How does muscle memory work? Muscle memory works because the brain makes more efficient connections between neurons. We call it muscle memory because it feels like our muscles are working on their own, but the memory is down to the brain and the nervous system. The more you repeat an action, such as learning to play the violin, the more efficiently the brain can operate, until the action becomes automatic.
Motor memory basically comes down to the way the brain stores different types of memories. A memory of an event that happened is stored in a different way than a learned skill. This has been demonstrated by looking at Alzheimer’s patients who used to be musicians. Some of them, and admittedly not all, couldn’t remember their family or where they lived, but they could still play amazing music. The neurons that held the memories of the instrument-playing skills were in a different place from the neurons that held the informational memories.
The memories that become muscle memory are called “procedural memories”. They are memories that are formed in the brain through repetition. They are memories that can be observed in animals as well. If an animal is taught to find food in a certain place, researchers can see the memory pathways forming in its brain. Then, if the animal is brought back to the same location weeks later, those memory pathways fire up, and it can find food again very quickly.
Procedural memories are laid down through practice and reinforcement, and they are formed in the brain’s motor cortex, cerebellum, and basal ganglia. The hippocampus is also involved in learning and consolidation. The motor cortex is located in the frontal lobe, and it is responsible for planning, controlling, and executing voluntary muscle movement. It takes intention and turns it into action by sending signals through the spinal cord to the muscles.
Muscle memory is formed by repetition. The initial memory is made when a person does an activity for the first time. It is not easy and is very slow. The brain has to consciously think about what it is doing. The brain looks at what it wants to achieve and breaks every action down into steps. Each step becomes a neural pathway in the brain as neurons connect to each other. The cerebellum looks at what happened and compares it with what was supposed to happen, and updates the pathway in the brain. The basal ganglia help to reinforce the pathways that were effective. This feedback loop is a vital part of the process. When someone tries to learn a movement, their eyes can tell them where they are in space, their inner ear helps with balance, and sensory nerves in their muscles and joints report how far the limbs have moved and how much force is being used. This feedback allows the brain to compare what it meant to do with what actually happened. If a tennis swing is too early, a piano note is struck too hard, or a bicycle begins to tip, the brain notices the mistake and makes tiny adjustments. Over time, these corrections get smaller and more precise, and the movement becomes smoother.
When the person repeats the action again and again, the successful patterns become strengthened, and the neurons that fire together during the correct movement become more strongly linked. Over time, the movement becomes smoother, and the individual steps start to become larger chunks. The brain might be able to do three steps in one chunk, which speeds up the action. The brain keeps refining the pathways even when the person is not practicing, which is one reason why sleep is important for laying down memories. Finally, the pathway through the brain becomes faster to activate, far more efficient, and automatic. No conscious thought is needed for the action. In fact, conscious thinking can actually upset the muscle memory.
And this is the main reason why you get faster and more skilled at things you repeatedly do. It is also the reason why you can do an action again, even if you haven’t done it for years. The reason we can always ride a bicycle, even if we haven’t ridden one in decades, is because of these brain pathways. They weaken, but they are still there, and they come back very rapidly.
Sources
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/muscle-memory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_memory
https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2022/07/the-science-behind-muscle-memory.html
Photo by Kaique Rocha: https://www.pexels.com/photo/two-person-riding-on-bicycle-beside-sidewalk-37823/