What Is ‘Muscle Memory’ and Can I Improve Mine?

Things I Don’t Remember: You’ve heard it a million times: “It’s just like riding a bike.” What that old chestnut is referring to is muscle memory — the body’s ability to automatically remember how to do a skill. Muscle memory can be applied to lots of things: swimming, typing on a keyboard without looking at the keys, picking up the piano again after a long hiatus, even tying your shoes. But can you lose that skill as you age — and if so, are there ways to protect or even improve it?

The Benefits: The more science-y term for muscle memory is “procedural memory.” It’s different from other types of memory, as it’s tied to remembering actions, not words. With repetition over time, a task can become automatic. Muscle memory isn’t as affected by dementia as other types of memory for this reason. People with dementia might forget their spouse’s name, but they could still know how to knit. Continuing to learn new skills as we age, however, has a protective benefit against age-related cognitive decline.

How to Do It: To learn a new skill, you have to work through the uncomfortable learning phase, which requires deep focus and concentration. Create a frequent practice schedule. Sleeping afterward has been found to improve retention.