From a motor learning perspective, once a person has acquired a skill, they typically do not lose their ability to perform that skill, unless there is a neurological or musculoskeletal injury or disease. Over time, their ability to perform the skill at a high level, or at the same level of performance they were at when they first learned or mastered the skill, is going to decrease (if they stop practicing the skill), but they should be able to still perform the skill. The supplementary motor area of our cerebral cortex (brain) is the part that helps construct movements based on internal motor memory (many people call this muscle memory, which is incorrect. Muscles cannot remember anything, but that’s a topic for another day).

For example, when you first learn a motor skill, like riding a bicycle or hitting a baseball or softball, your brain has to learn which limbs to use, which muscles to activate, when the muscles need to turn on and off, how much muscle force to produce, and how to coordinate the movement. With practice, this movement becomes more coordinated and the brain gains better control, and this internal motor memory is strengthened. So, when you want to perform the skill again, the supplementary motor area can organize the movement based on the internal motor memory that was created from previous experience. Just like anything else, this memory will fade some over time, and the longer you go between practicing the skill, the less efficient you are going to be at performing it. But, a person could go several years without riding a bicycle, and they would still be able to ride it due to the previous experience and motor memories from performing the skill.

Now, it’s difficult to say how much of the skill a person would lose within a set period of time. Some people are going to see more of a loss than others, and some people will perform better than others when first performing a skill after not doing it for a long time. There are many factors that will affect this, including the level of expertise the person originally achieved and their own motor abilities). That’s what makes us unique as humans; we are all different, but are bodies have an amazing ability to learn, remember and adapt.

