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Muscles May Preserve a Shortcut To Restore Lost Strength (npr.org)
New research reviewed in the journal Frontiers in Physiology suggests that muscle nuclei -- the factories that power new muscle growth -- could give older muscles an edge in regaining fitness later on. "Muscles need to be versatile to meet animals' needs to move," reports NPR. "Muscle cells can be sculpted into many forms and can stretch to volumes 100,000 times larger than a normal cell. Muscle cells gain this flexibility by breaking the biological norm of one nucleus to a cell; some muscle cells house thousands of nuclei. In mammals, these extra nuclei come from stem cells called satellite cells that surround the muscle. When demands on the muscle increase, these satellite cells fuse with muscle cells, combining their nuclei and paving the way for more muscle." From the report: Physiologists had thought that a single nucleus supported a certain volume of cell. As a muscle cell grew, it needed more nuclei to support that extra volume. But as a muscle shrinks from lack of use, it gets rid of those unnecessary extra nuclei. This view found support in studies that found nuclei were scrapped as muscles atrophied. But [Kristian Gundersen, a muscle biologist from the University of Oslo] and [Lawrence Schwartz, a biologist at the University of Massachusetts] say those experiments overlooked what was really happening.
Take a cross section of muscle tissue and you'll find a sort of marbled mishmash of muscle cells surrounded by numerous other cell types, such as satellite cells and fibroblasts. Researchers could have been measuring the death of cells that support muscle and incorrectly inferred that muscle cells lose their nuclei, according to Gundersen and Schwartz. Gundersen and colleagues developed another method that zoomed in on individual muscle cells. The researchers injected a stain into muscle cells that mice use to flex their toes. The stain spreads throughout the muscle cells, illuminating their nuclei. Gundersen could then track the nuclei over time as he induced muscle growth by giving the mice testosterone, a steroid hormone. Later, after stopping the testosterone, he could watch what happened as those muscles atrophied. Unsurprisingly, testosterone boosted nuclei number. But those extra nuclei stuck around, even as the muscle shrank by half. Gundersen thinks the results contradict the dogma that nuclei disappear when muscles atrophy. "Nuclei are lost by cell death," he says, "just not the actual muscle nuclei that confer strength." What's more, he says these retained extra nuclei might explain how a muscle remembers its past fitness.
Take a cross section of muscle tissue and you'll find a sort of marbled mishmash of muscle cells surrounded by numerous other cell types, such as satellite cells and fibroblasts. Researchers could have been measuring the death of cells that support muscle and incorrectly inferred that muscle cells lose their nuclei, according to Gundersen and Schwartz. Gundersen and colleagues developed another method that zoomed in on individual muscle cells. The researchers injected a stain into muscle cells that mice use to flex their toes. The stain spreads throughout the muscle cells, illuminating their nuclei. Gundersen could then track the nuclei over time as he induced muscle growth by giving the mice testosterone, a steroid hormone. Later, after stopping the testosterone, he could watch what happened as those muscles atrophied. Unsurprisingly, testosterone boosted nuclei number. But those extra nuclei stuck around, even as the muscle shrank by half. Gundersen thinks the results contradict the dogma that nuclei disappear when muscles atrophy. "Nuclei are lost by cell death," he says, "just not the actual muscle nuclei that confer strength." What's more, he says these retained extra nuclei might explain how a muscle remembers its past fitness.
No More Gym? Don't Worry, Your Muscles Remember https://www.npr.org/templates/...
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"Muscles need to be versatile to meet animals' needs to move," reports NPR.
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A physiological theory for something that's been observed and widely believed true, that it's easier to regain lost muscle size/strength than to develop the same for the first time. I wonder over what timeframe this effect could be observed, months, years? Interestingly, this is also an argument against transgender athletes, who were born male but transition to female, competing in female competition. Even though you may be on hormone therapy to get a few markers within a certain range, your training history as a male still provides an unfair advantage as muscle satellite cells will still contribute to strength and hypertrophy even with varying hormone levels.
As a trainer, ive always thought similarly. Once you get into good shape, it changes you permanently. You get fat differently, you retain your 'build' so to speak. Now, this is something I felt was true, but had only anecdotal evidence for. Interesting to see that our simple observations on fitness can turn out correct.
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So science has just discovered "Old Man Strength." Never mess with a retired iron worker, machinist, miner or anyone else that did physical labor their entire life. This is known.
I've always found after a period without exercise regaining muscle up to the point I'd previously reached very fast and easy. What's slow is going beyond that point.
The summary (and maybe TFA, who reads it?) is mixing two very different things. The idea of "fitness" is usually related to muscle size. That seems to be what the research is about.
Strength, OTOH, is neuromuscular. It depends on both the physiologic state of the muscle (how big it is being one aspect), but also, and mostly, on the nervous system.
That's why weightlifters keep increasing their strength for years without gaining weight; (Ex)athletes regain strength quickly; That is also why they can easily get injured when they come back to training (their nervous system sends contractions that their muscle can't handle).
In my experience past fitness levels give you edge over very long spans of time, certainly any length without much exercise I went through until now. Even after well over 10 years going back to gym produces startlingly rapid progress, especially considering age difference.
Same for running, going back to it after 5 or 10 years it takes a short time, few months, to converge to the same km splits.
Disclaimer - we're talking about an amateur sportsman here, but there's no reason why it should be completely different for pros.