Is it too early to feed the brain? Taking a corrective exercise workshop Save Your Back, Get Your Butt in Gear, with Eric Beard.
7:15: He’s a pretty good speaker, but he espouses a lot of research without telling us the source.
7:50: getting into some good stuff now on how muscles work. How they work and what happens when they malfunction.
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Fitnessgroan's Blog 
One question I have about muscles is regarding muscle memory. I keep hearing people say that they lost all their strength after an operation or years of low use. But they can get back to a previous high level of fitness quite quickly. Take Armsttrong as an example. Does the muscle remember its previous condition or is it just that these people have the habits to get back to their previous condition?
Julie’s comment is right on. It’s not that muscle cells have their own “memory”, but that while strength and endurance diminish with lack of activity, what isn’t lost is the neurological connection “program” between the brain and the body. Your brain knows how to fire the muscles contractile response in a more effective and efficient way, eliminating 4-6 weeks worth of effort compared to someone who has never worked out before, and needs to train that connection from scratch before getting to the muscular response.
A good example of this neurological programming is someone who learns to ride a bicycle as a child, then stops riding for any number of years. It doesn’t matter if its 3 years or 23. You will never forget that skill, which is the brain controlling all the muscles involved with balancing and propulsion. You may not be quite as steady at first, but you get it back real quick, because the programming is already done.
I always thought muscle memory was more like riding a bicycle…. you do some motor task long enough that your muscles remember how to do it without consciously thinking about it. I’ve never thought about it as a muscle remembering it’s previous level of strength. Interesting idea though…