What is Muscle Memory?
Do you every wonder how the top athletes perform a skill or move so effortlessly? It’s because they have practiced that skill so many times that it is retained as muscle memory, so they are able to retrieve the memory and complete the movement automatically with little thought required. The top athletes in the world may be able to perform some of these skills in their sleep or with their eyes closed but that doesn’t come without many hours of practice and being conscious about what they are teaching their bodies to do.
“It’s like riding a bike” is a phrase you frequently hear people say when talking about remembering how to do a task or perform a skill. The phrase refers to the fact that your muscles have a capacity to remember by accessing the memories stored in your brain. The American Psychology Association, describes procedural or implicit memory as a type of long-term memory involving how to perform different actions and skills. These memories are composed of automatic sensorimotor behaviors that are deeply embedded into our memory, so the action becomes second nature or instinctive.
In order to practice a skill, you first learn the basics of how it works. It may feel unnatural at first, and your brain may not be used to coordinating the series of actions required to complete the activity. Your brain cells are rewiring and forming new connections with one another through the process of neuroplasticity. This is the science behind why you don’t forget how to shoot a basketball, play the piano, skate backwards or lift a weight. Even if you haven’t done it in weeks or months, your brain remembers which muscles to fire by referring to the connections it has built over time. So, the more you practice, the stronger, smoother and more numerous your neural connections get to the point where these actions will become automatic.
Scoolu coach and world-renowned strength and movement specialist, Todd Norman believes that “muscle memory is attained by consistent training of the same movements over an extended period of time. Although exercise variety is an important and necessary aspect of a great training program, there is something to be said about focusing consistently on some of the fundamental movement patterns and exercises to establish the quality of movement and muscle memory desired.”
“Practice makes perfect” can be a phrase accurately used to describe muscle memory because the more you do something; the more you build up your procedural memory, and the quicker your brain can instruct your muscles to carry out the action. One of the key findings in “Outliers: A story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell is that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill and become an expert at it. This is likely true if you practice good habits and skills, but if you carelessly build procedural memory over and over again you could end up being an expert at repeating mistakes. Todd explained why this is a challenging task for most athletes while strength training. “Often times athletes try to lift too heavy of a weight with improper form, which usually leads to a muscle imbalance and/or injury.” The same can be said for athletes in different sports or for artists in music who are improperly practicing a skill.
The key to building good muscle memory is to focus on the quality of the quantity of repetitions you are doing. Hopefully you learn the skill correctly early on, so that you won’t have to rewire and “correct” your brains connections later. Todd adds that “in order to achieve quality technique and establish long term quality and efficient muscle memory, it is important for athletes to always build a solid foundation in their training utilizing exercises that can be performed with proper technique and range of motion. Instead, focus on quality technique, postural stability, balance, and range of motion. Of course, it is important to progress to heavier loads to increase force output and power, but to establish good long-term muscle memory you must always focus on quality and safety.”
Our brains are constantly searching for ways to make our actions more automatic or streamlined, which is great for some easy tasks but not for others like lifting or practice which require more thought and focus. This is where mindfulness comes into play. Eliminate distractions (your phone) and free up your attention for the task at hand. How much effort and focus you put into every single repetition matters just as much as how many total reps you do or the total time you spend practicing something. To prepare your body and brain for competition, your training needs to include practice and movements that simulate game like activities and speed. It is important to practice how you play.
As stated in the American Academy of Audiology’s interview with neurologist Daniel Levitin, the 10,000-hour principle is more of a guideline for attaining mastery and that “it doesn’t mean that if you put in 10,000 hours that you will become an expert, but there aren’t any cases where someone has achieved world-class mastery without it.” While the volume of work you are putting in matters a lot, the muscle memory habits and methods used while doing it are what will be the difference makers in your success.
Practice really does make perfect but only if you practice correctly. Learning and training with Scoolu provides you access to the top coaches in the world who will help you when it comes to developing good habits and practicing new skills correctly. The more you can practice and learn proper skills the better your memory will serve you during competition making your game more instinctive and automatic. If you can learn to control and optimize your muscle memory you will improve your overall performance in your sport.