No, muscle memory refers to a different phenomenon where nerves outside of our brain can be trained and get better at skills.

I think what you're seeing here is that when you initially build muscle, you are building new muscle cells. When you lose those gains, you still mostly have the same number of cells, but they muscle fibers in them reduce. When you go to regain it, it's easier to regain because you still have most of the celluar framework there.

Or, at least, that's how it was explained to me. I probably have some details wrong.

It is apparently easier for someone who has done strength training or body building to get back into it then the first time around. I don't know the science behind it but I've heard it from many sources.

I don't know if muscle memory is a scientific term but I understand it as adaptations of muscle and nerves that are skill specific as a result of training. I think it's hard to put a boundary around the brain here. The brain and the nervous system is also a component of strength.

There are two distinct but related phenomena, both called muscle memory: the motor learning you're talking about, and strength training: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory_(strength_traini...

> Doping with anabolic steroids also seem to act partly by recruiting new nuclei.[7][8] It was recently shown in mice[9] that a brief exposure to anabolic steroids recruited new muscle nuclei. When the steroids were withdrawn, the muscle rapidly shrank to normal size, but the extra nuclei remained. After a waiting period of 3 months (about 15% of the mouse lifespan), overload exercise led to a muscle growth of 36% within 6 days in the steroid-exposed group, while control muscles that had never been exposed to steroids grew only insignificantly.

aqueueaqueue probably meant this part ^. If you do steroid once, then you stop doing steroid, its effects remain, according to wiki (in mice).

Fair question. There's no way to know rigorously but many friends have said it increased their base muscle permanently

> Like riding a bike.

Or walking. Humans take such a long time to gain the muscle strength and the motor skills to simply take a few steps.