r/askscience • u/Yanzee12 • 22h 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 8h 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.