Long rides make us smarter….

[Terpfan]

Some forms of exercise may be much more effective than others at bulking up the brain, according to a remarkable new study in rats. For the first time, scientists compared head-to-head the neurological impacts of different types of exercise: running, weight training and high-intensity interval training. The surprising results suggest that going hard may not be the best option for long-term brain health.
…
Exercise also, and perhaps most resonantly, augments adult neurogenesis, which is the creation of new brain cells in an already mature brain. In studies with animals, exercise, in the form of running wheels or treadmills, has been found to double or even triple the number of new neurons that appear afterward in the animals’ hippocampus, a key area of the brain for learning and memory, compared to the brains of animals that remain sedentary. Scientists believe that exercise has similar impacts on the human hippocampus.
…
So if you currently weight train or exclusively work out with intense intervals, continue. But perhaps also thread in an occasional run or bike ride for the sake of your hippocampal health.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/which-type-of-exercise-is-best-for-the-brain/?_r=1

I feel like this has some meme potential. Long rides make us smarter. 😎

Topic

[Steve O]

@Terpfan 135190 wrote:

I feel like this has some meme potential. Long rides make us smarter. 😎

I think “Sustained periods of bicycle exercise augments your hippocampal health” is much snappier.

[Steve O]

@Terpfan 135190 wrote:

I feel like this has some meme potential. Long rides make us smarter. 😎

I think “Sustained periods of bicycle exercise augments your hippocampal health” is much snappier.

[PotomacCyclist]

I still like doing both. Or actually all three, but not year-round.

(I haven’t done much of any of the three this winter, although I’m desperately trying to get back on track.)

To add on to the recommendation, while high-intensity intervals can be powerful sessions, too much can be counterproductive. Excess intensity can lead to injury or burnout. That may have happened with me and swimming last year. I ramped up the swim training last winter, and I did a lot of longer pull buoy sessions, something I never did before. I started to get noticeably stronger in the upper body. (I was suddenly able to do one-arm push-ups for the first time last spring, almost entirely because of the pull buoy workouts. Aside from the pulling sessions, I barely did any formal strength training at all — maybe one workout every 3 weeks — but I got better and better at push-ups without even practicing or training at push-ups.)

But I must have gotten sick of swimming subconsciously because one day in the late spring, I simply stopped swimming completely. No injury, no bad experience in a race (or any races at all). I just swam one day then never went back to the pool. I’ve only swam once in the last nine months.

I might get back to it again, sometime. If I start serious training for anything again, I will be careful not to overdo it. Not just because of injury concerns but also because of the possibility of burnout. That’s always a risk with too much high-intensity work. It doesn’t matter how fit you get in those workouts if they make you so sick of the sport that you quit it completely. The end result is less fitness, not more. I’m certainly a worse swimmer now than I was at this time last year. Nine months off will do that to you.

[Author]

Replies