Muscle Memory or Brain Training?

[Ric O'Shay]

The HH thread took a little turn when folks began advocating “muscle memory” in shooting the longbow. Being the shy type that I am, I popped off and said something to the effect that I never knew a muscle could memorize anything. I’d always been told that the brain did that. So, let’s start a little discussion here. Muscle memory or brain training? That is the question.

I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m not the dullest either. That stated, I never memorized 100 lines of Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar” in high school with my biceps. I never memorized sections the Texas Penal Code with a set deltoids. Nor did I memorize any of my Masonic work with my God given quads. I could go on, but suffice to say I memorized these and much more with my brain. The same goes with my ability to shoot the longbow.  I learned how to shoot with the step-by-step sequential side (left) of my brain. Then actually shot the bow with the intuitive side (right) of my brain.

G. Fred Asbell had a great article in the June/July 2010 of Traditional Bowhunter. He is much more articulate than I could ever hope to be and explains this in great detail. If you haven’t, please read the article.  Based on work done by Dr. Roger Sperry, Fred explains basically that we utilize the left side of the brain to learn skills and the right side of the brain to perform them. The left side of the brain proceeds slowly step-by-step and has limited capacity because every motion must be thought out and consciously performed. Once the skill is learned, then we begin performing them from the right side of our brains. The right side is the creative, intuitive and automatic side. The right side lets us use the learned skills automatically without conscious thoughts and the ability to perform at a higher level.

If muscles had memory, I believe my abdominal muscles forgot where they were 20 years ago.

[cbCrow]

Ric, I'm with you on this. We learn by doing things and repeating the action, as G Fred stated,then just appling what the brain has consumed. There was a show on the science channel about this very subject and I found it really fascinating. They had talked to several pitchers in pro ball that had stated that when they were in a game they simply looked where they wanted the ball to go and it went on  its own as if their muscles did it by its self. When they hooked a monitor to a semi pro pitcher and he started to throw, you could actually see the brain activity pick up substantially as he started to pitch. Once the ball was thrown it started to drop right off only to rise again when he threw another ball. What they explained is that when we ingrain something into our brains by repeating it over and over it almost becomes automatic when we go to do it. It was a very interesting show and seemed to strive to explain the that the brain is in charge of the body and makes us react, move,think, and activate our ingrained motor skills.No muscle could do that with out the brain!

[Cherokee Scout]

Think about casting a fishing rod, shooting a basketball or just throwing a rock, The more you do it, the better you get. Muscle memory and brain training.

[YORNOC]

Its just a term, definitely not actual memory. But muscle can work in a practiced way much more effectively and becomes accostomed to it.
Add it to your mind work and the two together can take care of business.

[Smithhammer]

I'm not convinced that it's really an either/or thing. I think the reality is a bit more nuanced, and that the line between the brain and the rest of the body isn't as clear cut as we sometimes think it is, but that it all works in tandem. A circuitous system of biofeedback, if you will. Just my .02

"Muscle memory" is a loosely used phrase, kind of like "instinctive shooting." Neither is really all that literally accurate, but it conveys an idea.

[lpcjon2]

If it is muscle memory we would be able to run while we slept. without the brain sending impulses to the nerves, and nerve endings we would be quadrapalegics. JMHO

[The Whittler]

I think it goes hand in hand. But without the brain you can't remember anything.

[Ground Hunter]

Is the brain a muscle?

[KSdan]

Read Jay Kidwell's book.  He gets at it with a Phd in Sports Psychology.  It all works together.  Your brain- the WAY you think- affects muscle action.

[katman]

Muscle memory is a term to decscribe how you internalize a specific sequence of muscle movement. Of course the brain initiates muscle movement. However once you have preformed the movement MANY times the actions are grooved to repeat more easily with less conciousa thought.

[Raging Water]

Originally posted by Cherokee Scout:
Think about casting a fishing rod, shooting a basketball or just throwing a rock, The more you do it, the better you get. Muscle memory and brain training.

Danny,

I do believe in muscle memory. But I prefer the term "mind - body" connection.

Matt

[S.C. Hunter]

Yes it is brain training as well as muscle memory. When a action is repeated over a period of time the brain learns the signals being sent by the nerves during the activity. The brain then stores the info and duplicates the message to repeat the action when the activty is repeated.

Getting in and out of a car or truck is an example. The brain runs the show and since the brain is in the head it protects the head. We duck just enough to not hit our head getting in and out of a vehicle. That is a learned action and we don't have to visually check for clearance by looking up. But it is a action that is learned by visual stimuli. In other words if you close your eyes and get into a car you may reach with a hand to feel the top of the door to find your clearance. Natural reaction is to sacrifice a limb to protect the head. When you have done something thousands of times it is hard to change, because it no longer feels natural even if natural is wrong it is what we know and what we are comfortable with doing. The reason it feels uncomfortable is because now you are telling the brain we will no longer do this activity in this order or for this duration. So now all the stimuli the brain used to repeat that activity is now changed and has to rewire for the same activity that is now different.

[ti-guy]

The memory card is in the brain ,not in the muscle!  

[30coupe]

Yup, your brain is in control...sort of. Muscle memory is a conditioned response (remember Pavlov's dog?). When you smell a steak on the grill, you don't have to think "I'll have my mouth water now." Your brain just takes over and your mouth waters (much like the dog mentioned above).

