Friday's Facts and Findings -- Your Brain on Exercise

I found this article on the Idea Health and Fitness Association website and thought is was pretty interesting.

It is entitled:  The Exercise--Brain Connection.

The article is written by Jeffrey A. Kleim, PhD., associate professor in the Arizona State University School of Biological Health Systems Engineering.

He writes:

"Exercise Improves Cognitive Function

A sedentary lifestyle affects the brain—and in turn lessens mental capacity. Sibley and Etnier (2003) found a clear connection between how much schoolchildren exercised and their cognitive performance: the more aerobic exercise the children engaged in, the better they performed on verbal, perceptual and mathematical tests. The same pattern of results was found in older adults: aerobic training improved cognitive performance (Colcombe & Kramer 2003), and active lifestyles decreased age-related risks for cognitive impairment and dementia (Yaffe et al. 2009). Not surprisingly, these cognitive effects were accompanied by clear changes in brain structure and function.

Exercise Changes Brain Function

Research shows that exercise changes brain function in a lasting manner. For example, the reduced cognitive capacity in sedentary individuals is associated with different patterns of brain activity—both at rest and while performing mentally challenging tasks—than those observed in active subjects.

Plus, compared with sedentary people, active individuals show greater baseline levels of cortical activity (Dustman et al. 1990). (The cerebral cortex helps with complex cognitive tasks.)

Exercise Changes Brain Structure

The structure of the brain can be broken down into two general components. Gray matter contains the neurons and supporting cells, while white matter consists of the axons of these neurons (nerve cell fibers) that carry signals from one area to another.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows for the measurement of gray and white matter. MRI scans have shown that exercise boosts overall brain volume (Colcombe et al. 2006), increasing both gray matter (Colcombe et al. 2006) and white matter (Gordon et al. 2008). These changes can occur over relatively short periods of time. After learning to juggle for only a few weeks, for example, study subjects showed increases in gray matter within regions of the brain concerned with integrating visual and motor information (Draganski et al. 2004)."

More articles relating to exercise and the brain:  Physical Exercise for Brain Health

Getting a Brain Boost Through Exercise 

Bottom line--exercise does not just a body, but a brain good too!

Thursday's Total Body/Cardio-- Chair Cardio and Strength Workout + Chair Stretch

Today's workout comes from jessicasmithtv.  It is a two part workout that is done entirely on a chair.  This is great program for beginners and those of you with joint issues or injuries--especially knees.  For a bit more core challenge, this workout could also be done on a stability ball.

You will need a sturdy chair or a stability ball for more challenge, a towel and a set of dumbbells.

You will see that you don't have to be standing to get a great cardio  and strength workout.

I've also included a stretch video that completes this workout.

Wednesday's Wild/Warrior Workout -- Killer Crosstraining Bootcamp

Today's workout comes from LiveExercise.  It is a total body workout that is split into several parts.  It starts off with 3 rounds of 4 exercises.  The exercises are split into static holds and 15 reps moving through your range of motion.

Next,  a timer gets set for 40 seconds and you perform 4 exercises for 10 seconds each doing as many reps as you can during that 10 seconds repeating this for  3 rounds without any rest in between for a total of 2 minutes of HIIT training.

Next, a ladder workout is done with wall ups and pushups.  If the wall ups are too intense, hold a plank instead or put your feet up on and down on a bottom step or up on a coffee table or couch.  You start with 10 reps and work down to 1, they work pretty fast-- (if this is too intense, start with 5 and go down from there).

Next, you will do some gluteal work.  Doing 3 different exercises that target these muscles, 10 reps each, 2 rounds.

Finally, you will end with some core work--get ups--these are hard, but he breaks them down into steps (5 reps each) to make them easier--if you've never done these before, don't use any weight, just concentrate on keeping your arm and shoulder elevated.

Equipment used:  optional mat, 2 heavy weights or heavy objects of the same weight, an optional resistance band, they give some other options to use things from around the house.

This is an intense workout.  Work at your own speed and pace paying attention to your form.  Modify when necessary.  The video is 52 minutes, but the workout itself is only around 30.

The warm up they do is pretty minimal with some unnecessary static stretching.  You're better off doing a longer warm up and skip the shoulder stretches (do arm circles instead) and make sure to warm up your back--squat down and roll up one vertebra at a time--do this a few times.

Do NOT do the the hurdler stretch they do at the end--really bad for your knees.  Instead of bending the knee to bring the foot under you, bend it to the inside so the foot is toward the opposite inner thigh and lean forward with a flat back to stretch your hamstrings.  To stretch your quads, go to your side and grab your foot, pushing your foot into your hand, flex your foot and pull your entire leg back until you get a good stretch to the front of your thigh (quads), switch sides.  This was a full body workout, so make sure to stretch your chest, lower back, shoulders and arms as well.