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

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

#121

Post by buboard »

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…

i think they are using the more general definition of memory according to which e.g. antibodies are a memory

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

#123

Post by PeterisP »

IshKebab wrote: post #85
CptFribble wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. Individual fibers are either On or Off, but individual fibers are grouped into bundles, and any one muscle is composed of many bundles. When you flex a muscle to move a thing, your brain only recruits some of the bundles. The exact amount is determined by some combination of your willpower, focus, training level, and adrenaline. As you train (that is, try really hard to lift something heavy), you teach yo…

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?

Strength is generally an evolutionary drawback, in most cases the benefits of extra strength doesn't outweigh the calorie cost of building maintaining it.

For very costly things like strength and brainpower, evolution is ensuring that we have as much as we require, and not a single bit more; and has all kinds of processes for actively reducing strength that you had unless you have both extra calories and the demonstrated need to use that strength; because it saves calories.

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

#124

Post by PeterisP »

jordinl wrote: post #78
55555 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol they are illegal... they are banned for citizens by the government.

This is incorrect. What's banned (in many western countries) is distribution unless there is a medical prescription. But nothing prevents people from using them, same with other drugs like cocaine and heroine.

It's misleading to say "nothing prevents people from using them" if it's a crime to buy them, and if it's a crime for someone to sell them to you.

Furthermore, for other drugs like cocaine and heroine, in many countries not only distribution is banned, but also possession and use itself.

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

#126

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

wastman wrote: post #52
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.

Source? This is very interesting

And partially incorrect. This is indeed the case for the first few weeks of strength training. In the beginning your body learns to recruit and better utilize the existing muscles you have. But after that the long and slow process of building new muscle mass starts. The CNS adaptation( i.e. the first part) never goes away. That's the reason why if you have trained in the past for at least a couple months and now you restart your training your new starting weights will be higher than your old ones.

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

#127

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

dublo7 wrote: post #113

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.

I thought it was the nucleus on the muscle cells, not the mitochondria but I might be wrong.

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

#128

Post by JamesBarney »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #105
JamesBarney wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They cause harm, to the point of leaving behind a wake of debilitating destruction among the lives of users, causing awful damage that emerges later, in ruinously subtle ways, or suddenly killing without warning, by way of cardiac problems or strokes. > People use them, the results can be frightening and permanent, and a few years later, deadly. This is exaggerated. There is an increased risk of cardiovascular dise…

>Closer to the risks of taking a medication than a street drug. Which street drugs? The comparison reminds of making the distinction between "natural" and "chemical" drugs. Sounds nice if you want to convey an image but not a sensible generalization. You will find quite a lot of street drugs that are less dangerous then some types of medication and vice versa.

Everything besides cannabis? The most prevalent street drugs besides cannabis are cocaine, heroin, ecstacy, and methamphetamine.

All of those are quite a bit more dangerous than the average medicine you get prescribed by our doctor just because of addiction potential and inconsistent quality of the end product.

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

#129

Post by Balgair »

ivanhoe wrote: post #111
adrianN wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

This is largely true. Though, as with anything in the body, the entire system reacts. Bones will change density, the circulatory system also changes in relation to the increased mass, the cerebellum will re-wire due to the increased muscle mass and usage cases, the reproductive systems may change depending on many factors, the pancreas will change it's output of glycogen, etc.

When it comes down to building muscle mass and 'dexterity', the physiology is fairly well understood. For most athletes today the major issues are in repair/strain and consistency. AKA: Sleep well, eat well, train well, in that order. It is theorized that a lot of the recent gains in MLB pitching are due to improved tendon repair chemical therapies and traditional steroids that focus on bulk (no data here, I think I read it on 538 a few years back)

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

#130

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

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 just question if it is really led by safety concerns, fairness and science or just our default knee-jerk "drugs are bad"

It's a race to the bottom kind of situation. There are plenty of substances that have been shown to not have any side effects but act as performance boosters( creatinine comes in mind) that are perfectly legal and every athlete uses. So I think steroid bans are meant to protect athletes.

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