inc.com DNA Research Shows Your Muscles ‘Remember’ How Strong and Fit You Once Were Jeff Haden ~4 minutes

I once took a six-year break from lifting weights. Not on purpose. Not as part of a plan. Fell off the workout wagon when I started cycling more, and out of laziness climb back on. (Habits: really hard to establish. Really easy to break. Really easy to justify breaking.)

Which meant, when I decided to start weight training again, I had to start over.

The bad news? Starting over sucks. Instead of just comparing yourself to where you want to go, you also compare yourself to where you once were. Used to be able to do 20 pull-ups, and can now only do four? That feels way worse than just starting out on a fitness journey and only being able to do four. (Upward counterfactuals: they’re real, and they’re not spectacular.)

But there is good news: a study published in American Journal of Physiology: Cell Physiology determined your muscles “remember” how strong you once were.

For two months, participants followed a HIIT training program. At the end of that period they were significantly stronger and fitter. In addition, muscle biopsies showed some DNA markers in muscle cells changed, making certain genes easier to activate. Great!

Then the participants took three months off, and their strength and fitness naturally fell off. Not so great.

Except many of the markers didn’t return to their baseline state. And when the participants went back to training, they regained lost performance more quickly than they originally achieved it.

As the researchers write:

Human skeletal muscle displays an epigenetic memory of resistance exercise induced-hypertrophy. Cells possess a “memory” such that adaptations can be more quickly regained when a previously encountered challenge is reintroduced.

This study highlights molecular mechanisms that contribute to muscle memory… showing retention of DNA methylation and gene expression profiles from earlier training into detraining and retraining.

Or in non researcher-speak, your body remembers what you once achieved, which makes it easier for you to get back to that level.

So does mine. I have a pull-up bar outside, so from spring through fall, I’m consistent. Winter? Not so much. Which means each spring I kind of start over; if I was doing ten sets of 10-12 reps in the fall, I’ll start the spring doing a set of maybe 8, then 7, then a few of six… and then a bunch of 5s. Hate that.

But within a month or so, I’ll be back within shooting range of the previous fall’s performance. By mid-summer, I’m rolling. That’s partly due to confidence — if I’ve worked up to it before, I can certainly work up to it again — but it’s also due to the fact my muscles remember: molecular changes at a cellular level create a roadmap that makes the journey back much easier. And if you exceed your previous performance?

Your body creates a new, and even better, roadmap.

Granted, starting over still sucks. Every spring when I realize how much pull-up strength I’ve lost over the winter, I think, “I’m never letting this happen again. Next winter I’m going to do pull-ups at a gym.”

Maybe next time I will.

But if I don’t, in some ways that’s okay, because returning to my previous level of performance will be a lot easier than reaching it was in the first place.

Because once you get somewhere… your body doesn’t forget.