How Exercise Can Strengthen the Brain | Hacker News Reader

How Exercise Can Strengthen the Brain

well.blogs.nytimes.com

163 pointswallflower60 comments

> More immediately, Dr. Davis speculates, re-energized brain cells could behave like mitochondrial-drenched muscle cells, becoming more resistant to fatigue and, since bodily fatigue is partly mediated by signals from the brain, allowing you to withstand more exercise.

This corresponds with the experience of sports scientists and coaches: more highly adapted athletes can withstand more training; and indeed more training is required to disrupt homeostasis in order to create further adaptation.

But it's a diminishing process. A beginning trainee can get strong with 3 sessions, 45 minutes a week, and get linear gains in every single session. An elite-level weightlifter can find themselves spending 6 months on a complicated program to add 5kg to their maximum singles.

I've heard of a study that showed that the first set of a strength-building exercise (like bench-pressing) gives one something like 85% of the benefit possible for the session. The 2nd set gets the lifter up into the mid 90s. A 3rd set has almost no affect on overall fitness. More sets risk negative returns. I took that knowledge and started doing one-set per lift (actually one warm-up set with about 50% of the weight I intended to lift followed by the real set). I had positive results while spending much less time and effort.

It's ... more complicated than that.

For example: a beginning trainee can use almost any scheme and make progress.

An advanced trainee: not so much. Their program will need to manipulate intensity, repetitions, volume, density, frequency and exercise mix to continue making gains.

For intermediate to advanced lifters, a good reference is Prilepin's Table, which gives set/rep/totals based on intensity (% of your 1-rep maximum for that exercise).

For example, when I do 95%+ singles, I aim for 6 or 7 singles.

For 90-95% doubles, I aim to do 4-6 sets.

This is pretty unrelated, but since you bring up rep ranges, I figured what the hell.

As I've gotten older (I'm only 22 now, but I started lifting weights when I was 12 so it semi-counts) I've found that I get way more benefit from a bodybuilder style workout. Specifically, rather than work my way up from 5's to triples to singles, I'll do 2-4 sets of 8-15 reps per exercise. I've found that it allows me to target the muscle and avoid strain on my joints.

The reason I bring that up is because I wonder how that compares neurologically to low volume high intensity workouts such as the ones you're doing.

Training for strength has a number of components, but the two ones that matter are, in order:

1. Central nervous system adaptation; developing the ability to recruit the largest muscle fibres, to recruit them more completely and to recruit them faster.

2. Myofibrillar hypertrophy; causing the myofibrils, the structures that generate force, to grow larger. (It's possible to provoke sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, which causes fluid build up in muscles -- it grows larger but not stronger).

I am unfamiliar with the physiology of exactly how the CNS produces its adaptations, but I would be surprised if there wasn't measurable effects on the brain, if only the parts related to motor function.

Bodybuilding-style training -- high reps, isolation movements -- is generally easier on the CNS, but has only limited strength development potential.

(For an enlightening read, get a copy of Zatsiorsky & Kramer's Science and Practice of Strength Training 2nd ed).

Resistance training (colloquially "weight lifting") is the most efficient tool for body transformation, regardless of gender, age and goals. Whether you want to gain muscle or lose fat, it gets you there in the shortest amount of time (both time in the gym, and calendar time).

Once you reach your goals, feel free to switch to a more diverse regimen for maintenance.

EDIT: 15-rep sets is not "bodybuilder's workout". It's a waste of time. Either lift heavy, or go outside and do cardio. That in-between never-never land should be avoided.

EDIT2: Let me restate this. Above a certain set length, weight lifting ceases to train strength - which is its main external goal. The opinions differ, but in general the limit is estimated around 10 ... 12: if your set is that long, the weight you're using is too easy. Use heavier loads, so that you cannot do such long sets. In practice, the longest sets that are profitable are 8 reps.

If you're worried about strain and injuries, do warm-ups with 67% the working load - a short set of a few reps at 67%, maybe repeated once if things are really sketchy with your joints, should be enough. Then lift with a powerful, but fluid and controlled motion. Never jerk the weight.

If you are not worried about strain and injuries you are not doing this for very long.

With respect to bodybuilders, high-rep sets provoke sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. The muscle doesn't become stronger, but it does become larger. That suits their goals.

