Those of you that have achieved a great degree of muscle gains, only to lose them and once again regain them now what muscle memory is. For those of you that have never heard of the term, I?ll try to explain it the best I can.

Let?s say you hit the weights hard and heavy (or for that matter you are a speed skater with thick legs) in your early 20?s. But, somewhere along the line life happened. Your biceps shrunk from 19 inch monsters to 15 inch pistols as your children roll through their daycare years. Your 400 pound plus squat sessions are now replaced by legs that struggle to lift your children out of their car seats.

So, time passes, life moves on, and you return to a season in your life in which you once again have the time and will to lift weights. Lo and behold, your muscles grow back to their former glory in record time, and you are once again squatting mammoth weights.

What?s going on? Your co-workers think you?re on the juice; all they?ve ever viewed you as was a pot-bellied goofball. Muscle memory is what?s going on.

From ABCBodybuilding, here is a good description of what is going on:

"In order to further explain muscle memory it would behoove us to briefly review what exactly this connective tissue is( for a greater explanation read my article, the anatomy of a muscle fiber. It goes in great depth in what I am about to cover. So if it seems a bit confusing, you definitely need to consult this article. ). Simply put every muscle is made up of 1, 000s of muscle fibers. These muscle fibers are all individually wrapped with a connective tissue wrapping, or a sheath. This is called the endomysium. These individual muscle fibers are then organized in bundles( called fascicles ) which are covered by another connective tissue sheathe called the perimysium. These bundles or fascicles are then placed together in an orderly arrangement( which determines the shape and functionality of the muscle ) and held in place by a layer of connective tissue known as the epimysium. Finally each of these layers is held together by the deep fascia( a courser material ). The connective tissue of every muscle fiber acts like a girdle of sorts. Which means that it binds a muscle group together, and to its neighboring muscle in many cases. It also protects, organizes and allows the force of contraction generated by the thousands of muscle fibers in a particular group, to be harnessed with great efficiency!"

"The important thing to understand is this: Connective tissue is not only a tuff material but also hugs tight to its surrounding area, almost constricting it! What does this have to do with muscle growth you say? Ahh, that my friend, is where muscle memory comes in! Think about it for a moment. In order for a muscle to hypertrophy, what needs to take place if it is restricted by this tight binding girdle? The tissue must stretch and become more pliable right?! If this did not occur, then muscle growth would be hindered( you cannot grow unless there is enough room to do so)!"

"When you increased your muscle mass by building 30 inch wheels, you also ended out stretching and expanding the muscles encasing tissue. Therefore the manipulation of these protective sheathes was a major factor in your ability to stimulate hypertrophy! In the scenario painted, we also discussed you taking time off from training. So much so, that your lower body atrophied to a point in which 6 inches were lost off of your legs. However, even with this tremendous setback, you still had stretched the connective tissue to a great extent. When you came back to the gym and trained, you were no longer fighting the restrictions of tight, unpliable fascia, but rather a more elastic and pre-expanded connective tissue! Essentially all bets were off, due to the amount of room you had to grow! More room to grow enables more mass to be accumulated! This is one of the top theories held today for what we coin ? muscle memory. "

Basically, your muscles are like rubber bands or balloons. Once they have been stretched, it is easier to stretch them the second time around. For the last 2 weeks I have been lifting heavy for the first time in 10 years.

This week I experienced what I believe to be muscle memory. My bodyfat dropped while my I made unusual gains in muscle mass. This, in theory, is muscle memory.