Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

well.blogs.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 83 posts

Re: Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

#71

Post by bosswipe »

Jtsummers wrote: post #52
bosswipe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always hated the idea of gyms or solitary exercize because of the social/fun factor. Why do a boring workout when you could play basketball or tennis or a hundred other active social activities. Admittedly it was easier to find sports partners when I was in college but it's still not that hard to find as an adult with a bit of effort.

Depends on what you're getting out of the exercise. I never found sports (except when I played soccer regularly) to get me the kind of workout and results I was after (even then I was in great cardio condition and could run for hours, but my upper body was weak). Even my friends who prefer sports still spend a few hours (2-5) a week doing other training, including strength or even just more focused cardio, often sele…

Maybe it's the focused isolated strength training that is missing from most sports-as-workout. But I think something like basketball compares favorably to HIIT type of workouts.

Re: Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

#72

Post by saberience »

Swizec wrote: post #8
vsareto wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sometimes high intensity stop all other thoughts is exactly what the brain needs. HIIT has been great for the rest of the day as long as I don't overdo it, but yeah, completely focused on the workout during that.

I find HIIT doesn’t do it for me. Can’t push myself hard enough in such short bursts because I have ridiculous cardio conditioning* from running. Boxing is great because it’s hiit but with technique and tactics and strategy. * ridiculous conditioning in that I can keep average heart rate at 155bpm for 2 hours no problem. Most hiit isn’t long enough to get me above 110

You're probably doing it wrong? Try running 400m flat out sprints with 1 min rest between each one and tell me how high your heart rate gets.

Re: Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

#73

Post by [deleted] »

mikestew wrote: post #63
hluska wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea comes from Mark Sisson and frankly, if you’ve been a competitive runner for that long, you should likely know that and be prepared to argue it. I’ve been a competitive runner for a fraction of that time and have had this conversation so many times it’s muscle memory. The article this idea comes from is based on the idea that long distance runners spending their whole runs at 80 - 85% of their max heart rate…

So it’s based on a crap premise? No wonder I’ve not heard of it, and for that I make no apologies.

[deleted]

Re: Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

#74

Post by [deleted] »

hluska wrote: post #47
mikestew wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense, but we're supposed to counter argue against an anonymous "someone" for which you don't even provide a source? Post a link, we can go from there. That said, I've been a competitive distance runner for over 40 years. What adverse effects should I be seeing? 'cuz I can't think of any.

This idea comes from Mark Sisson and frankly, if you’ve been a competitive runner for that long, you should likely know that and be prepared to argue it. I’ve been a competitive runner for a fraction of that time and have had this conversation so many times it’s muscle memory. The article this idea comes from is based on the idea that long distance runners spending their whole runs at 80 - 85% of their max heart rate…

[deleted]

Re: Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

#75

Post by ausbah »

mcorning wrote: post #44

My father has run every day for almost 10 years, a combo pack of speed and distance, but at least a 5k every day. One thing we talked about regarding thinking and running really stuck with me. He sometimes listens to music and audiobooks so that he wouldn't get bored during his runs. Then one day, when his headphones were dead, he went without any music. He found himself having a conversation in his head, addressing…

I've been talking to myself on my runs for years now. it has been a fantastic time for problem solving, especially with coding and big life decisions

Re: Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

#76

Post by fogihujy »

rootusrootus wrote: post #40
nend wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if the criteria is just those four: strength, top speed, climbing ability, swimming ability - there's probably a lot of animals that are subjectively better than us. It would depend on how you measure/aggregate it but off the top of my head you could make an argument for: most large cats, chimpanzee, orangutan, bears, some pigs, etc.

It may be that endurance is all we got. But I was thinking that a chimp is very strong and can climb, but is he any good at running and swimming? A cat is a heck of a runner, but isn't really a great climber aside from specific situations. Humans are fairly adaptable. But probably it just comes down to our endurance/ability to control body temperature, and big brains to devise creative ways of defeating other animals…

That's one hell of an advantage on the other hand; not only can we move entire populations in a fairly short time-frame (by simply grabbing our things and walk/run there), we can also adapt to the new surroundings and find ways to thrive. It's easy too see how our ancestors and other hominids colonized the entire planet.

Re: Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

#78

Post by jwq1 »

jwq1 wrote: post #77

Have there been any follow-up studies done on humans?

The author shared the following insight.

"[It's] nearly impossible to study using non-invasive measures in humans. However, there is a paper on effects of exercise in humans where the authors talk about an in vivo correlate of adult neurogenesis:

Pereira AC, Huddleston DE, Brickman AM, Sosunov AA, Hen R, McKhann GM, Sloan R, Gage FH, Brown TR & Small SA (2007). Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104, 5638–5643.

This is pretty old, so maybe there would be more recent studies to be found. However, thinking about the relevance of using rodents to study human brain (because we are of course interested in the human brain, not the rat brain), there is close resemblance in terms of structure and function. Please see the following papers for details: Clark RE, Squire LR. 2013. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 110 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):10365-70 Bergmann E, Zur G, Bershadsky G, Kahn I. 2016. Cereb Cortex. 26(12):4497-4512."

- Miriam Nokia

Re: Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

#79

Post by chillacy »

mcorning wrote: post #44

My father has run every day for almost 10 years, a combo pack of speed and distance, but at least a 5k every day. One thing we talked about regarding thinking and running really stuck with me. He sometimes listens to music and audiobooks so that he wouldn't get bored during his runs. Then one day, when his headphones were dead, he went without any music. He found himself having a conversation in his head, addressing…

Spending time with your brain’s Default Mode Network sounds very meditative.

Re: Which type of exercise is best for the brain? (2016)

#80

Post by blaser-waffle »

hnrodey wrote: post #13
Swizec wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find HIIT doesn’t do it for me. Can’t push myself hard enough in such short bursts because I have ridiculous cardio conditioning* from running. Boxing is great because it’s hiit but with technique and tactics and strategy. * ridiculous conditioning in that I can keep average heart rate at 155bpm for 2 hours no problem. Most hiit isn’t long enough to get me above 110

I have a lengthy background in hiit (specifically CrossFit). And I say this in the most polite way possible. You're doing HIIT wrong if you cannot elevate your heart rate beyond 110 bpm. Whatever you're doing, there's a huge gap in the training programming/protocol. Everyone suffers in CrossFit. Everyone.

Seconded. Did HIIT and Crossfit stuff off and on for a while.

The main difference between being fit and not fit, when it comes to HIIT, is that you can do more burpiees or curls or whatever in the 45 second period.

It still sucks just as much, but your high-score is better.

Post reply on HN