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Squats can boost brain activity [video]

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Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#191

Post by curation »

bamboozled wrote: post #83
mmaunder wrote: post #6

Funny how people become obsessed with specific movements, specific exercise styles, etc. I’ve done it all including becoming obsessed with Mark Rippetoe and the derivatives, cardio like running and mountain biking, swimming 2km a day (80 lengths) etc. The one thing that has absolutely transformed my life is yoga. No more back pain, insane strength I never had, no more injuries from eg lifting a 100 lbs propane tank a…

Funny because I did yoga for years and I've never felt better since doing olympic weight lifting and other forms of strength training.

And I've done daily running 25 years, pilates 20 years, yoga 10 years and 5 years ago I started krav maga and it has changed my life. I think it is just a lifetime of it or something.

Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#192

Post by Existenceblinks »

mmaunder wrote: post #46
Existenceblinks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little bit surprised that yoga beats swimming for you. I play whole lots of sport, never done yoga. I found swimming is the best for me. But I can see yoga is safer than swimming butterfly (but it builds muscle!), and tendon stretched more, and doesn't require a swimming pool! May be I should try yoga seriously

I'm glad you posted. I used to absolutely LOVE swimming and I swore by it. I still do it from time to time - mostly in the sea now. I'm lucky enough to live on the beach. I got into triathlons and would come out of the water ahead of the pack and then get my ass handed to me on the cycle and run. :-) Swimming is the one thing that fixed chronic back pain for me which I acquired from rollerblading half pipe in my late…

Thanks for the tips! Very helpful details. Wow I also did maintain bike (used to be my everyday life in the past).

My mom tried "hot yoga" and quit immediately, i was laughing, lost interest back then, now Covid makes swimming pool less attractive to me so i'm interested in yoga, at least I used to like gymnastic kind of things (e.g. round off)

Good stuff!

Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#193

Post by User23 »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #114
andrepd wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? A good weight lifting routine which incorporates squats, deadlifts, dumbbell rows, bench presses and little more, will absolutely strengthen every single part of your body. As for mind benefits, I can't speak to the scientific evidence of either, but in a physiological level I don't see why weights should be any worse.

Weight lifting doesn't train balance, whole-body coordination or flexibility as much as yoga or calisthenics would.

Weightlifting trains balance extremely well. A max effort power snatch for example requires excellent balance.

Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#194

Post by mmaunder »

chronogram wrote: post #125
mmaunder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof. Watch out for anything with 'zen' in it. There's a lot of bull around yoga classes and yoga people. If you just do yoga, breathe and focus on the breath, you are meditating. Simple as that. The rest is just branding and bullshit, to be avoided. As someone who used to lift and absolutely loved it, I wanted to try to explain the difference between lifting and yoga. Lifting is awesome and I used to absolutely love…

How come you don't do both yoga and strength training, just like other people do both sports and strength training? Is it not possible to get a bar and a rack to the island?

Good point. I'll consider that. I've actually considered just getting a deadlift mat with bar and weights. I found deadlifts to be by far the most effective lift of them all. Huge return on smallest time investment.

Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#195

Post by mmaunder »

andrepd wrote: post #103
mmaunder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof. Watch out for anything with 'zen' in it. There's a lot of bull around yoga classes and yoga people. If you just do yoga, breathe and focus on the breath, you are meditating. Simple as that. The rest is just branding and bullshit, to be avoided. As someone who used to lift and absolutely loved it, I wanted to try to explain the difference between lifting and yoga. Lifting is awesome and I used to absolutely love…

Can you give me an example of muscles that yoga exercises that a good strength training routine won't?

So it depends on your physiology, but a lot of people develop asymmetrically (carrying kids on one side, etc) or have a skeletal issue like scoliosis that causes that. Lifting - and by lifting I mean the big important movements like squats, deadlifts, OHP and benchpresses - works both sides of your body at the same time. Yoga breaks it up into one side at a time, which I've found has caused my body to become a lot more symmetrical. Yoga also includes a lot of strength movements that also improve flexibility, which lifting does not.

Hard to get into a debate about this because lifting does an amazing job of exercising just about everything. It just does it in a very different way with, I've found, higher risk of injury.

Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#196

Post by mmaunder »

p1anecrazy wrote: post #62
mmaunder wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd encourage you to try the 3 week yoga retreat I mentioned on the beachbody app (I'm not affiliated - I run a cybersecurity biz). It isn't a specific flavor of yoga - it's a nice mix of strength, balance - and the meditation you get for free. Yoga was created to get you into a meditative state through a series of movements that incorporate breathing. Do the movements with breath and you're already meditating.

Can you please link to it? Can‘t find it on AppStore

Here it is: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beachbody-on-demand/id10316601...

Again, I'm absolutely not affiliated with them and I'm not even in the fitness space. I run a cybersecurity company. It's just worked really well for me for about 4 years.

Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#197

Post by mmaunder »

Existenceblinks wrote: post #192
mmaunder wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you posted. I used to absolutely LOVE swimming and I swore by it. I still do it from time to time - mostly in the sea now. I'm lucky enough to live on the beach. I got into triathlons and would come out of the water ahead of the pack and then get my ass handed to me on the cycle and run. :-) Swimming is the one thing that fixed chronic back pain for me which I acquired from rollerblading half pipe in my late…

Thanks for the tips! Very helpful details. Wow I also did maintain bike (used to be my everyday life in the past). My mom tried "hot yoga" and quit immediately, i was laughing, lost interest back then, now Covid makes swimming pool less attractive to me so i'm interested in yoga, at least I used to like gymnastic kind of things (e.g. round off) Good stuff!

Yeah I didn't even think about Covid, but agreed, that does make it challenging. I'm tempted to go to a hot yoga class just so I know. But I can't imagine being in an enclosed heated room full of people sweating and breathing heavily for an hour. I don't even like doing yoga on my own indoors.

Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#198

Post by julianlam »

rtkaratekid wrote: post #133
vkk8 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you plateau on squats?

Sounds like you gotta do squats!

Well, this is not wrong. Doing squats in a different configuration may be all you need to break through a plateau.

I was really good at doing 5x5 squats... Then I tried doing 10 reps of a lower weight and nearly died.

Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#199

Post by julianlam »

kiba wrote: post #3

No explanation of the benefit doing squats, I am afraid. My guess is increased BDNF and maybe neurogenesis(scientifically disputed)? I heard sleep is a mechanism in which the brain clear out debris, so that might be a potential benefit of doing squats.

BDNF... The Boyce... Dodd... Normal Form? Yes, I always knew additional normalization was the solution.

My tables are normalized like you wouldn't believe..

Re: Squats can boost brain activity [video]

#200

Post by scns »

slothtrop wrote: post #157
stayfrosty420 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people are never going to come close to the level where it makes a difference. For me I saw 10x better results with calisthenics than intermediate powerlifting because the amount of volume I could get in was much much higher on compound exercises. It's only when you get to an advanced level of strength, where advanced calisthenics exercises don't quite cut it, and almost no one gets to that level.

Big lifts, typical of strength training, are also compound exercises. I don't see a way you can match the level of potential volume even at intermediate level without putting in much more time with calisthenics, for legs anyway. That is, sets x reps x weight. For pressing you can get more volume doing just push ups at intermediate, but you won't yield the same level of absolute strength, i.e. you wont just automatica…

You need to make calisthenics excercises progressively harder instead of endlessly increasing the volume, if you want to increase strength. The pinnacle are pushups on one arm, Bruce Lee demonstrated those on two fingers. The book Convict Conditioning contains progressions for several bodyweight excercises.
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