Sunday, June 5, 2011

Muscle Memory

I believe that muscle memory is a very flawed concept...

If I were to take all the miles I've run in my life, since so many of them were run when I was much more fit, which was when I was in my teens and 20s, my lifetime average per mile is probably somewhere quite a bit below 8 minutes/mile.

Therefore my muscle memory should mean that I'm heavily programmed to run somewhere below 8 minutes/mile. Yet these days when my natural tendency is to run much slower than 8 minutes/mile and running anywhere near an 8 minute/mile place is a lot of work.

Also, when I do run 9 minute miles, if muscle memory were a valid concept, this should have very little impact on future workouts because running a few 9-minute miles changes my lifetime average training pace by very little. However, what I find is that recent workouts are a much better indicator of my future workouts then workouts from my teens and 20s.

Now let's contrast muscle memory with mental memory. Typically, I can recall events from my teens and twenties with much greater clarity than events from much more recent times than, let's say, 3 to 5 years ago.

My belief is that a much better description for my muscular behavior today is LIFO (Last In First Out) and that the tendency towards the LIFO model is accelerating with age. I believe that when I was younger my muscular behavior was much more of FIFO (First In First Out) model than it is today.

1 comment:

Sub 5 at 50 miler said...

Well, this is all very interesting theory. The bottom line is we're slower now than we were 30 years ago. I'm finding that I train and race about 1 minute/mile slower than I used to. In fact, it is probably about 1:20/mile slower for longer runs and longer races. For example, I just ran a 5K at 6:03/mile pace, when I could typically run 5 min/mile for a 5k in college. But, I cannot compare apples to apples, because I'm only training 25 to 30 miles per week now, and in college/prime years, it was more like 50 to 60.