that’s the key question, and we’ve talked on this podcast before. I’ve mentioned a number of times, I’m sure longtime listeners will be sick of hearing about my knee injury a few years back playing basketball, one of my big concerns how long it would take to get full function back and strength and muscle size back. And the general thinking around it is it’s about half the time about half the time that you took off as a break. So.
If you took a three month break, then it would be about six weeks to recover what you lost within those three months. But of course, there are other factors that play a key role. So, aside from nutritional factors and recovery factors such as sleep or other stresses or so forth, there’s also what caused that muscle loss to begin with. So. If you have just stopped lifting weights because you wanted to take a break But you’ve carried around being very active, walking, hiking, cycling, swimming, doing all sorts of other activity, playing softball or pickleball or golf, then it’s quite likely you haven’t lost muscle to the same extent. And you’re also more likely to be able to rebuild that muscle quicker or rebuild any lost muscle quicker. Should I say. There are also Factors such as your age and your genetics and so forth. So, the younger you are, you probably can bounce back that bit quicker. The older you are, the longer it might take to recover. My mum had a knee replacement a few years back. And I can remember when she first talked about it.
She was saying that she’d been told by a surgeon, hey, the knee replacement that we’re going to put in only has a lifespan of 10 to 15 years. So we don’t want to put it in too soon. I had a conversation with my mom when I said, Hey, if you wait 10 years before you get the new knee put in. You might not make a full recovery because it could take a longer time to make that recovery based on the muscle loss that you’ve lost in the meantime because of your inactivity, because of the pain in your knee, and so forth.” So I actually pushed her to get the surgery maybe sooner than she you wanted, knowing that she’d be that bit younger, that bit fitter, healthier and able to recover from the surgery. So that’s obviously a key factor and forgive my personal examples there.
No, I think it really helps to pay paint the picture and understand. So, typically, average half of the amount of time that it takes about half of the amount of time to rebuild your strength or regain the muscle mass as the time you are out. So, you gave the analogy of like three months out, six months to regain. However, the factors that we have to consider are age, our recovery, how active we were during the break, maintaining. Levels of activity that may not be exactly the same stimulus as strength training was, but similar enough activity levels, right? And age and all of that. That’s what I’m hearing you say here. Yeah, sorry, I should clarify. Three months out might be six weeks to recover. So about half the time that you’ve taken out. Yeah. Yes, perfect. No, that’s encouraging. Did I say six months? You did say six months, but that’s fine. I just wanted to add that clarity, that’s all. So there is an interesting anecdote around all of this that I kind of want to touch on just to give the listeners this kind of story, but I do appreciate how hyperbolic this sounds in the process.
So there’s a guy, a very famous inventor of resistance machines and spionage He really landscaped exercise resistance training as we know it today, a man called Arthur Jones. In the 1970s and 1960s, he worked with a number of bodybuilders whom he used to promote his line of resistance machines called Nautilus machines. In 1973, there was something called the Colorado Experiment. Obviously, you can go up and look this up on your own on Google. You’ll find it quite easily. There was a bodybuilder called Casey Vietor. Now, Casey Vietor or what Called Casey Viator. Now, Casey Viator worked for Arthur and worked in kind of industry and manufacturing in different things. But he had an injury where he lost his finger and then he had quite a severe allergic reaction to tetanus. And so he was hospitalized and he was really very ill and he lost a lot of weight.
And he was on a one stage, I believe, a liquid diet and he was quite sort of. Malnourished in this process. And there’s even talk. That he was deliberately malnourished by Arthur Jones because he had a plan to see how quickly he could rebuild the lost muscle. So obviously he lost a lot of muscle mass during this illness and during this process. So the story goes that through the month of May in 1973, Arthur and Casey went to Colorado State University and they trained under. The physiologists there and the academics and researchers there. So, to try and give it some academic credibility. But the story goes that Arthur gained 60 pounds, in fact, 63 pounds of muscle, or regained 63 pounds of muscle in the month of May or in a course of 28 days from start to finish, all done within 12 workouts lasting not more than 30 minutes each. Now he was down to a body weight of about 165 pounds so he had lost a lot of muscle beforehand. He was regaining muscle that he’d previously had. Many people listening will say well he’s a bodybuilder so maybe he was using or taking steroids or so forth and that might absolutely be the case.
