Weight Lifting and Cognition

     We are always told that exercise is necessary to have a healthy life. We always talk about it's benefits to our physical body. Yet, no one really discusses the benefits that it has with our brain. I'm a huge nerd, so I wanted to incorporate a post about how exercise, specifically weightlifting, can be connected to your mental cognition. I know everyone does not weight lift, but for those who do this maybe more motivation to incorporate more resistance exercises in your workouts! For those who don't, maybe this can give you more insight on why you should start!
     This study was meta analysis of over 20 research papers pertaining to cognition, weight lifting, and mental health. The results demonstrated that resistance training positively impacted the composite cognitive scores, cognitive screening, and executive functioning in the studies analyzed. The findings may be related to the planning and training involved in body positioning and weight organization when weight lifting. Attention training is necessary when participating in resistance training because you have so many components that need focus on to properly execute the exercise. However, the working memory that has no correlation with weight lifting.
     Next time you decide to weight lift, you'll know more benefits that can come with it! It does not just help you gain more muscle mass or tone your body. It can be a factor to your cognitive development! 


   

Link to the News Video-
https://www.wbrc.com/video/2019/03/08/uab-study-exercise-benefits-cognition/?fbclid=IwAR3Jv8JmHePd4obvZGzPZvboJxlirlQIDL7hwQN_JvHi7G52ZCHYvAtOERA



Sources: Landrigan, JF., Bell, T., Crowe, M. et al. Psychological Research (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01145-x
Article: https://www.uab.edu/news/research/item/10251-weightlifting-could-improve-cognition-according-to-new-study