A serious bodybuilder doesn't give up heavy work though.

I'm not comfortable with that conclusion.

To make progress, you need to stimulate muscles deeply. One set typically cannot recruit all fibers in the muscle. That's why you do more sets, to fatigue some of them, then recruit the rest in subsequent sets.

To gain strength, you need to lift around 70% ... 90% of your 1RM (one-rep-max - the maximum load that allows the complete execution of exactly one repetition). On the lower end of that spectrum, that means 8 rep sets. On the higher end, that means 3 rep sets.

I'd be fine with doing one set of 8 reps at 70% 1RM. But it just doesn't sound right to only do one set of 3 reps, even if it's 90% 1RM. There's no way you're stimulating the whole muscle. Lots of fibers will remain unrecruited, and will not be pushed to improve.

Perhaps you're stimulating the same muscle with several different exercises during the same session, but then you're not really doing "one set".

All this boils down to: you need around 24 ... 25 reps per exercise to really dig into all fibers. Shorter sets = more sets = higher load. Longer sets = fewer sets = lower load.

For whole body training, this strategy leads to 40 ... 60 minutes required per session to stimulate all major muscles. Given 3 sessions per week, that means 2 ... 3 hours per week of weight lifting. That's not excessive by any means.

Basically, I consider all of the above as the gold standard of whole-body strength training for amateurs. Using these principles (and others) I transformed myself from a pencil-neck into the guy who bench presses 100 kg (220 lb).

A better way to look at it is that 1 hard set gets one most of the benefit that is possible from the exercise. An athlete would definitely want to do 2 or 3 sets (or more depending on level of competition, etc.), but an average person just trying to get into shape or maintain shape doesn't. I went from pencil-neck to bench pressing 215 lbs using the one-hard-set method.

Oh, it will work, no doubt, just at less than the ideal speed. Such a minimalist program was espoused by Mike Mentzer, one of the great bodybuilders of past decades. But his views are not considered mainstream.

I agree that a full 24 ... 25 reps (3x8, 8x3, 5x5, etc.) program is not required for maintenance only.

To get into shape... well, I guess it depends on the temperament. I'm inclined to achieve the goal as quickly as possible, then focus on something else. Hence my previous reply.

Without wanting to sound rude, you were a beginner.

Training programs for beginners are notoriously effective. I could bring a beginner's squat max up by making them walk up hills.

One of the major problems with the scientific literature on weight training is that it tends to take untrained males of college-attending age and then do dippy stuff to them. And then, surprise! The weird training protocol works! The happy researcher concludes that their pet theory is proved.

But as I say, beginners can be trained with almost anything and improved. So one might as well get them used to what they will need to do as an intermediate or advanced trainee and teach them to squat, deadlift, bench, overhead press and (in my case) the snatch and C&J.

The fact that strength athletes do not follow this regime - powerlifters, Olympic-style weightlifters, strong-man and bodybuilders - should give you pause. What should give you further pause is that people who use strength training as a supplement to their main sport also don't follow this regime.

I was talking about getting into shape, not competing in the Olympics. If you could get into good shape doing one hard set per lift, wouldn't that make more sense than spending 2 to 3 times the effort in the gym? It's all about goals. I don't lift weights to get huge or compete in anything. I lift for functional strength and weight loss. Others may benefit from knowing that they don't have to spend an hour or more in the gym to get impressive results.

Then the points the others brought up become relevant. If you're not in shape and have done no prior strength training, any strength training you do will have results.

I think it makes perfect sense. Especially when you take into account, that anyone can do 6 months of strength training but doing it forever all your life without pause is quite hard at least for me.

Yes, that would make sense. Take into account though that for many people most of their gym time is overhead, especially if they don't have equipment at home. A large % of time is taken up by getting to and from the gym, getting changed, taking a shower, setting up the right weights on the bar and doing warm-ups, cool-downs & stretching. Because of this, adding an extra set doesn't mean that you'll take 2-3 times as long in total. Determining whether the faster gains you get from doing the additional sets are worth the marginal time depends on a number of factors. If you have plenty of time available for workouts, then do the 2-3 sets and reach your goals faster, if your time is extremely constrained, then the extra 20 minutes per workout might not be worth it

I've read relatively widely in the exercise, weightlifting, and strength training literature. It didn't take long for me to notice that these fields are plagued by fads and contradictory opinions and advice. It's almost as bad as nutritional advice or programming.

