What allows us to balance on a bicycle without having ridden for years? Do our muscles remember? Well yes and no. When we’re learning how to do something for the first time, it takes conscious effort. But after we’ve got it down, it’s stored in our procedural memory bank, located in our trusty cerebellum. A lot of our daily activities are so habitual we can do them with very little conscious effort. Our procedural memory does the work for us. That's mostly super helpful, and sometimes not.
Muscles can remember?
“Muscle memory“ is what people say, but muscles don’t have memory per se. Here’s one way muscles remember: The act of exerting muscles develops more nuclei within muscle cells. After you reach a certain state of fitness and then take a break, it’s easier to restrengthen your muscles as these nuclei persist even when the muscle atrophy. This is good news when life or an injury gets in the way of a former state of fitness. Fret not, your myonuclei will be waiting for you when you're ready for activity again. Another reason to build strength when you’re healthy.
Automatic for the people
More commonly, muscle memory refers to “motor memory,“ or procedural memory. Procedural memory is unconscious. It’s how top musicians and athletes, by rehearsing, establish habits of movement that enable them to perform at an amazing level. The human mind loves to automate, because habits are efficient.
You might have heard that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill and thought, man that’s three hours a day for a whole year! But if you’re always standing on one foot, or spend 6 hours a day on the couch staring down at a screen, those hours add up quickly, and the result can be a bad postural habit that’s hard to break.
“If you pay attention you may notice that you repeat certain tasks mindlessly at different points during the day: heading off to get a snack at the same time each afternoon, taking a smoking break at the same time each morning, and so on.”
The habit loop
In James Clear’s “Atomic Habits,“ he lays out the four parts of the habit-making process: cue, craving, response, and reward. By looking at your habits through this lens, you can take steps to bolster the habits that are serving you, and replace the habits that are not. Your chronic back pain might benefit from one less hour on the couch and five minutes of daily ab work.
This video gives a nerdy inside look at the anatomical stress that poor posture causes. The good news is, you can start replacing bad postural habits any time.
Put it in neutral
Healthy habits begin with postural awareness. Your posture affects not just your spine, but also your self-esteem and can even promote heartburn, incontinence, and constipation. Yowzer. Proper posture is upright, relaxed, and neutral:
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