Muscle Memory: Brain and Brawn
- Ellen Novack
- May 11
- 2 min read
Your brain is not always in your head
Yesterday I drove home from visiting my grandson who lives about 45 minutes away. My husband asked about the traffic and which route I had taken. I had no idea about either, which is slightly alarming when you're the one operating the vehicle.
I don't have a self-driving car, but rather a deep familiarity with the area after repeated visits. At some point my body quietly staged a coup and took over the navigation. It's one form of muscle memory - like riding a bike or swimming, except with more traffic lights and fewer life jackets.
Muscle memory lets us perform automatic motor tasks developed through intense repetition —without conscious thought, sometimes referred to as procedural learning. Through consistent practice, motor skills become ingrained, reducing the need for conscious, high-level thought during execution. In other words, your brain clocks out and leaves your body to run the show.
Athletes benefit greatly from these. In the novel, The Cauliflower Ear Club, the sports psychologist uses the wrestling team to further her research on muscle memory. The following is an excerpt from the book that further explains one of the many wondrous ways our bodies work:
"Muscle memory is the ability to perform a complex action as a single, effortless motion,” she explained. “It happens after extensive repetitive practice.”
“Muscles in your brain?” asked Wills.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Blake said to Wills.
“Although it’s called muscle memory,” Holly continued, “the memory isn’t in your muscles, but in your brain, the basal ganglia to be exact.”
Wills and Akeem looked at one another and rolled their eyes.
Holly explained how the basal ganglia worked with another part of the brain, the cerebellum, and stressed that muscle memory required focussed, repeated action but like riding a bike, once neural activity was consolidated, it lived in something called your motor cortex.
“I don’t get it,” said Blake. “Why repetition?”
“These are neurons that, through connections in the spinal cord, tell the muscles in your body what to do. So, each time you practice a move, the neurons get better at instructing the muscles. That’s why ‘practice makes perfect’.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, but because I’m the best, I’ll go first,” said Akeem, enjoying the reaction of his teammates to his comment.
“How about whoever gets the first double leg takedown goes first,” said Cooper, and a moment later, Akeem found himself on his stomach, crying foul.
Coach was actively listening and observing. “See how he turned and landed on his stomach, even when taken by surprise attack?” Coach pointed out. “He’s done it so many times, it’s automatic. You don’t want to ever land on your back. Not if we want to win the Nationals. And that, my friends, is why we need muscle memory."
And for us non-athletes and mere mortals, we can appreciate muscle memory as we drive home after a long day and let the car figure out our route -- while we sit there pretending we were in charge the whole time.
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