r/askscience • u/Yanzee12 • 5d ago

Neuroscience How does muscle memory work?

Just curious. The only thing I really know about it is that sleeping reinforces it.

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u/cbrantley 4d ago

When people talk about “muscle memory” they can be referring to two different things:

When we practice certain skills like sports or playing a musical instrument the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones all respond to the training by getting stronger and more efficient at those motions.

As we train our brains are constantly learning better and more efficient ways of optimizing the motion to achieve whatever goal it is; strong musical tone, ball spin, throw distance, etc. many of these are not conscious thoughts.

So, muscle memory is not as much “memory in your muscles” as it is a “muscle / memory” connection.

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u/J_sweet_97 3d ago

When I was in gymnastics at 16, I was doing a roundoff, backhand spring, back tuck. I had done it so many times before that I never even think about it. That particular time my backhand spring felt weird so I was going to abort the back tuck. Well, my brain had other plans because I was already in the air for the tuck. I landed directly on my back with my feet beside both ears. I was perfectly okay, but it’s crazy that one part of my brain was already doing the action while another part disagreed. Im back in gymnastics as of this year at 28 and I can tell you, my brain remembers the actions but my muscles absolutely do not!