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Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

sciencedaily.com

61–70 of 137 posts

Re: Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

#61
post #2

"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."

Steroids are not recommended in boys still going through puberty. The surge in testosterone from the puberty itself is enough to provide this effect, because you take advantage of peak test production to produce more muscular nuclei. This is probably also why my chest is overdeveloped compared to my back, because I was doing hundreds of pushups back then while neglected any sense of balance sadly.

Well that and you don't want to prematurely fuse growth plates by supplementing exogenous testosterone

Re: Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

#62

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…

If you study Justin Gatlin’s career, you’d find few explanations for the times he posted in his 30s. Other than payoff from earlier steroid use.

Re: Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

#63
post #53
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

#64
post #5

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…

Muscle memory is used to describe both, actually. Linked on that page is this in a small section about strength and adaptation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory_(strength_traini...

Re: Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TENS units have been around for decades. Every once in a while someone tries to turn it into an exercise machine, but this is mostly marketing, not anything new.

This thing is more like a modified MRI machine than a TENS device, which part of the fascinating/creepy quality for me. It's something like orders of magnitude more powerful than TENS.

It's a pulsed electromagnetic device (PEMF) and they have also been around quite ahile. While they've been show to aid bone growth and they probably help recovery in some other, subtle, ways...EMSculpt is classic snakeoil bullshit.

Re: Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

#66
post #43

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…

One thing that should give athletes pause (though probably won't dissuade them entirely) is that drug testing is getting better. You might test clean now but have your sample retested years later with better tech and be stripped of your medals.

Why would that dissuade anyone? Win a gold medal and keep it (and fame, resulting endorsement deals, etc) for ten years vs don't win it at all, live in poverty and obscurity, etc. Tough choice!

Re: Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

#68
post #38
post #31

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?

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.

Steroids are not legal lol

Re: Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

#69

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…

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 spo…

Not just drugs, governing bodies very much disliked when swimming records fell left and right due to better swimsuits. Or how bikes must be upright and have a minimum weight.

Re: Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma

#70
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steroids are not recommended in boys still going through puberty. The surge in testosterone from the puberty itself is enough to provide this effect, because you take advantage of peak test production to produce more muscular nuclei. This is probably also why my chest is overdeveloped compared to my back, because I was doing hundreds of pushups back then while neglected any sense of balance sadly.

This is also evidenced in the endless submissions to r/fitness on Reddit where 17-19 year olds post their before and after pics bragging about how they didn't use any steroids and when asked about diet, they "just tried to eat healthy". Puberty releases all natural steroids.

Yeah, that is true but also note that a lot of people in that age DO use steroids but no one admits it. The whole fitness industry is built on people on steroids trying sell others that they are not on steroids.

Except heavy weight bodybuilding of course where it is too obvious.

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