The WelDuh!

Muscle Memory, is it muscle or memory? A couple weeks ago while listening to “East Meets West” Tom Merritt showed a huge aversion to the term “muscle memory.” I twittered him and didn’t get a response, but someone did write in to the podcast to get clarification on Tom’s dislike of it. What it is really that Tom views “muscle memory” as inaccurate for really it is not your muscles that actually memorize anything. Then further explains that it is a body building term used to explain how after conditioning a muscle group that it is easier to regain that conditioning after a period. But I would just call that that conditioning.

I honestly haven’t heard “muscle memory” used that way before. The way that it has always been used in my circle is not from the weight lifting perspective, but from the fighters perspective. It was used to describe a programed response or reaction. To turn a sweep, a throw even a counter punch into something that happens without thinking, that is muscle memory. A reflex quick response to an action put against you.

Though I agree with the base of Tom’s argument, the term “muscle memory” can be confusing. For it implies that the muscles are doing the storage which is wrong. But it is a Pavlovic response that one does not have to think about and just does.

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