Muscle imprint

Sometimes don't you wonder if all those years of sports in junior high, high school and college, along with all the playing at the lake and skiing at the mountain is why we are so sore and achy today when we get up in the morning? Go ahead and think back about all the activities you did when you were young. I do this often when my young junior high athletes come in to the clinic with injuries like ankle sprains, knee pain and back pain because they are growing so fast. As I care for them I am constantly amazed at how fast they heal, and then of course I wonder what about our age group. Will we be able to get back on our feet that quickly and does our mind and body have some sort of imprint from all of those activities that we did when we were younger to help us on our way?

Incredibly your body has just that. It's called muscle memory. William Kraemer, Ph.D. Professor in the Kinesiology Department at the University of Connecticut at Storrs says that, "Muscle memory stems from your body's learning not just how to perform a task, but also how to break down muscle tissue and rebuild it. That physiological knowledge lets you come back from injury, surgery, and pregnancy faster, easier, and often better than before." As you can see it is a distinct connection between what we did in our past and what we want to do now. All we have to do is tap into it. Muscle memory is why once you learn to ride a bike you never forget how to do it.

The muscle imprint then is of great importance if you have had surgery or your body has sustained any type of injury. Because it can recall past information then we want to make sure it is the right information as quickly as possible. This of course can be used to our advantage if had a good muscle imprint from the start, however it may become a disadvantage if we did not teach our body the right patterns in the first place. This is where physical therapy becomes so important.

A physical therapist is an expert in movement analysis. They know how to assess your movements and what to do if that pattern of movement is not happening the way it should. You see when your body sustains an injury you need to train and teach your system the right way to do an activity so the muscle imprint can occur in the most efficient and correct manner. Because then as your body heals it can either tap into the well-established patterns you had before or create distinct new ones using the body's own new muscle imprints the physical therapists helped you establish.

Don't wait, if you think your body is not responding as it should after your surgery or your injury, let us help make the muscle imprint that you need to get you back to doing what you love.

Sheree DiBiase, PT, was an Adjunct Professor of Kinesiology at Loma Linda University, School of Physical Therapy for more than seven years. She and her staff at Lake City Physical Therapy would love to help you make sure you make the most of your muscle memory. Contact us at (208) 667-1988.