If there's one constant theme to this blog--and, come to think of it, there probably really isn't--it's that strength training is good. But lately you may have noticed that I've been on a kick about the subtler aspects of fitness: coordination, balance, subtle control, etc. Inevitably this has dovetailed with my own study of aikido and Feldenkrais, whose benefits I'm slowly becoming sold on.

So I was surprised somewhat by the results of a study which suggests that straight-up strength training beats "balance and toning" exercises for increasing cognitive functioning.  Here I was starting to struggle my way up onto a hgih horse about strength training benefiting the muscles alone, and what about the brain, what about the nervous system, what about all those wonderful subtle details, and good ol' fashioned strength training beats all the mamby-pamby stuff by a healthy margin:

Researchers in British Columbia randomly assigned 155 women ages 65 to 75 either to strength training with dumbbells and weight machines once or twice a week, or to a comparison group doing balance and toning exercises.

A year later, the women who did strength training had improved their performance on tests of so-called executive function by 10.9 percent to 12.6 percent, while those assigned to balance and toning exercises experienced a slight deterioration — 0.5 percent. The improvements in the strength training group included an enhanced ability to make decisions, resolve conflicts and focus on subjects without being distracted by competing stimuli.

I find this surprising, as balance is of course a subtle skill, requiring focus and attention and control, and you would think there would be some carry-over to cognition. But apparently not.

Of course, who knows exactly what a "toning" exercise is; just about all the physiology I've read suggests that "muscle toning" and "muscle building" activities differ only in degree, not in kind. And almost anything could be construed as a "balance" exercise. Don't know if there was significant progression--which is one thing that the scientifically-administered strength-training programs tend to be long on.

But, assuming the study setup was good (and that's a pretty big assumption given the 1960's-era Exercise Phys knowledge that seems to underlie a lot of these big studies!), it points to a couple of intriguing possibilities: perhaps strength training fosters an environment that's particularly fertile for nerve growth; perhaps the body senses that there's work to be done of a hunting/gathering nature and so sharpens up the ancillary functions necessary for such activity; perhaps lifting heavy things just gives a nice psychological boost that creates feelings of self-efficacy which translate into the ability to make decisions.

I started lifting weights about 1987, when I was a freshman in high school, and got serious about it the following year--which coincided with a pretty radical jump in my grades, not to mention my general happiness and feelings of being "on track" in my life. So my experience is in line with the researchers' findings.

How it all works is quite another question.