Day 333 - Muscles Remember Past Glory

There is a great read over at Wired titled, "Muscles Remember Past Glory." Turns out, a study found that although muscles, or more specifically muscle cells, go through atrophy, or decay when they aren't used, this study is now finding that they can 'bounce back' or re-gain size and strength from previous relatively fast.

These results contradict previous studies that show lots of cell death in muscles during atrophy. Gunderson’s team examined individual cells in the wasting muscles and found that there is apoptosis going on, but that other cells are dying, not the muscle fibers or their extra nuclei. The extra nuclei stick around for at least three months — a long time for a mouse, which lives a couple of years on average, Gundersen says.

These findings suddenly hold great potential for how we view resistance training and its effects on the human body. The article over at Wired discusses these new-found observations and how they may change the our viewpoint on exercise science. I highly recommend making the jump and reading up on "muscle memory!"

Quote of the day:

"Energy and persistence conquer all things."

~ Benjamin Franklin

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