Muscle Memory

[floridalife]

Ok not sure where the right place to put this is but...

Guru genius science dudes and dudettes..

Muscle Memory Fact or Fiction and if so how

Thanks!!

 

[silver_shadow]

bump

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Do some research. There are plenty of search engines. Check out www.hypertrophy-resarch.com

I'm not going to go in depth as to how or why. Yes, it exists. If you build 30 lbs. of lean mass, then lose it, you'll have a much easier time gaining it back.

Ever play a sport, then stop for awhile? Well if you ever went back to it, chances are you picked up on it a lot quicker than it took you to learn it the first time around. Same idea here.

 

[blut wump]

I can only offer anecdotal evidence. I used to burn out and take layoffs repeatedly. Each time I came back, after months or even years out, the numbers would go up faster than previous times. I always had a mental expectation of how much I could lift and it would generally take relatively little time to get back to it.

 

[silver_shadow]

well i'll tell u my story so far. i was about 230lbs @8% bf till a yr ago. then my company moved me to a different city. suddenly i had more work, lots of travelling, little sleep, poor diet, irregular eating, obviously stopped training. i got sick too... had a bad cough for nearly a month. after just 4 mths, i dropped to 170. then i started working out again, tried to keep a good diet and getting sleep and i think i put on around 8 lbs in around 3 mths. i then quit that job and moved back. because of financial problems, i couldn't get a good diet and so i stopped training for maybe another 4 mths. my new job is quite relaxed and i don't have to travel. in those 4 mths i ballooned to 192 @ 20%bf. then things became a little better and i started training again. it's been 3 and a half mths since i started training and i'm now at around 210 @16% bf though the diet is still pretty sucky still. but i can say one thing... when i've gained weight/strength while training it's happened at a very rapid rate compared to any other time before. i guess this must be muscle memory?

 

[djeclipse]

I took about 7 years off, gained a bunch of fat and lost all strength. I just got back to the gym 6 weks ago and I have made gains as if I were on juice.

When I stopped my max bench was roughly 210 x 1, 155 x 10 or so.

My first week at the gym I could only bench 95lbs x5 (not a pretty sight), 6 weeks later of training one body part/week just yesterday I benched 155 x 6, 165 x 3 and got up 185 x 1. I have been making gains every wek so far like this for all my lifts. I feel it's going to end soon as I'm not making the big gains I was a few weeks ago and that's when I'll change my training.

Right now I'm doing more of a body builder style workout chest/tries, legs, back/bies, shoulders... but it's working.

So yes, I think muscle memory is real.