What Is Muscle Memory and How Do You Activate It?

Regular exercise is essential to protecting against chronic disease and illness. Current guidelines recommend 75 to 150 minutes of exercise per week for most adults. By exercising on a regular basis, you'll strengthen your muscles while simultaneously lowering your risk of chronic disease and illness. If you haven't exercised in a while, though, you need to activate your muscle memory.

Overview of Muscle Memory

Muscle memory refers to the human body's ability to "remember" the biological structure of its muscles. When you perform a specific exercise, you'll acclimate your muscles for that exercise. Different exercises target different groups of muscles. Bicep curls, for instance, will target your bicep muscles, whereas squats will target your hamstrings and quadriceps.

Assuming you continue to perform the same exercise on a regular basis, your muscles will remember it. You'll be able to perform the exercise faster and more easily -- at least until you stop performing the exercise. Upon stopping the exercise, you'll lose some of the tissue in those muscles. The targeted muscles will become smaller and weaker. As a result, performing the exercise will be more difficult.

How to Activate Your Muscle Memory

Now that you know what muscle memory is, you might be wondering how to activate it. Muscle memory is activated by performing the same exercise for which your muscles were previously acclimated. If you previously performed bicep curls, you'll need to start back up your bicep curl regimen to activate your muscle memory. Your body will "remember" the structure of your bicep muscles.

The general idea behind muscle memory is that you can rebuild muscle tissue when performing the same exercise from which your muscles were previously acclimate. Performing an exercise on a regular basis will acclimate your muscles for it. If you stop performing the exercise, though, you'll lose tissue in the targeted muscles. Fortunately, your body will still "remember" how the targeted muscles were structured. This means you can easily rebuilt the tissue by performing the exercise.

In Conclusion

You're bound to take breaks from exercising. You may start an exercise regimen, only to stop several months after. Even if it's been a while since you performed an exercise, though, your body may still remember it. Known as muscle memory, it can help you get back into the game. You won't have to exercise as hard or for as long. Upon restarting your exercise regimen, your body will quickly rebuild the lost muscle tissue.