Muscle Memory Isn’t What You Think It Is

We all want to know if and how we can come back to form after injury, illness, or a long hiatus. Muscles adapt in response to the environment: They grow when we put in the work and shrink when we stop. But what if we could help them remember how to grow? As a general rule, cell biologists don’t enter their careers by running through the gauntlet of top-tier professional sports. But in the years that Adam Sharples played as a front-row forward in the UK’s Rugby Football League, he found himself wondering about cell mechanisms that helped muscles to grow after different types of exercise. A front-row position in pro rugby means that you have to be, well, “quite big,” as Adam puts it. “I was in the gym lifting weights from the age of about 12, I think,” he says. He spent much of his teenage life in training. When he was 19, he was playing a Boxing Day match on soggy ground that was heavy underfoot. He’d just planted his foot when a player on the opposing team tackled him, torquing his ... Read full article.