Muscle Memory

“When thinking starts all automatic reflexes stop”

I love golf, it is a  game that is addictive and very relaxing. It is played on a beautifully designed and manicured natural environment of trees, green grass, flowers, streams, small lakes and sand traps. While playing golf, you breath in fresh air, you listen to bird songs, smell the  flowers, and enjoy the company of same-minded friends.

In order to love something, first we must know it well; love comes after knowing. With this idea in mind, I was taking golf lessons from a famous golf pro, at Hilton head Island in South Carolina. He kept talking about, ”muscle-memory”.  After a while, I intervened, “Sir! there is no such a thing as muscle memory, muscles have no memory cells”. He remarked ,”what are you, some kind of doctor?” I answered, “yes I am”.  In that case he said, ”you must talk to us about memory, reflex movements and the golf swing.”  I obliged.

Memory is the function of our brain and only special nerve cells of our brain, have memory capacities. Memory is a knowledge and it is kept in our brain’s memory cells. Memory should not be mixed with reflexes. Memory needs thinking and recall, in order to retrieve memorized knowledge  and use it. But reflex movements are intuitive, they do not need thinking, they just happen automatically.

When thinking starts, all automatic reflex movements stop. Our mind with its infinite wisdom, converts all repetitive physical movements of acquired skills, into automatic reflexes in order to save energy and time. Acquired automatic reflexes are delegated to the spinal cord section of the central nervous system, where no thinking is needed.

Thinking and decision making requires energy expenditure and knowledge and they are the function of pre-frontal cortex of our brain. The golf swing, in this sense, is unique. It requires the combination of both thinking and automatic golf reflexes. A golfer must think before hitting the golf ball, about how far to hit the ball, where to land it, about the wind, which effects the flight of the ball, about sand traps and water traps, which must be avoided.  Then take few practice swings to remind his muscles what to do. After clearing his mind of any of these thoughts, a golfer must trusts his automatic golf swing reflexes, while holding the chosen golf club very lightly, he swings his golf club by rotating and torquing around his accordingly established  spine axis. Making a good golf swing is more important than hitting the ball. The ball is hit because it was placed on the golf swing path.

 Combinations of all these factors, make golf a very difficult game to master.