Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by ivanhoe » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 12:32 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #56

wcarron wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're both right. Improved muscle fiber recruitment is the primary way beginners gain strength. This is a fairly fast process, but plateaus off quickly. After the so-called "noob gains" are through, growing more muscle is the primary way to gain strength.

My knowledge on the subject is a bit out of date as I'm not in a serious training for more than a decade, but if I remember correctly explanation from my coach there're 3 main aspects of strength: nerve paths to activate the muscle fibers, the volume of muscle cells (when you get "big muscles" you actually don't increase significantly the number of cells, but their volume), and the capability of muscle cells to use and store glucose from the bloodstream (cellular uptake, which is also increased by regular training).

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

#112

Post by tomp » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 12:54 PM UTC

hellllllllooo wrote: post #13

Invictus0 wrote: post #11

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…

> I genuinely question why people are so concerned if people use science to achieve better results at sports

Because the only point of sports is human performance. If we wanted to use science, we'd use machines instead.

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

#113

Post by dublo7 » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 1:08 PM UTC

Hasn't this been known for a while? My personal trainer has a degree in this stuff and he was telling me muscle mitochondria never go away once grown and that was years ago.

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

#114

Post by drakonka » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 1:18 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #102

drakonka wrote: post #100

I've read about this concept somewhere before and found it really inspiring. I would think that knowing that my gains are "preserved" in some form would actually make me more lazy since I'm less afraid of completely reverting all progress, but in reality it just drives me more to build a nice bank for the future. It's super cool knowing that the effort you put in now will keep paying off years down the line, makes wo…

Being a naturally skinny guy it took me ages to bulk up in my late teens and early twenties. I find it hard to motivate myself to get back in shape today because I know how hard it would be. But this has inspired me.

I think I can relate! I'm also a naturally skinny woman who started working on building up my fitness in my early 20s - first with running and now more with lifting. I have managed to stay relatively active throughout the ten years since, but sometimes do have lower activity periods when other things get in the way. After such a hiatus I have noticed that when I do ramp back up with the exercise I am able to get back up to my "fittest" levels and rebuild muscle much faster than the original effort. Now I am putting an effort into doing more running along with lifting again for the first time in years and even though I'm still not as fast as I used to be, I'm surprised at just how quickly the performance is improving, and how quickly my running form falls back into place.

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

#115

Post by kurtisc » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

wcarron wrote: post #53

Fricken wrote: 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.

Adding fibres. i.e. adding cells is hyperplasia and it's currently unknown if this occurs naturally in adult humans. Most visible growth can be attributed to hypertrophy, where the cells grow bigger.

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

#116

Post by noir_lord » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #106

IshKebab wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can't be everything though because otherwise your body wouldn't physically change when you train and they clearly do. Also why wouldn't evolution just make us all strong all the time if it only requires neurological changes?

Probably a combination of not needing to be very strong (we don't use raw strength to hunt very often) and a metabolic cost.

Metabolic cost is a big factor.

It's one of the theories of why homo sapiens out competed neanderthal basically everywhere, we can survive the lean times better.

Iirc they required about twice the average intake of an anatomically modern homo sapiens.

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

#117

Post by matwood » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 1:46 PM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #80

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the benefits of lifting heavy things repeatedly over time is increased bone density. Do we know if devices like Emsculpt work to improve bone density? I don't know how the cell-signalling cascade works for putting more calcium-mineral matrix in bones so maybe muscle contraction repetition initiates the cascade, or maybe it's insufficient by itself? Full range of movement training also works to shift lymph back…

The mechanism you'll find described in the literature for increasing bone density is through heavy stress (compression) on bones. Your muscles aren't positioned to compress like that anyway. Only heavy weights can. The stress very lightly damages the bone matrix, which is then repaired to above the previous strength.

Correct. Boxers encourage this to happen in their knuckles through things like knuckle pushups. Muy Thai fighters will 'roll' their shins with a bar to cause the same light bone damage.

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

#118

Post by hnuser355 » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: 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…

That’s always the way I’ve heard the term muscle memory used in a technical setting, but the people I’ve met who go to the gym a lot use it to refer to the phenomenon of gaining back lost muscle much more quickly than it took to build it in the first place.

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

#119

Post by ehnto » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

cc81 wrote: post #70

jjeaff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a shame all the supplement brands use heavy weight bodybuilders as their mascots, because if there were any discipline where supplements alone just won't cut it, it's for anyone aspiring to be Mr Olympia.

The vast majority of people could get away with real food and regular training to reach their actual fitness goals; not many people want to be as big as Ronnie Coleman. But if you do want to be a competitive bodybuilder in America, you're going to need more than supplements.

The fitness industry also did a great job of convincing people that supplements are the cause of, not an aid, to muscle growth. I was in the ER once for a broken finger, and the poor kid next to me had been to the ER twice that month for stomach pains, and it turned out he had been sitting at his computer slamming down 10 protein shakes a day and doing nothing else. Just one of many similar anecdotes from when I worked in the industry.

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

#120

Post by _ea1k » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

Invictus0 wrote: post #11

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…

Have you ever noticed that sometimes athletes get caught with trace amounts? And then blame the hairgel and epsom salts?

Or maybe their trainers were giving it to them in the offseason and they didn't quite get rid of it all before season's end.

I think it would be more surprising if this kind of thing didn't happen.