For any given action which is physically possible, you're likely to find someone shouting from the rooftops that it's the greatest or only way to train, and someone else reviling it as either worthless or even detrimental. Quite often both contradictory positions have huge numbers of fans.

Sports are great because they have built in metrics. Pay attention to the people who do well.

There's surprisingly little disagreement in the sports where strength is the key quality. There's argument about exercise selection and rotation, some dispute about programming and so forth. But everyone knows you need to frequently lift >85% of your 1RM, and everyone does.

However, the strength sports are different. Powerlifting requires training for maximum force production. Weightlifting requires training for rate of force production. Strongman requires training for strength endurance. These are three related but distinct physical qualities, and naturally, specialists in these sports train differently. To the amateur eye it can seem confusing and there's a temptation to declare that one of these is "best" and that other methods are dumb.

Otherwise, most of the fad arguments take place in bodybuilding, where the degree of physiological literacy is ... lower, on average.

Explosive power, sheer strength and endurance. It's important to remember they are not the same; thank you for bringing that up.

Bodybuilding is also the only one that I don't really consider a "sport." It's a beauty contest. I think the prevalence of fads is higher because there's no objective performance metric.

While I share your suspicion that anything requiring judges to give a score is probably not a sport, if there's one thing bodybuilders and "fitness" models are masters at, it's manipulating water retention. They've got it down to a dangerously scary fine art.

... on the not-so-glorious side of the ledger, they probably know more about steroids than anyone short of an ex-East German sports scientist.

Actually, I think wrestlers may be just as good at manipulating water weight. The biggest difference being that wrestler have to compete soon after, and if they didn't cut properly, they'll become exhausted during their match and get mauled.

Of course they don't. According to skittles claim, performance is still maximized with 3 sets. It is merely performance/effort which is maximized with one set.

A weekend warrior may wish to optimize performance/effort, but a serious athlete must optimize performance.

"Performance" is a variable metric. And not looking towards the best people in a field for guidance because you don't want to attain their level of achievement is, I think, misguided. If you don't do that, then you risk being taken in by charlatans.

This is broscience. A couple position papers from reputable sources (NSCA, NCSM) directly contradict this, the first based on a meta-analysis:

http://www.nsca-lift.org/HotTopic/download/Single%20vs%20Mul...

http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2009/03000/Progre...

Aside from the fact that the tradeoff with doing 1 set is actually much less performance improvement long-term, the main problem with this idea is that it just doesn't take all that much time to bust out 3 sets vs 1 set of something, at least for the more critical, whole body exercises (squat, deadlift, bench, chin, row, clean...)

Factoring in generalized warmup, cool-down, travel to the gym, getting changed in and out of exercise clothes, showering, etc - you're talking about a 10-15 extra minutes of training in order achieve substantially greater gains.

For those who are interested in exercise but haven't enjoyed it in the past (running, swimming, lifting weights can be boring), I'd recommend rock-climbing.

Four months ago I joined a rock-climbing gym and I've really enjoyed it. Its a good workout, but its also a mental challenge. Each route up the wall can be completed in different ways, so it takes a bit of problem solving to determine the best way to finish a route.

I've been considering getting into rock-climbing, but I'm concerned that reliance on a partner will make it hard to go. Has this been a problem for you? If so, what have you done to deal with it? You can boulder by yourself, yes?

Yes, you can boulder by yourself (I find bouldering more fun anyways). Most gyms have sign up sheets to connect solo climbers with others. Even better, when you sign up at a gym you'll probably receive guest passes, take a friend some time and they'll probably want to sign up themselves because its so fun. My group has increased from 2 to 4 over the last few months.

EDIT: For those who are unaware of the climbing terms, here are some brief descriptions:

Bouldering: Climbing solo, with no gear, usually up a wall ~8-12 ft (with mats below, in case you fall). These routes are usually tougher focus more on technique/strength rather than endurance.

Top-Roping: Climbing with a partner (one climber, one belayer), both partners must have the proper gear and tie in to the ropes in order to climb. These routes are usually 20-50ft and require a good deal of endurance to reach the top.

