Bodybuilding ? Very little for you. Even if you don’t want to build muscle, maybe you should consider lifting weights for the sake of… your brain. A study from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and published in the journal Journal of the American Geriatrics Society praises the merits of weights to “muscle” the brain, and precisely preserve cognitive abilities longer.
In the same way that muscle mass is reduced with aging and becomes less efficient, the brain also attends to the reduction of its cerebral capacities with age. In the long term, lesions of the white matter (tissue of the central nervous system) can appear on the brain, without the person noticing it. Then memory and learning disorders can develop, a sign of a decline in cognitive abilities.
While several studies have praised the virtues of physical exercise, in particular of the walking or runningto slow down the cognitive declinethe Vancouver researchers are the first to focus specifically on weightlifting, and more broadly, muscular resistance.
They studied 54 women between the ages of 65 and 75, all with white matter lesions, who were divided into three groups. The first followed a training per week of resistance exercises (lifting of weight, squats, etc). The second, two workouts per week of the same type and the third group practiced a workout combining stretching and balance movements.
Dumbbells to prevent injuries
Verdict: Women in the twice-weekly strength training group showed less white matter reduction than the other groups.
For the researchers, it can be “reasonably assumed that resistance training [comme le soulevé de poids] could prevent the long-term development and progression of white matter lesions.
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