The term ‘Train the Brain’ in exercise science refers to the concept of engaging the human brain while doing any physical activity
Here’s what I’ve learned in my many years of propagating body wellness: Training your brain will help you to develop neuromuscular coordination, which will then help increase your body’s awareness and metabolism. Numerous studies show that if you are able to activate neurons during your fitness training sessions the result would be 10 times better than the orthodox model of training.
In our day-to-day life, where we all mostly live a sedentary lifestyle, we must find a way to be active. When we talk about ‘training the brain’, it is one of the most effective ways to burn more calories while also helping you lead a stress-free life. Brain fitness can be improved by various challenging activities such as practicing sports, playing chess, tai-chi, and yoga. Another example would be asking the participant to run when he/she hears a clapping sound and jumping when the coach whistles. It not only sounds interesting but it’s really fun when done.
CHALLENGE YOURSELF
Most of us tend to get bored with mundane types of training and slowly lose motivation. But if we learn to engage the brain while exercising, training becomes more interesting and effective.
A consistent mental challenge during any physical activity not only makes you burn more calories but also increases brain stimuli production, nervous connectivity, and nerve growth factor. It also prevents loss of nervous connection and cell death, which eventually makes you more efficient in your working environment.
Mindful training helps people revive the natural connections to their body and movement, increasing their kinesthetic awareness.
The ‘First Ever Work Satisfaction Study ‘ of IDEA Health & Fitness Sources July/ August of 2001 reported that not only are the faster diminishing classes those of fitness boxing , but the fastest rising are mind-body fusion classes. Examples of fusion classes are tai-chi classes taken at the pool Reebok’s ‘Power Zen’. Tai-chi and yoga on stability load, resistaballs tai-chi, Bosu and stability ball programs.
One of the most important terms we use in this form of training is ‘keeping the brain buff’. Most people know that exercise is good for the brain, but to know why that’s important you need answers to two critical questions:
- What makes the brain succumb to diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s?
- What is the best type of exercise to maximise brain benefits?
Major degenerative diseases in the brain are all caused by one thing – mitochondrial decay. Scientists classify degenerative brain diseases differently based on their symptoms and which region of the brain region they affect, but they all have the same cause. Why is this a good thing? Because it means that what’s good for preventing one disease is also good for preventing others. And because the primary factors for determining your susceptibility to brain disease is not genetics.
Keeping your brain buff doesn’t just mean exercising; it means participating in the right type of exercise, which means more than just walking. Physical activity boosts a protein (BDNF or brain-derived neurotrophic factor) that protects neurons from damage. If we have enough BDNF flowing around our brains, we can handle any amount of stress.
Greenough worked on an experiment in which running rats were compared to others that were taught complex motor skills, such as walking across balance beams, unstable objects, and elastic rope ladders. After two weeks of training, the acrobatic rats had a 35% increase of BDNF in the cerebellum, whereas running rats had none.
The point is that your workout regimen has to include skill acquisition and aerobic exercise.
SWITCH IT UP
Essentially, exercise has to stimulate the senses, engage you and perhaps be a little bit “scary.” Use simple math problems during exercises (even goes left, odd goes right, etc.), bounce a tennis ball around or kick a pebble back and forth while going for a walk, use random patterns with medicine ball tosses – the ideas are limitless. Insert some skill acquisition and cognitive processing into exercise and you’ll greatly enhance the brain benefits, and get the brain one step closer to buff.
Fitness professionals often follow the “tell, show, do” method of explaining exercises to clients. Now its time to implement the “tell, show, imagine, do,” model, which emphasises that trainers should encourage clients to take a moment before an exercise to imagine themselves recruiting all of their muscle fibers in ththe excise.
“Sport psychology studies show that if you think about throwing a punch or kick [before you do], you can actually enhance the nerve-to-muscle function, so that when you actually throw your punches and kicks, they will be faster, higher and more powerful.”
Australian-born F. Matthias Alexander taught his students and musicians to engage deep core musculature with eyes closed to train mindfulness and active muscular recruitment through breathing and proprioception. You can translate this philosophy to personal training by challenging your clients to perform the final progression of an exercise with their eyes closed. (when prudent and safe, of course).
Changes in training styles have paved the way (and maximized valuable session minutes) for increased integration of mind-body practices. Industry educators and researchers agree that, over time, repeated isotonic exercise of a muscle group causes increased inhibition of the stabilizers that cross those joints. Simply put, the more a muscle is trained in the same way over time, the less benefit that occurs.
This is precisely why muscular integration in personal training and group fitness has become so popular. Functional training allows both prime movers and stabilizers to fire simultaneously during a workout, thereby minimizing the time traditionally devoted to lengthy isolation exercises that take individuals from machine to machine. Training with a total body, kinetic chain philosophy frees up precious time to experiment with other forms of fitness
So, the ‘train the brain’ concept will extensively help you make the effect of any physical activity long-lasting and also makes it fun rather than old school training which hardly challenges the control center of our body that is BRAIN.
As the concept of training the human body is evolving day by day, now it’s time for all of us to respect and acknowledge the fact that we must know How to Train Effectively not only in the body but the mind too.