Just be careful bouldering as a beginner. It's really easy to try something that you don't have the hand strength/tendon strength for yet and tweak something. Some gyms have autobelays which let you climb without a partner, so that might be an option.

I'm going to slightly counter brildum's statements and point out that I was unable to stay on a bouldering climb for something like six months after I started top-rope climbing. I just didn't have the strength (less important) and skill (more important).

Admittedly, I have known a few people who've gone straight into bouldering and pulled it off. Give it a try. If you can, great.

By the way, one of the best things about rock climbing is the social aspect. You should look at partnering as an opportunity rather than a hindrance. I've made a lot of good friends at the gym over the years.

I would STRONGLY recommend AGAINST bouldering to start, because of the HIGH likelihood of injury from falling.

If you are not used to taking impacts from jumping from high places (e.g., typical sedentary person), you will almost certainly sustain a severe injury.

Broken and dislocated ankles and ligament ruptures are alarmingly common. Dislocations are especially bad, because the ankle's blood supply isn't great to begin with, so a severe dislocation is like yanking a plug out of the wall; if the blood supply doesn't happen to get re-established (which even microsurgery can't do anything about), you are looking at avascular necrosis. Imagine a dead coral reef crumbling away.

It's even worse in climbing shoes because your toes are crammed together -- imagine landing on your fist.

Rock-climbing (roped) gives your feet and ankles time to strengthen as you support your weight on tiny toe-holds, which is a slow process because ligaments and tendons have poor blood supplies compared to muscles.

Looking at elite climbers bouldering is like looking at elite gymnasts -- you don't see all the ones who got seriously injured along the way. You see them taking 20-foot highball drops and think, how bad can 10 feet be? Or 5 feet?

Even a drop of a few feet can result in a severe injury if your foot isn't flat; when you are jumping off backward onto a lumpy bouldering pad, if your foot lands inverted slightly, the impact can force it inward 90 degrees.

This probably happens twice a week at popular climbing gyms with bouldering areas.

I found it very straightforward finding a partner to climb with when I started. Rock climbing gyms are very friendly places in my experience, and as others have said, most will have some kind of system for pairing up people who are looking for partners.

I'd suggest dragging a friend along to your local climbing place so you can try it out a couple of times and see if you like it. Then if your friend doesn't want to keep going, either speak to the staff at the gym, or if they can't pair you up with someone put an advert on craigslist/gumtree/similar (I got 3 responses to a gumtree ad when I started, which gave me an instant group of people to go with).

As long as you can commit to a regular time once or twice a week, you shouldn't have a problem finding someone to climb with. Once you start going regularly you'll meet other people at the gym, which gives you more pairing options if your normal partner is away or ill or whatever.

Try it. I'm glad I did. I've made some new friends from it and gained a lot of strength.

Rock-climbing is good. However, I have found that if you lack a baseline of fitness, you won't get a whole lot out of it in terms of pleasure- at least for bouldering. For example, recently I bouldered for a month or two, and reached a point where I could do easy tracks with relative ease, but medium-difficulty tracks were for all intents and purposes impossible. My right arm and my pinch grip were simply not up to snuff, and when they aren't good enough to use on the rock I can't develop them through use!

Anecdotally, it seems like a great sport to hone and maintain your physiquie, and perhaps motivate you to develop it, but it does not seem to stand alone well for developing.

(I'm in decent shape; some examples of the holds that stopped me cold were hanging on an inverted face from pinch grips, and tricky holds where the face is again steeply inverted, your hand is by your waist, and you pull your chest up against the rock with that hand. Just not even slightly within my abilities)

Apparently, aerobic exercise has been shown to have a positive effect on mental performance: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/what-sort-of-exerci...

I don't know of any studies showing that anaerobic (e.g. weight lifting) can have a similar effect.

My ideal workout regimen would incorporate both. My actual regimen is just going for a 10 minute walk then coming back to read HN. Damn you HN, why are you so interesting!

Shouldn't all jocks be Einsteins?

All jokes aside, exercise reduces stress. Which can really affect your mental performance. I found that when I was working out consistently my academic scores were higher.

