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I don't have any references to hand, but drawing from both personal experience and anecdotal stories from places like r/nootropics, the link between cognitive p

• petesergeant 4y ago
  I have found heavy powerlifting negatively affects my concentration. The exhaustion in my muscles afterwards I’ve always found very distracting
  • vouaobrasil 4y ago
    It is not just that, but it's also because you have to apply a surprising amount of mental concentration in power lifting. Basically, you have to be hyper-aware of your entire form while you are lifting. From my experience that takes as much concentration as working on a hard mental problem.
  • etothepii 4y ago
    In the articles hypothesis were correct this might not be a surprise, building a weight lifting robot would likely be much easier than one that could traverse complex terrain at even 4 mph.
    • hattmall 4y ago
      Sure, you could build a weight lifting robot just by increasing it's raw mechanical ability. But to build one that's made of hundreds of strings only capable of individually lifting a single pound and coordinating them around multiple axes to lift hundreds of pounds would be much more difficult. But there's really no reason to do that since you can just increase the raw mechanics.
    • datameta 4y ago
      A dedicated weight-lifting robot could have far fewer degrees of movement. It could essentially be a couple of pistons at a camber with one more powered axis for balance.
  • nanomonkey 4y ago
    You may want to play around with not working out to exhaustion. There is a whole set of routines built around just depleting your ATP, triggering mTOR, and not damaging muscle tissue or creating lactic acid build up. The Quick and the Dead book by Pavel Tsatsouline is one such routine, it uses 10 sets of 10 push-ups and 10 sets of 10 kettlebell swings with resting in between (30 minutes total, 3 times a week). I've found it to be quite effective, there are other options out there. The key is that they don't deplete you, and you can go on to do things the rest of your day without soreness or inability to walk down stairs. YMMV.
  • wellthisisgreat 4y ago
    it's the day after a 9-10 RPE session that has the focus for me. or the calming effect of exhaustion so I can tackle intense managerial problems without an emotional overhead.
• return_to_monke 4y ago
  creatine supplementation is supported by the literature to have cognitive benefits. Also, lifting heavy does train your central nervous system too, which might be a pathway to better cognitive ability? (This second part is 100% bro science, though)
  • boomskats 4y ago
    Yeah, I guess 'lifting heavy does train your CNS too' isn't too far away from what the author of this post is speculating also. The implication seems to be that physical activity is more 'computationally challenging', rather than 'cognitively challenging' like sudoku is. 'Computationally challenging' to me implies a higher level of CNS activation than 'cognitively challenging' tasks that employ conscious reasoning only.
• scotty79 4y ago
  I think the idea this person has is pretty novel. That physical excercise is great for the mind, not only because it has some nebulous general benefits but because it computationally is a very hard task for the brain. Harder than anything you could throw at it consciously. It might be wrong but it's interesting and somewhat novel.
  • tartoran 4y ago
    > because it computationally is a very hard task for the brain Can you explain what part of physical exercise is computationally hard for the brain?
    • jstanley 4y ago
      Inverse kinematics calculations for a large number of joints, and high-precision control of same.
      • ben_w 4y ago
        Don't most mammals have about the same number of joints? This implies a very small part of our mind is responsible for that. Even pumpkin toadlets, who famously can't coordinate their landings, the problem isn't the size of their brain, it's their vestibular system. I'm of the opinion that most animals are probably a lot higher up the sentience scale than is the current social consensus, but I don't think exercise is itself a major cognitive effort. Arbitrary games sure (not just the rules, anything social involves modelling multiple entities like yourself), but not the physical exercise itself.
        • jamesmontalvo3 4y ago
          I don’t think the point is that physical work makes humans intelligent in comparison to animals. I think the point is that physically active humans exercise aspects of their intelligence that modern sedentary humans do not.
    • MereInterest 4y ago
• bluedevilzn 4y ago
  How come athletes aren’t getting nobel prizes? Alternatively, why is not a single successful scientist in great physical shape?
  • ethanbond 4y ago
    Fine, if your name is Einstein or von Neumann you can skip leg day.
  • joemazerino 4y ago
    Because athletes are focusing elsewhere. You're comparing top-level performers
  • hnrodey 4y ago
    > How come athletes aren’t getting nobel prizes? Diminishing returns. > Alternatively, why is not a single successful scientist in great physical shape? This is just complete falsehood. Utter nonsense.
  • GistNoesis 4y ago
    Maths/Physics now need a full time career just to reach the current frontier of knowledge, you have to build on existing ground, Athletes must somehow take time to learn this knowledge, and by the time they have learned it, they are not as physically fit as they once were. Alan Turing was a good runner.
    • canucker2016 4y ago
      Roger Bannister, first person to run under 4 minutes for the mile, was a neurologist. He considered his work in medicine to be more important than running the first sub-4 minute mile. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bannister https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bannister
  • bparsons 4y ago
    Not a single scientist?
  • dfc 4y ago
• ren_engineer 4y ago
  Not sure why this is so surprising, your body is at the very least the thing carrying your brain around. Having it in good condition would obviously maximize your brain's potential Socrates was talking about this stuff thousands of years ago: >For be you assured that there is no contest of any sort, nor any transaction, in which you will be the worse off for being well prepared in body; and in fact there is nothing which men do for which the body is not a help. In every demand, therefore, which can be laid upon the body it is much better that it should be in the best condition; since, even where you might imagine the claims upon the body to be slightest—in the act of reasoning—who does not know the terrible stumbles which are made through being out of health? > It suffices to say that forgetfulness, and despondency, and moroseness, and madness take occasion often of ill-health to visit the intellectual faculties so severely as to expel all knowledge from the brain. But he who is in good bodily plight has large security. He runs no risk of incurring any such catastrophe through ill-health at any rate
• indymike 4y ago
  > I've recently started attributing it to creatine supplementation, but I do wonder if there's anything more to it than that. My boxing coach used to say concentration trains concentration (failing to concentrate in the ring results in automatic negative feedback). I suspect that the focus you have when lifting (so much going on there trying to control your body while exerting at maximum effort), is helping your brain learn to better focus. If you are like most people who lift, you probably are paying attention to what is going in and coming out of your body, which also requires focus as well. In my experience, focus is a skill that is learned, and like all things, is easy for some, and very difficult to master for others.