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DCLnews Special Report ;-)

Virtual exercises beef up your biceps...
Study shows visualizing exercise has a measurable effect on muscle density, writes DCLnews Editor, John E. Shreeve (pictured), as he grabs a beer and puts his feet up in front of the TV...

IT'S GREAT NEWS for couch potatoes everywhere. And it's official. Scientists have discovered that simply imagining exercising can significantly increase muscle strength. Apparently ten volunteers who took part in mental work outs five times a week, imagining lifting heavy weights with their arms, increased their bicep strength by 13.5 percent on average.

Not only that, the gain in strength lasted for three months after they stopped the mental exercise regime.

The study was conducted by Guang Yue, an exercise psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio. He believes his discovery could help patients too weak to exercise to start recuperating from stroke or other injuries. It could also help older people maintain strength.

It sounds incredible that just thinking can have such an effect - so how does it work?

Dr Yue said mentally envisaging exercise increased the strength of the command signal sent by the brain to the appropriate muscle. Muscles are prompted to move by impulses from nearby motor neurons, and the firing of those nerve fibers depends on the strength of electrical impulses sent by the brain. "This suggests you can increase muscle strength solely by sending a larger signal to motor neurons from the brain," said Dr Yue.

Martial Arts
While couch potatoes can throw their arms up in the air with joy (sorry, imagine throwing their arms up in the air), there are some interesting implications to this study. For one thing it suggests that certain mental techniques used in Oriental martial arts might have a basis in science.

Practitioners of Kung Fu, Aikido, and Tai Chi, for example, are taught to focus their minds on the parts of the body they are using during the various movements they perform. Harry Wong, a martial arts master who also teaches a body-building program called Dynamic Strength that doesn't use weights, very much advocates using mind in relation with physical movement. His system of exercises involves imagining you are pulling weights whilst doing the actions and tensing the muscles.

"To enhance the effects of the exercises, focus on the part of the body for which the exercise is intended," advises Wong. "When you are doing curls, for example, concentrate on the muscles of your wrists, forearms, biceps and shoulders. Visualize them working and growing stronger."

The mental approach recommended by Wong isn't new. It dates back hundreds, if not thousands of years. Sceptics, however, have often dismissed this aspect of Oriental martial arts - but Dr Yue's study could well give it scientific credence.

John E. Shreeve
DCLnews Editor

Just so you know I'm not making this up (well, at least not all of it), visit New Scientist magazine at:
 http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991591

And if you see any strange, quirky, or just plain funny, items from the news, send them to me at jshreeve@dclab.com
 

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