Life and Fitness Coach

Bigger, better memory through fitness

Time to pump up your hippocampus.

Scientists have long known that exercise fights depression and keeps participants mentally alert. Now comes news that working out can halt age-related shrinking in the part of the brain called the hippocampus and even increase its size.

This pays off in better spatial memory, learning abilities and memory.

For those of you who stayed awake in biology: The hippocampus is located inside the medial temporal lobe, beneath the cortical surface. It has left and right mirror structures in the brain, filled with dense layers of neurons. These hippocampi play an important role in spatial memory, which helps humans negotiate their physical environment. They are shaped like seahorses, hence the name.  

When the horrible Alzheimer's disease strikes, the damage first appears here, doctors say.

Researchers from the universities of Pittsburgh and Illinois report that about 40 percent of the added brain power fit people have over the unfit comes from this region of the brain. They found a straight path from physical fitness to growth in the hippocampus to improvements in spatial memory.

"The higher-fit people have a bigger hippocampus, and the people that have more tissue in the hippocampus have a better spatial memory," says Illinois psychology researcher Art Kramer.

His partner in the study, Kirk Erickson of Pitt, adds: "This is really a clinically significant finding because it supports the notion that your lifestyle choices and behaviors may influence brain shrinkage in old age.

"Basically, if you stay fit, you retain key regions of your brain involved in learning and memory." 

Kramer says even without the team's findings, there are excellent memory-related reasons for staying in shape as you age:

 "Even ignoring the hippocampus data, we see there is this significant and substantial relationship between how fit you are and how good your memory is."

The study was of 165 seniors, ages 59 to 81.

Be smart: Keep on running

We all know that running makes you fitter and healthier. Now comes evidence that running makes you smarter.

Research from Harvard Medical School has shown that running increases the flow of blood to the part of the brain that is responsible for memory and learning.

Running for fitness also helps boost the production of new brain cells, researchers found.

Here are some more benefits to pounding the pavement or clocking time on the treadmill:

• Running activates the part of the brain responsible for lifting mood, according to research from Yale University. Running causes a surge of activity in two areas of the brain that are behind the intense euphoria, typically associated with falling in love or listening to uplifting music, according to a German study. 
• Research at Nottingham Trent University, U.K., found that perceived levels of anger, confusion and tension are markedly lower after 20 minutes of intense running.
• The Mental Health Foundation recommends running as a way to improve confidence by forcing individuals to set goals that, when achieved, boost self-confidence, creating a positive cycle. 
• Running can increase the production of hormones, specifically testosterone, which helps fire up libido. Regular jogging will also improve circulation, which can help prevent erectile dysfunction. 

On the treadmill: the good and the bad

Five good things about treadmills:

• Excellent all-weather facilitator of cardiovascular exercise


• Allows for precise control of speed and slope


• Reduced impact on skeletal structure compared with running or fast-walking outdoors


• Cuts the boredom factor, as treadmills allow for reading, watching TV or conversation


• Most treadmills provide useful data on the exercise session: calories burned, "distance" traveled, heart rate

Five bad things about treadmills:

• Consistent pace is artificial, providing limited training benefits for running in the real world


• Overly mechanical experience can be downright boring


• Some increased risk of cardiac incidents since naturally tiring elements such as wind, heat and road resistance do not come into play


• Risk of repetitive injuries if used exclusively and to excess -- vibration of the entire body has been linked to lower back problems. Also, body alignment and posture can be negatively affected


• No natural injections of vitamin D! Go outside!

Increase your growth hormones naturally

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro found that growth hormone levels increased during aerobic exercise in direct proportion to the duration of the workout. Growth hormone increased progressively with 30, 60 and 90 minutes of workout.

Here are the many benefits of growth hormone:

• Increases calcium retention, and strengthens and increases the mineralization of bone.
• Increases muscle mass through the creation of new muscle cells.
• Promotes lipolysis, which results in the reduction of adipose tissue (body fat).
• Increases protein synthesis and stimulates the growth of all internal organs (except for the brain).
• Plays a role in fuel homeostasis.
• Reduces liver uptake of glucose, an effect that opposes that of insulin.
• Promotes liver gluconeogenesis.
• Contributes to the maintenance and function of pancreatic islets.
• Stimulates the immune system.

