2024-03-22 15:13:56
22 mars 2024
Our muscles would have a memory! They would thus have the ability to remember past efforts or movements. By what mechanisms? Decryption.
Having remained a hypothesis for a long time, the concept of the existence of muscle memory was first highlighted in 2018, by a British team led by Professor Adam P. Sharples, then professor of physiology. of performance at Keele University, Newcastle, Great Britain.
A former professional rugby player, this specialist in epigenetics – a discipline centered on the evolution of gene activity – led a unique study with a group of sedentary and inactive people aged on average 28 years old. He first trained them for seven weeks on the basis of resistance (strength) exercises, before imposing a stoppage spread over the same duration. His observation: the levels of muscle mass and strength had thus returned to the initial state… Then, Sharples called his participants back to training: always in resistance and always for seven weeks. At the end of this work, the scientist noted that his “athletes” had somehow rebuilt muscle much more quickly than the first time. As if the latter had found the path to growth more quickly by adapting more effectively to this new effort.
Methyls to the rescue
In his eyes, the explanation lies in a mechanism called DNA methylation, characterized by the fact that small molecules – ‘methyl’ derivatives – are “grafted” onto the DNA and thus modify its expression. In this case, the genes coding for proteins that strengthen muscle fibers. The level of methylation then appears greater when the muscular effort in question has already been produced.
This work therefore confirms “ the existence of a memory of our muscles which would allow them to activate the right adaptation processes to raise their level much faster than the neophyte ”, as summarized in the review Sport & LifeAnthony MJ Sanchez, lecturer University of Perpignan Via Domitia.
Muscle memory is also a very long-term memory that allows us to acquire, record and use motor skills acquired sometimes years before, such as riding a bicycle or playing an instrument. “ By practicing these activities, memory improves our performance to the point of creating unconscious automatisms », notes on his website Sébastien Martinez, French memory champions and memorization trainer. Through repetition, the brain is then able to execute a sequence of movements without the need for reflection and concentration. This becomes automatic, through the action of muscle memory.
Source : Seaborne, R.A., Strauss, J., Cocks, M. et al. Human Skeletal Muscle Possesses an Epigenetic Memory of Hypertrophy. Sci Rep 8, 1898 (2018). – Sport & Vie n°186 – sebastien-martinez.com
Written by: Written by David Picot – Edited by: Vincent Roche
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