Is Muscle Memory a Myth?
Experts never allow them to reach the automation phase.
Instead of falling prey to being “good enough,” they actively try to make small refinements to become better. However, many automation results in muscle memory. Athletes and performers don’t have to think about their actions because they already know how to do something from ingrained practice. This is partly true.
For our bodies to move, information has to travel from grey matter of the brain down the spinal cord to our muscles through a chain of nerve fibers. These fibers are called axons, and they are wrapped in a substance called myelin. Myelin insulates the axon chains and allows information to move efficiently along neural pathways. Thus, more myelin causes information to move faster from your brain to your muscles.
Deliberate practice strengthens neural connections by increasing myelin in the brain. It is not that information is stored and remembered by the body. Instead, electrical signals move faster, and thus athletes and performers can move faster.