Break out of your workout routine

Bored with your workout? Making little or no progress, wondering if all this time and effort is worth it? Sounds like you’re in a workout rut.

It’s very common to get to this place after only a few weeks, let alone a few years of working out.

Most likely you’re doing same routine week in, week out. The answer is to mix it up -- what’s known as cross-training. Let’s say you’re going to work out four times a week (which in my book is optimal). Well the answer is to do something different each time you go to the gym. Something like:

Monday: Treadmill, shoulder press, chest press, lat pulldown, tricep kickbacks and dumbbell bicep curls.

Tuesday: Bike, leg extention, let curl, calf raises, leg press and dead lifts.

Thursday: Cardio only: a mixture of treadmill, bike, elliptical and stairmaster.

Saturday: Maybe a class. Spinning, aerobics, circuit training or kickboxing or even better, an outdoor activity, like jogging, bicycling, playing tennis or an organized sport.

If you’re stuck for ideas, look online, check out a fitness magazine or hire a trainer.

Exercise: No. 1 fatigue fighter

You may think that exercise will make you tired, but a recent analysis by University of Georgia researchers concluded that a regular exercise program actually increases energy and reduces fatigue, compared with a sedentary lifestyle. Exercise can benefit healthy adults as well as those with medical or psychiatric conditions, including cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Here’s professor Patrick O’Connor O’Connor, co-director of the UGA exercise psychology laboratory:

A lot of times when people are fatigued the last thing they want to do is exercise. But if you’re physically inactive and fatigued, being just a bit more active will help. … More than 90 percent of the studies showed the same thing: Sedentary people who completed a regular exercise program reported improved fatigue compared to groups that did not exercise. It’s a very consistent effect.

1 in 7 equals nothing good

Fitness crazes come and go, but most Americans seem consistently dedicated to doing nothing about fighting obesity and chronic illness via exercise and nutrition. The government’s Centers for Disease Control delivers the bad news in yet another study. Hint: Be the one.

Just one in seven U.S. adults reported regular physical activity along with consuming five servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Nearly 17 percent of men who described themselves as being of mixed ethnicity said they regularly combined both behaviors, compared with 13 percent of white men. Seventeen percent of white women reported both healthy eating and exercise, compared with 15 percent of Hispanics and 13 percent of African Americans, according to the study, conducted by the CDC. “Prevalence of engaging in both behaviors is low among all racial/ethnic populations."

Read the CDC report

Must to avoid: abdominal fat

Some fat accumulation is more dangerous than others, research by Central Michigan University has found. Fat around the abdomen impairs metabolic health and increases the risk of heart disease and cancer. Abdominal fat is far more dangerous to health than fat on the hips or thighs. Waist circumference is a good measure of abdominal deposition. To reduce this measurement, eat a low-starch diet, weight-train and do cardiovascular exercise several times a week.

Your trainer is ready -- are you?

Top 5 reasons for starting with a personal trainer:
1. It’s the New Year
2. I’ve just moved to the neighborhood
3. I’ve just broken up with somebody
4. I want to look good, so I can meet somebody
5. I just can’t take looking/feeling like this any more


Top "dumb" reasons not to work out with a personal trainer:
1. I already have to look good before I start
2. I don’t have the right outfits
3. The trainer will spend most of the time looking at himself
4. The trainer’s too cute
5. The trainer will expect too much of me

Put yourself to the test

How fit are you? Take this quick test from Self Magazine and find out. You might want to take them up on their Challenge as well.

"Let's face it: The scale can give you a number. But to tell whether your body can power you through a busy workday, a spinning class and a night out dancing—not to mention a long, healthy life—you need to know your fitness level. So how best to measure it? Selfwent to top exercise experts to show you how you rate on the official charts, then we mixed in some lifestyle questions to give you the big picture."

BEGIN THE TEST