Technical Tuesday Muscle Memory
We’ve all heard of “muscle memory” and
dancers experience it firsthand every day. But what is it, really? Do muscles
actually remember?
It all starts in the muscle cells
themselves. They are one of the few multinuclear cells in our body. That is,
they contain more than one nucleus. As you perform repetitive movements, new nuclei are added http://www.pnas.org/content/107/34/15111.
Once upon a time it was believed that if
one took time off,these extra nuclei were lost, but now science has found that
isn’t quite true. These new nuclei remain for at least three months, and maybe…just
maybe, they aren’t lost for good, because training causes permanent changes in the muscle fibers. Hmmm.
So later, when a dancer returns to full
training, the muscles tone more quickly because the initial step of adding
nuclei can be skipped. That’s why it is easier to “get back into it” than to
start in the first place. The muscles, in a sense, do remember.
There’s also a brain-body factor to
muscle memory, but that’s a subject for another day.
From the Big
Blue Book of Ballet Secrets
Secret #27zz:
“Muscle memory is real and scientifically based.”
Link of the Day:
Quote of the Day:
Knowledge
is only a rumor until it is in the muscle.”
― Papua New Guinea Proverb
― Papua New Guinea Proverb
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