By Gretchen Reynolds, Photo: Gabriela Bhaskar, The New York Times, January 5, 2022
After two years of Covid-19 and its disruptions to our exercise routines, many of us may feel like we have forgotten how to be fit. But an encouraging new study suggests that our muscles remember. The study involved mice, but it builds on similar experiments with weight training and people. It found that muscles developed a pervasive and lasting molecular “memory” of past resistance exercises that helped them bounce back quickly from long layoffs.
In the study, animals that completed a rodent form of resistance training developed changes in their muscles’ DNA that lingered long after they stopped exercising. The mice then packed on muscle mass much faster than other animals when they began training again. And as an encouraging side note to those who are taking up weight training for the first time, the findings also suggest that we should be able to build new muscle memories, regardless of our age.
Until recently, the term “muscle memory” usually described our ability to bike, ski, throw to first base or repeat other common physical tasks, even if we had not pedaled, schussed or beelined a baseball in years. Our bodies remember how. But this type of memory, while real, is not really a muscle memory. These memories exist within motor neurons in our brains.
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