By Bonnie Tsui – MIT Technology Review –
The more we move, the more our muscle cells begin to make a memory of that exercise.
“Like riding a bike” is shorthand for the remarkable way that our bodies remember how to move. Most of the time when we talk about muscle memory, we’re not talking about the muscles themselves but about the memory of a coordinated movement pattern that lives in the motor neurons, which control our muscles.
Yet in recent years, scientists have discovered that our muscles themselves have a memory for movement and exercise.
When we move a muscle, the movement may appear to begin and end, but all these little changes are actually continuing to happen inside our muscle cells. And the more we move, as with riding a bike or other kinds of exercise, the more those cells begin to make a memory of that exercise.
