How's Your Brain Fitness

Have you heard the phrase "Use it or lose it"? This statement holds true for many facets of life, but most importantly applies to your brain! We all share concerns of mental decline, especially among an aging population.

The common assumption is after our early 20's the human brain stops developing. This may be true for brain size, but for learning, developing, and creating, this assumption doesn't hold true.

Not long ago, most scientists believed the brain became “hard-wired” during childhood, and that there was little you could do to improve its function once you entered adulthood. Not anymore.

Brain plasticity

It's a funny sounding concept, but refers to the brain’s ability to change—for better or worse—throughout life. It’s an incredibly important and personal process: by defining our brain development, it shapes each of our distinct personalities. You can read more about brain plasticity here.

This information comes from the Brain Fitness Channel, it is a dedicated website to informing you about the most important part of yourself.

I first found about this website through this great article from the New York Times. Here's a couple paragraphs that I found made the point:

Brains in middle age, which, with increased life spans, now stretches from the 40s to late 60s, also get more easily distracted. Start boiling water for pasta,go answer the doorbell and — whoosh — all thoughts of boiling water disappear. Indeed, aging brains, even in the middle years, fall into what’s called the default mode, during which the mind wanders off and begin daydreaming.

Given all this, the question arises, can an old brain learn, and then remember what it learns? Put another way, is this a brain that should be in school?

As it happens, yes. While it’s tempting to focus on the flaws in older brains, that inducement overlooks how capable they've become. Over the past several years, scientists have looked deeper into how brains age and confirmed that they continue to develop through and beyond middle age.

The Brain Fitness Channel is a great website, I spent some time reading and doing the interactive tests. It includes games, puzzles, recipes, and a ton of great information. Give your brain something that it will enjoy!

Exercising Without Getting Results

What if I was to tell you that your workout was the main reason you were not getting the results you want. You may be working hard, sweating much and feeling sore all over but come to realize you have been at it for months and you are really not any closer to your training goals then when you began. Now I am assuming that you have a goal or reason for training. After all, without a destination for your vacation, how do you know where to go or even how to get there? This, for some people, is their biggest challenge. But let us really discuss how you could be exercising extremely hard but fail to get the results you want.
Let’s say your goal is to gain some lean body mass, muscle. I will cover three very common ways that you could fail at gaining lean body mass. The common thread among these three training mistakes is that they all involve having training techniques that are not congruent or in agreement with the training goal, increasing lean body mass.
The most obvious training faux pas can be realized when we consider the lack of attention your gym’s power rack receives in a day to day basis. There is the occasional guy doing standing barbell curls in the rack but rarely do you have to wait long to find it available. Consider this very important fact of muscle physiology. The greater the demand placed on the largest muscle systems of the body, the greatest response you will have from the body in producing anabolic hormones (the body’s natural hormones that drive muscular development) like growth hormone and testosterone. When you perform full body compound movements like the squat, deadlift and chin ups at the appropriate intensity and volume (amount of work performed) your body will respond by producing more muscle in response to the demand of your training. You cannot expect to create more muscle mass when exercising the smaller muscle groups with single joint movements like bicep curls and lateral dumb bell raises.
The next very common training mistake is one very few people realize that they are making, even when you ask them about it. Most people will tell you that they train hard. However, it’s been my experience that very few people are training at a high enough intensity to stimulate growth. When you consider that the body will only change or adapt when presented with an adequate physical stressor it makes obvious sense. The intensity with which each exercise is performed is a critical factor that cannot be overlooked. No matter what you selection of exercise, if you perform it at low intensity, you will never achieve your desired goal. However, if you are new to exercising, you may realize a bit of change or improvement in your physique even at a low intensity. This is generally limited and fleeting. This improvement in can be due to comparing a low intensity weight training program to no weight training at all. So consider this during your next workout. Are you exercising with enough intensity?
Now finally an overlooked weight training variable that is extremely underappreciated. Rest. Seemingly mastered by the masses this term has nothing to do with leisure and everything to do with that brief period of time with which you allow your body to recover from a weight training set. The rest period can be defined as the time you rest between sets of a particular exercise. It can be as short as 10 to 30 seconds or as long as 5 minutes. By manipulating your rest period you can challenge the body’s different energy systems and increase your potential for muscular hypertrophy (increased muscle mass). The biggest mistake with respect to the rest period is that most people rest too long. Rest periods that last longer than 1.5 to 2 minutes can diminish your potential for gaining lean muscle mass. Longer rest periods, like 3 to 5 minutes, can be valuable when training for strength but will not help you increase lean muscle mass. When you increase your rest period you decrease the over all level of weight training intensity.
So if we can wrap up with a brief summary here I think this article could assist you if your weight training goal is to increase your lean body mass. If we begin with the planning component of a good workout, then we should make sure to write down our exercises and select compound body movements (multiple joint movements) that will challenge the larger muscle groups of the body. Finally we shoulder remember the close relationship between shorter rest periods and increased intensity. Rest periods should be around 2 minutes or less and you should continually strive to push yourself to higher levels of intensity with each repetition you perform. If your time is as valuable as I believe it is, you owe it to yourself to make the most of it. Train hard but train effectively.