Sprint Exercise Improves Learning
10/13/2012
Why do I sprint? It is to alter my hormones and engage FT muscle fibers. This leads to superior body composition and a poise that can only come from those quick fibers that give you instant reaction. Sprinting improves your posture and movement economy because the motor maps in the brain enlarge and improve in fine and quick movement control. Jogging simply cannot do the same thing because the motor areas of the brain learn a different form of movement. I have found that sprinting improves my dynamic balance far more than practicing more static balance moves, such as some Pilates exercises or just balancing on a Bosu Ball. There is a huge difference between static and dyanmic balance. This is more or less obvious since dynamic balance involves all channels of the cochlear system.
I said sprinting alters hormones, which is my main point. Aside from GH and an acute spike in cortisol (which quickly disappears with brief exercise) other hormones such as the catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine) are released. So are the so-called myokines (signalling molecules released by exercising muscle) that include IL6, a cytokine that is inflammatory in chronic release, but that is antiinflammatory in acute release. Last, there is the most important hormone of all. Sprinting releases BDNF, the growth hormone for the brain. When BDNF is released, new connections form in the brain as the BDNF attracts new dendrites from nerve cells to connect to other cells or their synapses. As the brain cells "fire together", they "wire together." Wiring together new networks is how memory is formed and consolidated. A neural network is a thought, a memory, or a new skill.
If sprinting releases BDNF then it may "prime" the brain for learning. That is the finding of
"High impact running improves learning" in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Volume 87, Issue 4, May 2007, Pages 597–609. The effect is traced by the authors to BDNF as this abstract explains (bolding added).
Regular physical exercise improves cognitive functions and lowers the risk for age-related cognitive decline. Since little is known about the nature and the timing of the underlying mechanisms, we probed whether exercise also has immediate beneficial effects on cognition. Learning performance was assessed directly after high impact anaerobic sprints, low impact aerobic running, or a period of rest in 27 healthy subjects in a randomized cross-over design. Dependent variables comprised learning speed as well as immediate (1 week) and long-term (>8 months) overall success in acquiring a novel vocabulary. Peripheral levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine) were assessed prior to and after the interventions as well as after learning. We found that vocabulary learning was 20 percent faster after intense physical exercise as compared to the other two conditions. This condition also elicited the strongest increases in BDNF and catecholamine levels.
More sustained BDNF levels during learning after intense exercise were related to better short-term learning success, whereas absolute dopamine and epinephrine levels were related to better intermediate (dopamine) and long-term (epinephrine) retentions of the novel vocabulary. Thus, BDNF and two of the catecholamines seem to be mediators by which physical exercise improves learning.
I said sprinting alters hormones, which is my main point. Aside from GH and an acute spike in cortisol (which quickly disappears with brief exercise) other hormones such as the catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine) are released. So are the so-called myokines (signalling molecules released by exercising muscle) that include IL6, a cytokine that is inflammatory in chronic release, but that is antiinflammatory in acute release. Last, there is the most important hormone of all. Sprinting releases BDNF, the growth hormone for the brain. When BDNF is released, new connections form in the brain as the BDNF attracts new dendrites from nerve cells to connect to other cells or their synapses. As the brain cells "fire together", they "wire together." Wiring together new networks is how memory is formed and consolidated. A neural network is a thought, a memory, or a new skill.
If sprinting releases BDNF then it may "prime" the brain for learning. That is the finding of
"High impact running improves learning" in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Volume 87, Issue 4, May 2007, Pages 597–609. The effect is traced by the authors to BDNF as this abstract explains (bolding added).
Regular physical exercise improves cognitive functions and lowers the risk for age-related cognitive decline. Since little is known about the nature and the timing of the underlying mechanisms, we probed whether exercise also has immediate beneficial effects on cognition. Learning performance was assessed directly after high impact anaerobic sprints, low impact aerobic running, or a period of rest in 27 healthy subjects in a randomized cross-over design. Dependent variables comprised learning speed as well as immediate (1 week) and long-term (>8 months) overall success in acquiring a novel vocabulary. Peripheral levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine) were assessed prior to and after the interventions as well as after learning. We found that vocabulary learning was 20 percent faster after intense physical exercise as compared to the other two conditions. This condition also elicited the strongest increases in BDNF and catecholamine levels.
More sustained BDNF levels during learning after intense exercise were related to better short-term learning success, whereas absolute dopamine and epinephrine levels were related to better intermediate (dopamine) and long-term (epinephrine) retentions of the novel vocabulary. Thus, BDNF and two of the catecholamines seem to be mediators by which physical exercise improves learning.
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