How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
nytimes.com
How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
1–10 of 177 posts
Re: How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
#2Bit of a meta question: how applicable are findings in rats / mice to humans. Does it differ based on the types of relationships the study is trying to find?
I've always wondered this and have historically assumed the correlation must be high - but never really dove too deep into it.
Re: How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
#3for me personally the biggest benefit of weight training has been the discipline it gives me. Once I stick to my gym plan, everything else in my day falls to its place.
Knowing I have to be in the gym every other night from 10 to 11:30, gets me to get my chores done quickly before 10 and not waste time on Reddit/Netflix all night. I also listen to audio books between sets to make a better use of my down time
For anyone looking to get started, I have been following a workout plan called 5x5 for a year and it’s been working all right for me. The idea is you do 5 sets of 5 reps of 5 different workouts and increase the weights you do by 5 pounds each workout
Re: How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
#4Bit of a meta question: how applicable are findings in rats / mice to humans. Does it differ based on the types of relationships the study is trying to find? I've always wondered this and have historically assumed the correlation must be high - but never really dove too deep into it.
80% probability of failing in clinical trials (on humans) https://www.nature.com/news/preclinical-research-make-mouse-...
Re: How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
#5Bit of a meta question: how applicable are findings in rats / mice to humans. Does it differ based on the types of relationships the study is trying to find? I've always wondered this and have historically assumed the correlation must be high - but never really dove too deep into it.
80% probability of failing in clinical trials (on humans) https://www.nature.com/news/preclinical-research-make-mouse-...
Wow that's way higher than I expected. And it saddens me, all the tests we run on these little beasts for such a small eventuality of success.
Re: How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
#6Bit of a meta question: how applicable are findings in rats / mice to humans. Does it differ based on the types of relationships the study is trying to find? I've always wondered this and have historically assumed the correlation must be high - but never really dove too deep into it.
Related, I was at a talk about Type 1 Diabetes. They mentioned that we know how to cure the disease in mice with over 300 different methods. None of which seems to work in humans. Thats why they had to work with very hard to obtain live tissue samples from patients with different stages of T1 Diabetes.
Re: How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
#7for me personally the biggest benefit of weight training has been the discipline it gives me. Once I stick to my gym plan, everything else in my day falls to its place. Knowing I have to be in the gym every other night from 10 to 11:30, gets me to get my chores done quickly before 10 and not waste time on Reddit/Netflix all night. I also listen to audio books between sets to make a better use of my down time For anyo…
5x5 is an amazing starting program. Highly recommend. Just make sure you have good form.
Re: How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
#8for me personally the biggest benefit of weight training has been the discipline it gives me. Once I stick to my gym plan, everything else in my day falls to its place. Knowing I have to be in the gym every other night from 10 to 11:30, gets me to get my chores done quickly before 10 and not waste time on Reddit/Netflix all night. I also listen to audio books between sets to make a better use of my down time For anyo…
Strong recommendation for the StrongLifts 5x5 iOS app. That said there are some downsides to 5x5.
- the lifts in it are simple, but also very easy to hurt yourself with if you don’t have good form. Form work is not emphasized.
- there is no flexibility work in it. It’s basically impossible to do strength work without flexibility. To the point 5x5 should likely recommend yoga as a central component or something.
- while big muscle groups are very important, for lots of people isolated muscle work is necessary to fix imbalances, old injuries, etc.
None of that should discourage people but realize that the sticker claims of 5x5 about time commitments and completeness aren’t really true.
Re: How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
#9Serious lifting or athletics in general necessitates cultivating competent time management, planning skills and self control/discipline. Even more so if you roll into dieting for maintaining weight class or generally aesthetics. Once a lifter exhaust all novice and easy gains which doesn't take long, it's down to planning multi week/month long meso cycles, trouble shooting and learning about about your body, refraining from immediate gratification - i.e. goal setting, developing weaknesses, fatigue management - just generally embracing slow and steady progress. It's one of the few hobbies that can't be rushed.
That said, most people never get this serious and conscientiousness is what separates a long lifting career and snapcity (injury). A whole heap of genetics as well, since people who are genetically gifted at lifting tend to self select for staying in the hobby. Instagram culture also doesn't help if your psychologically prone to social comparison. Finally if you progress far enough, there the cost-benefit ratio shifts from health to strength, from experience, some sort of injury is almost guaranteed. It's really one of those things that should be embraced in moderation for the general population. Moderation is really all you need, people only need to develop some function strength and musculature for health benefits. You don't need to deadlift 600 pounds to inoculate your hips from shattering after a fall, indeed the road to 600+ will probably messy you up in the first place.
Re: How Weight Training Might Change the Brain
#10for me personally the biggest benefit of weight training has been the discipline it gives me. Once I stick to my gym plan, everything else in my day falls to its place. Knowing I have to be in the gym every other night from 10 to 11:30, gets me to get my chores done quickly before 10 and not waste time on Reddit/Netflix all night. I also listen to audio books between sets to make a better use of my down time For anyo…
In that context, it makes sense that the greatest danger to a workout plan is having kids.