My number one tip to people going into university is to find time to workout 3 times a week to balance out the stress.

What kind of exercise?

I have personally found the most benefit by basing my workouts around one of the main powerlifting exercises - squat, bench press, or deadlift.

Cardiovascular exercise is best performed after a weightlifting session and provides additional benefits.

I've never really had any issues with stress, so I can't speak to that. However, somewhat related, I found daily exercise (more intense on some days, but at least something every day) did a lot to improve my sleep. In turn that made me much more effective when awake.

Same, working out every morning caused my body to fall into very predictable patterns around eating, sleeping, etc... I think most of all I appreciated leveling off my body. Using a mouse and keyboard all day would put certain stresses on certain muscles, but after 2 months of lifting weights the localized soreness went away.

> Shouldn't all jocks be Einsteins?

If they were, how would you know? Almost by definition, their interests do not incline towards physics and they spend little time on it (compared to whatever makes them a 'jock'). Even if they change their minds, it's a bit late - hard to become a top-notch physicist when you don't learn anything about it until you're 25 or 30 or something.

Rule #1 in Brain Rules, http://brainrules.net/the-rules

Cool article, this reminds me of how the memory championships mentioned in Joshua Foer's book "Moonwalking With Einstein" (http://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-Rememberi...) all workout and watch their personal fitness in order to optimize their mental performance. Gary Kasparov used to also exercise a lot too prior to chess competitions.

I just want to add that I found it very difficult to stay on the treadmill for any amount of time due to boredom. I bought a treadmill for home ( Sole F80 - very nice machine) and put a TV w/ cable and a dvd player in front of it. What really keeps me going though is the Xbox 360 with multiplayer matches of Call of Duty and a boom box w/ custom mixed CDs. I can get so immersed in that game that I don't notice the 40 minutes to an hour of running.

I run in the woods, and it's the best possible time to let my mind wander, too. BTW I think it's probably bad in the long term to live in perpetual visual stimulation, so maybe you should consider the good sides of "boredom".

It's worse to stop exercising.

I like to go mountain biking but I live in Phoenix, AZ. It gets so hot here that it really isn't safe to exercise outdoors for several months out of the year. Maybe early in the morning but I'm never up that early.

I went mountain biking year round in Phoenix when I lived there, and I'm terrible at getting up early. Fill up that Camelbak and you'll be fine. I also cycled 15 miles to work on my road bike, on what turned out to be the hottest of the prior several years (116, I rode in around 11am).

Is there nowhere good to run or cycle near you? You will get a lot more out of it if there is.

I have been a big cyclist, but only started running in Sydney, since it is dangerous to listen to music and cycle in that city. But there are plenty of parks to run in and listen to music.

I huff and puff a lot from high rep weight lifting. It will give you cardio-type exercise and will be fairly quick.

Playing an FPS while running? Have you ever had a positive K/D ratio doing that?

yes. I am not as good as on the pc because of the controller but once I am in the zone the running helps. You spend a lot of time running in game at about the same pace.

This is a great podcast about exercise and the brain. Most interesting to me is how exercise directly increases brain plasticity :

http://brainsciencpodcast.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/brain-sci...

I started mountain biking this April, and watched my entrepreneurial performance grow. Before that I was miserable in the suburban Michigan, can't get anything done. Now I'm vibrant and energetic.

I've just got my co-founder to buy a mountain bike so he can exercise enough as well. We'll see how big an effect it has on him.

There is a book about the benefits of exercise on the brain. Studies have found exercise to be useful for a lot of brain problems, everything from dementia to depression. As the author puts it, if exercise could be put in a pill it would be considered a miracle drug.

The writing style is a bit gee-wiz, but I actually learned some useful stuff from the book.

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain http://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-B...

Anybody try controlled trial of vinpocetine or GPC-choline?

In meantime, play piano, meditate, bright lights

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-six-w...

Maybe it's good for Alzheimer's patients, but how does this affect everyday situations. It's not like our neurons need to stretch and relax, so they need more mitochondria. I wonder if they found any other alterations in brain chemistry.

It will be interesting if the mice are subjected to behavioral testing over time to see if the exercise-induced changes improve neurocognitive outcomes. Hopefully they are working on that.

Solve a complex problem or just workout to keep your brain fit.

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