I was not there so I simply cannot comment on that. Either way you look at this, it was quite an extreme example of how much muscle Can be regained. Yeah. I mean, gosh, that is a dramatic story for sure. And I think we would all love to have, like, you know, we all know stories of people who have lost a lot of muscle or, you know, been hospitalized and they are immobile and super weak, right? And then, you know, and started the process of really intentional strength training and gained a lot of strength quickly. I mean, that story right there is amazing and crazy. It just goes to show, right? Like, whether or not it’s completely true, the dramatic ability that the body does have, you know, with this. I have a couple questions for you, Dr. Fisher. You know, of course, like if I’ve got a surgery coming up and I know that, sometimes we meet clients that come in and say, like, I know I’ve got to get a surgery in four months and I’m considering starting doing some strength training before my surgery. I’m not sure if I should or if it’s not worth me doing this, you know, until after my surgery.
What would you say to that person? Well, first of all The biggest marker of a successful recovery postsurgery is the strength presurgery So engaging in strength training before going into surgery is perhaps the most beneficial thing that we can do, even if it’s simply to train the other muscles of the body. So if the surgery, for example, is on the elbow, I can train the other arm, I can train my chest, my back, certainly my lower body. If the surgery is on my knee, I can at least train my upper body, if not my upper body, my contralateral limb. You know, contralateral limb. So, and the reality is we can probably still do some training on the parts of the body where we’re going to have surgery. A big one has actually been people who are about to have low back surgery can strengthen the muscles of their back that will help them recover from that back surgery much quicker than if their back is weak and atrophied and so forth. So yeah, so first of all, they should absolutely do strength training beforehand. But second of all, they shouldn’t be fair of taking that time away.
Doing that strength training beforehand will help build muscle and then it will be easier to regain afterwards based on what we’ve talked about as far as muscle memory. Awesome. Yes, thank you for that. And if you missed that contralateral adaptations episode in season two, go back and listen to that because it describes sort of the magic of how training muscles, even if it’s not the muscle in the area that you have to avoid, will still stimulate all hormonally and Will still stimulate hormonally and metabolically the adaptations and strength maintenance and benefits that we’re going for. It’s pretty cool. My other question is you mentioned, you know, like it’s worth the strength you build prior to a break really serves you later on. I know my intuition says the longer the better, right? Of like how long did I strength train prior to my break? The longer probably the better because that will be the more strength I’ve built. And then even if I lose it a little bit. I’m still way better off than my baseline was. Is there, you know, what would you say in terms of like, it’s not worth it to strength train for two weeks or one month or something like that, you know, prior to having a break?
I know the longer the better, but is there sort of like a continuum there? Yeah. So, so personally, I think the research very clear that every single strength workout that we do has significant acute benefits. We’ve talked previously, I don’t remember the episode, maybe we can link to that in the show notes, but we’ve talked about the acute benefits of a single bout of resistance exercise. But even that single bout is stimulating change that our body appears to be able to recall to regrow muscle. So it doesn’t matter if it’s two weeks and In that time you can only get in four workouts. I would still say those four workouts are absolutely worth having in your calendar to make sure that you’ve stimulated as much adaptation as you can and reaped the benefits, the acute benefits of each of those workouts ready for even if you’re then gonna take two months off or even if you then get sick or if you are going on vacation or whatever it might be. A lot of people do think about strength training and they put it as, I want to get my ducks in a row. I want to make sure that my work, my work, home life balance is right.
And I’m about to go on vacation in a couple months. So I’ll start training after that. I think that’s completely the wrong way to think about it. I think they should think now is the time to start. I’m going to go and get my first workout in today or tomorrow and my next workout in a couple of days after that. And then if I take two weeks off, then at least I’ve had those two workouts to kind of get the process going and so forth. So every single workout is a positive physiological experience for your muscular health, your psychological health, and for your ability to rebuild muscle in the future. Awesome. Okay. Wow. Well, there you go. I mean, you heard it from the experts. So, if you had a tendency to have that all or nothing mindset, just remember what Dr. Fisher just said. Every workout you do, because it’s A powerful stimulus, this is not just taking a walk. This is a powerful signal to your body each and every time to add muscle, to add strength, to encode itself positively for your benefit long term, even if you ever have those breaks.
So thank you so much for explaining all this today, Dr. Fisher. Any final encouragements to leave our listeners with? No, I think we’ve covered everything. Thank you, Amy. Thank you. All right. Well, we will see you next week on the podcast. And until then, we hope you remember strength changes everything. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please share it with a friend. You can submit a question or connect with the show at strengthchangeseverythingcom Join us next week for another episode and be sure to follow the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts so that you never miss another episode. Here’s to you and your best health.
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