Does muscle really have a memory?
Not the way you think, but perhaps more than you realize
When I give talks to community groups, I often have them tune into their bodies by putting their arm behind their back, bending it 90 degrees at the elbow and then asking their seat neighbor to check to see if the arm is indeed bent 90 degrees at the elbow. Low and behold, it almost always is!
How in the world does it know how to do that? I ask the group.
Often someone suggests that it is “muscle memory.” They usually say this with an air of, I know things. So, I ask them, do muscles have brains?
This sets us on course to discover what “muscle memory” is. A term we have heard and perhaps have tossed about but aren’t sure what it means.
The body’s ability to know where it is in space, even when we are not guiding it by looking, is called proprioception. Literally: “by its own knowing.” This is accomplished by genius little sensors in our joints and tendons which respond to pressure and movement.
When your body moves, those compressed sensors fire off an electrical signal to the brain to say, I am being squished. When the body moves quickly, they say it repeatedly.
While the muscle doesn’t “know” what its feeling, the location of the sensor tells the brain the direction the body part is moving, and the degree of signal tells it how fast.
But that’s just half the story. Now the brain “knows” the body (or body part) is moving, but in order to direct the movement, it needs to send a signal back to the body part with instructions. This information travels from brain to muscle and back again VERY quickly: the brain sends do this; the body part (muscle(s), tendon, joint) sends back I’ve done this. The brain sends back, a little to the left; the body part moves a little to the left. And so forth. Until brain and body are satisfied with the success of the movement.
NOW, knowing all that, is it any surprise that you can’t just hit your drive straight down the middle of the fairway every time? Where’s my muscle memory? Can’t I just get my body — and by that, I mean brain-body connection —to memorize the perfect movement?
Ah, but there’s the rub. What I have described with the bending elbow example is a very simple movement; the patterning of an entire skill is monumentally more complex. With so many moving parts, the timing must be perfect. Then add the course conditions, the distractions, the other times when you swung uphill or downhill or missed altogether, the pressure of the dollars at stake if you hit it into the water…. Well, as you can see, it is actually a miracle that you can deliver a swing that connects with that little ball at all.
But people do it, because of “muscle memory.” They have rehearsed this movement over and over again, adjusting, correcting, and teaching the body based on the “feel” of the swing and the outcome of the shot. The body “learns” how to execute it correctly and accurately. Even then, sometimes it “forgets.” Even the best players have to keep reminding their body how to perform correctly, by practicing correctly.
And the golf swing is a “closed skill” — meaning, it is performed with the intention of repeating it the same way each time. (Similar to a free throw or a penalty kick or a Max Scherzer fastball). This is the way beginners need to learn any skill: acquiring the basics of the movement with no distractions, no pressure, and with accurate feedback. Only after some muscle memory has been established can they perform the skill in a game situation, attending to an opponent or the course conditions or a moving target.
So, what is muscle memory? It’s the continuous neural conversation our body is having, brain to body and body back to brain, about how we plan to move, how we are moving, and how to correct our movement to more closely follow the movement plan.
This seems to be true about all that our body does. Whatever we practice becomes patterned. Whatever we do, we are more likely to do again in the same way. Whatever we think, we are more likely to think again next time.
Makes you really want to focus on getting it right, doesn’t it? The body remembers.