Bodybuilders spend years building up their muscle mass. That is why most bodybuilders hate cutting because they know in the process they will lose some of their hard earned muscle while they lose fat. Most bodybuilders think that if you take off a few months from lifting or you get injured or sick, you will have to start all over again taking many months or years to build muscle back. However, this is not true. Instead you will experience a much easier time gaining muscle often called “Muscle memory”.

I’ve had personal experience with muscle memory. As a hardgainer, it took years and tons of effort to put on a lot of weight. When I got off my diet for a couple years, I lost a ton of weight. When I got back on a higher calorie and higher protein diet again, I immediately started gaining weight and muscle back quickly. Muscle memory doesn’t mean the muscle just flys on with no effort, what it means is that you will get there a lot quicker with the same effort as before.

What causes muscle memory?

There is no research studies on what causes muscle memory. I don’t think there could even be a way to measure how to even find the cause. However, I think the cause of muscle memory can be pinned down to some possibilities. Your first guess for the cause of muscle memory, maybe might with hormones, like Testosterone and Growth hormone. This can’t be the cause because studies have shown when you raise calories, these hormones goes up for about a couple weeks, but it drops again after that. Muscle memory can last months, not just a couple weeks. It wouldn’t make sense anyways, since anytime you start back on a new diet, your anabolic hormones are going to go high anyways in the beginning, regardless of what your muscle base was in the past.

Another theory could be hyperplasia. Hypertrophy is the growing of the diameter of the muscle fibers, by sythesizing new protein. Hyperplasia is the division of muscle fibers to make new fibers. Many have argued that hyerplasia doesn’t exist in humans, but from my research I believe it does. I believe muscle gains are from both hypertrophy and from a little bit of hyperplasia. Heavy weight training can help induce hyperplasia. Therefore, it could be easier to gain the muscle back in the future because you now have more muscle fibers to work with, that have potential to grow.

The most common theory I’ve seen bodybuilders explain for muscle fascia tissue is fascia stretching. There is a connective tissue that tightly hugs around muscles, called the fascia. Some theorize that fascia helps slow down muscle building because muscles can’t grow with it binding. Once you stretch the fascia, it tends not to shrink back. Some have incorporated fascia tissue stretches with weights into their weight training routine, including pro-bodybuilders Jay Cutler. These deep stretches help permanently stretch the fascia tissue. From my research I’m also a firm believer in fascia stretching to help muscle gains, so I often incorporate it into my workouts.

I personally believe muscle memory is caused by a combination of hyperplasia, fascia stretching, and maybe some other unknown factors. It may be caused by hyperplasia alone, or fascia stretching alone, we don’t know. Muscle memory is a fascinating thing and it’s good to know that if we hit a rough time and can’t follow diet and training, we can get our gains back much easier in the future thanks to muscle memory.