Runners...We're Just Smarter

Back when I was studying for the GMAT, I used to drill geometry formulas in my head while running my six milers. It seemed kind of crazy at the time, but I felt that I was able to memorize and retain information more easily while powering through that flat course. Well, maybe it wasn’t my imagination after all.

In her story for the New York Times this week, science of fitness expert Gretchen Reynolds reported on a recent study that suggests that running may actually make you smarter. (We knew it all along, right?)

Here’s the concept:

• High intensity aerobic exercise dramatically increases blood flow.

• Changes in blood flow are carried from the periphery of the body into the brain, creating new neurons and neural connections.

In one study published recently in the Journal of The American College of Sports Medicine, 21 students from the University of Illinois were asked to memorize a series of letters and then pick those letters out from a list flashed at them. Then, they were asked to do one of three things for 30 minutes: sit quietly, run a treadmill, or lift weights, before performing the letter test again. After an additional 30 minutes had passed, they were asked to perform the letter test once more. On subsequent days, the students returned to try the other two options. Students that ran the treadmill were noticeably quicker and more accurate in their letter test responses on the retest after they ran as compared to the students that rested or lifted weights…and they continued to perform better after cool-down.

Further, in another University of Illinois study, elderly people were assigned to a six-month program of either stretching or brisk walking. The stretchers did not improve their performance on cognitive tests, but the brisk walkers did.

Finally, a study published in May from the National Cheung Kung University in Taiwan found that mice that ran on treadmills showed evidence of molecular changes in several portions of their brains when viewed under a microscope, while mice than ran on wheels had changes in only one area. In cognitive tests performed on both groups of mice, the animals that ran on the treadmills performed better in avoidance skills – which require more complex cognitive skills than memory (maze) tests.

It’s interesting that the mice that exercised on their training wheels performed more poorly on cognitive tests that those that ran the treadmill. According the scientists, this is because mice on a running wheel “usually show little improvement in the conventionally defined measurements of fitness,” while the treadmill mice are forced to pant and puff. The researchers suspect treadmill running is more intense and therefore leads to “improvements in muscle aerobic capacity,” and this increased capacity, in turn, affects the brain more than wheel “jogging.”

Fascinating.

So the next time you are out doing a tempo run or speed work, remember that you may be doing as much for your brain as you are for your PR! Or, as one of the researchers put it in Reynolds’ article, “It would be fair to say that any form of regular exercise, if aerobic, should be able to maintain or even increase our brain functions.”

As for me, right now I’m now laughing out loud thinking about that treadmill-running shrimp video that was going around the Internet last summer. Let’s hope he doesn’t turn on us!
 

What Kind of Exercise Can Make You Smarter? Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times Magazine, 9/21/09 | nytimes.com/physed

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