Five weeks and five days after giving birth, and a full nine months since running a single step, WH's Lesley Rotchford, 34, laced up her sneaks and banged out five miles. Her muscles groaned a bit from the abrupt reentry, but with 20 years of distance running under their belt, they remembered just what to do.
It's a phenomenon aptly called muscle memory. Simply put, when you teach your body how to do something?ride a bike, surf, strike some yoga poses, run a few miles?it creates a physiological blueprint. So even if you take some time off, you'll get back to where you were faster than it took you to learn the exercise in the first place. "Muscle memory stems from your body's learning not just how to perform a task, but also how to break down muscle tissue and then repair and rebuild it," explains William Kraemer, Ph.D., a professor in the department of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. "That physiological knowledge lets you come back from injury, surgery, and even pregnancy faster, easier, and often better than before," he says.
Source: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/fit-for-life
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