The first time I saw this 'chair flying' is the Blue Angels briefing room video[0]. Can they actually remember the whole flow with the drawings etc. and imagine the whole scene with their hand movements etc? Absolutely unbelievable. I've never missed them in all the years since I moved to San Francisco. They're so tight in when they fly and they visualize the whole thing in a chair? Crazy to me.

0: https://youtu.be/PFxszP-1tHI?t=81

I'm not a blue angel, but when I used to be a pilot literally every time I went to sim, I would chairfly for maybe an hour a night, visualizing and moving my hand to where the switch was, etc. for each and every emergency procedure. It works quite well.

There's muscle growth and metabolic changes (including at the level of the cell), but strength is also largely neurological.

Similarly, a headset can "read your thoughts" (inner voice) by detecting subtle activations in the facial muscles. A student at MIT constructed such a headset about ten years ago:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VnMS8WMDDhs

Race car drivers often make use of this as well.

It can legitimately help you drive a lap faster in e.g qualifying.

There was this hilarious scene in a hilarious movie: the bobsled team rehearsing the race in their bathtub (Cool Runnings, 1993). But for real: ski runners do that as well, and I guess in so many others places where there's a routine to learn by heart (katas in martial arts...).

Came here to share exactly this. Pilot training has long emphasized “chair flying”. At my first airline we sat at paper mockups and repeatedly drilled procedures until you could recite them in your sleep. Fortunately, modern tech has given us “flyable” digital mockups. Not quite a full sim but an arrangement of touch screens where everything functions as a real plane.

During longer periods away from flying I will spend a few days prior to the next flight mentally chair flying normal procedures.

I do think there’s some level of experience necessary for this to be beneficial though. Chair flying a plane I've never flown isn’t likely to be very productive without feedback from an experienced pilot. I would imagine the same is true for a couch potato trying to imagine a difficult squat set.