After you have practiced a skill enough times you no longer have to think your way through each step. Your brain just signals the proper muscles in the proper order and the movement happens. Your muscles do the motion your brain remembers, hence the term "muscle memory." So, no, it is not the muscles that remember, but the term is correct nonetheless.

Ain't semantics great!

[Ric O'Shay]

I believe all have made some valid points, but no one as yet has explained how a muscle can perform its function without external direction from the brain. My whole point is that a muscle can only expand or contract thereby controlling the body. The muscle can not "remember" to do a thing. Shooting a longbow well is, I believe, an intuitive and automatic action, initiated by the learned stimuli of the brain directed to the muscle groups that perform the action. Everything has to be learned, then allowed to happen intuitively.

[30coupe]

Okay.  

[tradlongbow]

Originally posted by Ric O'Shay:
I believe, an intuitive and automatic action, initiated by the learned stimuli of the brain directed to the muscle groups that perform the action. Everything has to be learned, then allowed to happen intuitively.

Danny-
I agree you have to learn how to shoot the bow, but the more you practice drawing, releasing, up hilling shooting, down hill shooting, and shooting moving targets, the more proficient you become while hunting. If you need to make a quick shot, you wouldn't have to stop and think out the shot, because it was practiced so many times muscle memory allows you to raise the bow arm, draw back the arrow to anchor and release, hitting the intended target.

This was a good article that I found written about muscle memory.

Muscle memory is the interaction between the brain and the nervous system. In sport science we call it “proprioception”. Proprioceptors are the nerve endings that tell the brain where your arms, hands, legs, feet, fingers, toes, etc. are located in time and space. In fact, it tells the body without even seeing them. In sport science we call this a kinesthetic sense of awareness. A person that types without looking at the keyboard exemplifies the proprioceptors at work. Without conscious thought, the fingers of the typist strike the correct keys, and often at a quick rate. This is muscle memory or proprioception at work. Without it, you would look down at the keyboard the entire time. Without it, you would have to watch yourself dribble the basketball or soccer ball the entire time. So, what’s all of this got to do with bowling? Everything! The more you bowl, whether it’s correct technique or not, the more muscle memory patterns you establish. On the negative side, the more ingrained these patterns become, the harder and timelier they are to change. Remember patience and precise practice equals skill development and successful change in your game. On the positive side, the more your muscle memory patterns develop, the more you become unaware of your physical bowling, the movements and biomechanics. Therefore, muscle memory frees the mind-brain- body to focus on a particular bowling objective: hitting your mark, converting a spare, or establishing new muscle memory under the guidance of a coach. That’s when you can let it go, or just operate “in the zone.” Learning a new skill is nothing more than establishing new muscle memory patterns. Reproducing your approach and delivery all establish and further reinforce your muscle memory patterns. It’s not surprising to realize that if you had to consciously think about each of your body movements, you would not be able to perform such complex tasks with any degree of success.

Darren

[Bud B.]

It really isn't that the muscles have memory, but rather the brain's memory for that mucscle group or motor skill. With increased repetition there is less need for conscious thought to accomplish the task assigned to the intended muscles.

Think of it as how vision impaired persons get around their homes. Everything has a place and as those memories are established, movement around the home is less task oriented but more an internal recognition of what needs to be done to go from point A to point B. Just as their muscles are trained to reach at a certain height to turn a door knob, so are archers in drawing an arrow to release.

It is really the brain's memory for that muscle, or, muscle memory.

Dang, I think I got hurt thinking that....

[john gilbert]

So how can a chicken run around after the brain has been lopped off? How would its body know how to run, if the muscles have lost the computer to direct it. The muscles must contract in a certain coordinated rythym to make the tendons contract and relax in a cadence to make the body run. Or how about a fighter who has been "Out on his feet", and continues on. I think the body has more mysteries than answers. Great thread.

[Ric O'Shay]

Darren - Good post!

However, proprioception and kinesthesia are seen as interrelated and there is considerable disagreement regarding the definition of these terms. You've explained proprioception very well, however kinesthesia is a key component in  hand-eye coordination, and training can improve this sense. The ability to swing a golf club, to catch a ball or shoot a longbow requires a finely tuned sense of the position of the joints. This sense needs to become automatic through training to enable a person to concentrate on other aspects of performance, such as maintaining motivation, focused attention or in hunting, seeing where animals are located.

Perhaps motor learning and the retention of motor learned skills is what folks want to define under the "muscle memory" category. Movement (kinesthesia) is a critical part of our life, and it is a major component of our evolutionary development; without it, we could not survive. It has been suggested that our developed cognitive capacities evolved so we could make movements essential to our survival. For example, cognitive abilities evolved so we could use tools, build shelter, and hunt for animals.
When first learning a motor task, movement is often slow, stiff and easily disrupted and we loose our focus or attention. With practice, execution of a motor task becomes smoother, there is a decrease in limb stiffness, and muscle activity necessary to the task is performed without conscious effort. As a motor skill is learned, it is encoded into a certain area of our brain. The exact location of this motor skill storage is not known.

My entire point of this thread is the LEARNED MOTOR SKILL is stored in the brain and not in the muscle as the term "muscle memory" would suggest. A prime example is when a person suffers a stroke, the brain is impaired and muscles atrophy. The motor skill ceases to exist. If the muscles had this stored memory, they could still function. The muscles don't have memory and can only function with direction from the brain.

Danny