Muscles may maintain the “memory” of past gains in their cells

One of the most frustrating things about exercise is how easily progress can be undone – “use it or lose it,” as the old saying goes. If you don’t keep up the workout routine, your muscles slowly shrink and you’ll end up back at square one before you realize it. But maybe that’s not quite the case after all. Putting a new meaning to the phrase “muscle memory,” researchers have now found that muscles keep their nuclei from past growth, which makes it easier to rebuild later after a period of inactivity.

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