The gig is up when it comes to exercise. The days of considering jogging or high repetition weight room exercise as the end all, be all, are thankfully over. These strategies, which have washed over from the calorie counting and “eat less, exercise more” storm that rained down on the medical field for the last several decades, do little to improve our physical performance, body composition (muscle and fat mass), mobility, and metabolism.
The gig is up and it is clear if we want to improve things with exercise, we have to pick up some heavy things, and start pushing, pulling, squatting, hip hinge (i.e., dead lifting), and getting up and down off of the ground. Heading out for a prostrate exercise session sitting on a machine or one that involves pounding our knees on the pavement for the next several hours checks few of these boxes when it comes to exercise.
It checks none when it comes to avoiding the atrophy. What the exercise world of research showed us—and to no surprise to the meatheads in the gym, the Arnolds and Mr. Olympias of the world, and to nearly every sports performance coach and certified strength and conditioning specialist—is that resistance training is absolutely required to promote hypertrophy and improve body composition. Whether you are throwing some kettle bells around in your garage, rowing with a TRX band fastened to the back of your office door, or pushing it down at your local gym rocking Zubaz and a way too skinny and revealing tank top, muscle must be damaged to grow back stronger. No pain, no gain: effort is absolutely required to avoid atrophy, especially as we age.
I was talking this over with Juli during the write up of my newsletter last month (July 2022). The data is pretty clear that humans tend to lose considerable muscle mass as we age and it is difficult to put muscle on the later in life we get. As I am at that age of muscle loss, this is on my mind often. During our conversation, she responded “Don’t forget about your brain, that atrophies too.”
Juli is right, and looking around, we could argue that atrophy of the brain may be a larger risk than our withering muscles. Our muscles need frequent intense stimulation, followed by periods of rest for recovery and rebuilding. Our brains are not much different. Let’s consider swapping out a body workout day for the brain.
Monday:
6am: wake up, coffee with cream
6:30am: mobility drills
Daytime: lots of work standing, walking around, some sitting
After work: workout including mobility drills, dead lifts, glute-ham raises, some push exercises, followed with a cool down.
After dinner: Hour walk
Tuesday:
Day off of lifting. Still do mobility drills
Daytime: same as Monday
After dinner: walk
Now let’s contrast that with a typical brain workout schedule these days:
Monday:
Wake up, check phone
Work all day starting at computer, checking email and phone texts several hundred times
Workout: checking phone texts multiple time during workout
After dinner: walk, even checking phone during walk
Evening: On device (phone, computer, tablet, or television until bed)
The latter is likely not an exaggeration, even for many of you reading this in my newsletter. I have spoken with people who have told me they do not even have 5 minutes of contemplation in a day when no devices are on or there is not some source of sound or background noise. Screen time dominates the day, a concerning fact since it correlates with brain atrophy, structural changes of the brain, and decreased cognitive function. While considering the brain’s response to this “workout” schedule, I was reminded of a hilarious story that my family brings up every so often.
I went to a small catholic school in Kennedy Township, a small area west of Pittsburgh. Overall, it was pretty safe, though it did border on a less safe area (McKees Rocks – the once amazing Italian German immigrant community I bring up often in Leonardo’s Legacy). Across the street was the municipal building and police station. While crime in the area was relatively low, one of the police officers was always amped up and ready to spring to action as though we actually lived in Compton. He would survey the streets with sharply angled eyebrows, always calculating the chances someone or something was breaking the law, and when the law was broken, it was go time for this officer. Seven miles over the speed limit? He would pull you over immediately, blocking the entire road with his flashers glaring, as though you had committed a major felony.
My little sister, Chelsey, was taking CPR classes at her school across from the police station, St. Malachy. At the end of the day, she and some friends were waiting outside to be picked up by my mother (No adults were around as these were they days when parents were OK with such autonomy). Chelsey’s friend pretended she passed out, and Chelsey was performing pretend CPR on her and doing chest compressions. It also happened to be when the above police officer was walking out of the front door of the station across the street. He was leisurely strolling to his car, whistling with hands in pockets as he looked up and saw the faux resuscitation from afar: an unconscious little girl being saved by her classmate. Go time.
He jumped in his supercharged police car, sirens blaring, and bolted across the street about a hundred miles per hour, jumping the curb and landing in the parking lot. He sprang from the front seat like a wound-up cheetah and jumped in to take over the CPR, knocking Chelsey to the side. To his surprise, he instead found several scared schoolgirls in their Blue Bomber gym clothes, all conscious and in tears.
He was upset with Chelsey and her friends, which was understandable considering he could have run someone over during his charge across the street. And while nobody was hurt with the episode (which in hindsight is a hilarious story), it further illustrated how ready to roll he was at all times.
But, he was a good cop. And while he was ready to go 0-60 when crime (and fake CPR) was calling, he shut it off in between. When he saw the CPR in session, his brain was automatically engaged to act without hesitation. Now imagine if he was constantly engaged at 60 miles per hour, never slowing down to zero. Imagine if he was constantly bolting across that street and jumping curbs in his vehicle, acting like George Costanza running from the kitchen fire in Seinfeld.
This would look a lot like the “brain workout schedule” above. Lots of noise, few periods of intense concentration (i.e. brain resistance training), constant pounding on the neurons, much like the pavement and poor knees of jogger above. Such exercise atrophies our muscles, and such constant noise atrophies our brain.
In the midst of the constant noise, our brains are consistently taught to react and not to stop and think. Our phones ding in the other room and we instantly run for them. We check the Instagram alert followed by 15 more minutes of browsing other unconnected posts. We have stopped assessing the situation, and our brains just constantly get in their police car, turn on the lights, and launch across the street.
Social media and phones are the processed foods for the brain. They are quick and easy and totally lacking substance and nutrition. They are sitting on the couch for three hours before bed and letting your brain turn to mush. Instead of providing nourishing and nutrient dense food, they provide hundreds of empty calories, keeping the brain bouncing around and “busy”, but never providing the stimulation that will lead to growth. They are sitting on the machine at the gym, doing a million reps at light weight, and wondering why you aren’t building muscle or getting stronger.
Our muscles and brains are not so different, and we should nurture them the same way. Replace resistance training for your muscles with similar training for your brain: reading books, learning languages, pondering difficult questions, and solving challenging problems.
It has been said that stupid people talk about other people, smart people talk about things, and brilliant people talk about ideas. I would argue that people who spend time training their brain with ideas become brilliant, just as people who spend time training their body with stimulating training regimens become physically fit with strong muscles and bones.
Engage in exercise that avoids muscular atrophy and engage in a lifestyle that avoids brain atrophy.
Avoid the atrophy.
*Photo by Tromeur from Freerange Stock
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