Literary Legs

If You Want to Be Smart, Run. If You Want to Be Smarter, Run Faster.

In previous posts I have explored how exercise can make you a better writer.  Several studies have demonstrated the immediate effect of exercise on creativity and executive function.  We know that exercise has impressive long term benefits on cognition, but now we also know that aerobic exercise has same-day effects as well.  So that lunchtime run can improve your cognitive function--and can make you a better writer, maybe even rid you of writer's block--at 1pm.

A 2007 study in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory found that learning improved after exercise, and that the learning potential increased with the intensity of the workout.  I've looked at a ton of studies on the immediate benefit of exercise on cognition--for an article I'm writing--and this is the only one I've seen that how cognitive function is tied to the intensity of the workout.

In the study, researchers assessed how well subjects learned novel words of an artificial language.  The subjects were divided into three groups: the control (15 minutes of being sedentary), the moderate exercisers (40 minutes of low-impact treadmill running as measured by their heart rate), and the intense exercisers (two anaerobic sprints of three minutes each, with a two minute break).

The researchers found that intense exercise directly improves learning.  The intense exercisers learned 20 percent faster on the vocabulary test compared to the other two groups.  The study's authors also note that brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels were at their highest for the intense exercisers. The authors write, "Short bouts of exercise could be used in situations which require an immediate boost of learning, e.g., immediately prior to study phases in children with and without learning deficits."  I should point out that several studies have shown that relatively low-impact aerobic exercise (at 60% max heart rate) does improve cognitive function, so you may not have to sprint to get the benefit. 

BDNF (called by some "Miracle-Gro for the brain") secretion increases after exercise.  It plays a critical part in learning "due to its involvement in long-term potentiation in the hippocampus."  BDNF also improves the health and functioning of both the synapses and neurons. Scientists have been touting it as a key in cognition (and thus executive function). It appears to play a direct role in learning and memory.  But BDNF often sits passively at the end of your synapses; it doesn't really get moving until your blood starts pumping.  And your blood starts pumping when you exercise.  So to really get the full effect of BDNF, you have to exercise. 

So...exercise>blood pumping>BDNF release>improved brain function. 

See the connection? 

It would appear, then, that our parents had it backwards when we were kids.  Instead of telling us that we couldn't go outside until we finished our homework, they should have told us that we couldn't finish our homework until we played outside. 

Well, it's almost noon.  Time to head out for my run!

Cite: Winter, Bernward et al.  "High impact running improves learning." Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 87 (2007) 597-609.

The Lakefront Marathon Controversy--and a Very Happy Ending

A controversy developed last week at the Lakefront Marathon in Milwaukee after the top two competitors were disqualified for mid-race rule infractions. The first woman to cross the line, Cassie Peller, was dq'ed after it was discovered that she took water from someone at an area that was not an authorized water station.  Peller claims that she only took water from a boy in his yard early in the race (way to throw a kid under the bus, one commenter said) and from a friend who offered her a "sip" later on, though the race director says that the "sip" was actually from a friend who got out of a vehicle, gave her a water bottle, and ran with her for a short time. 

This gave the victory to Jennifer Goebel, who was the promptly dq'ed after it was discovered that she wore an iPod for a couple of miles during the race. I say "discovered" because no race officials noticed this during the race; they were alerted only after online pictures of Goebel were posted with her wearing the headphones between miles 19 and 21.  This, in turn, gave the victory to Corina Canitz, a 42 year old mother of four (!) who won the 2007 and 2008 marathons. 

All runners had to sign a form stating that they had read the race rules, which contains the following:

With the exception of “citizen aid stations” where neighbors provide additional aid available to ALL participants, you may not accept aid outside of the designated aid stations.  This means that your friends and family cannot meet you on the course to provide aid to you.  Such behavior violates the USATF Rules of Competition and provides you with an unfair advantage over participants who do not have people out there to help them.

AND

The USATF Rules of Competition also prohibit the wearing of headphones used with MP3 players and other similar devices for persons competing for USATF Championship awards or prize money.  Other participants are allowed to use Mp3 players . . . Participants who fail to comply with the directions of ANY race official will be subject to disqualification.

It seems pretty clear that both runners, since they signed a statement agreeing to adhere to the course rules, should be disqualified.  I don't know how you can argue against that. Neither runner had a particularly persuasive reason why they should not be disqualified.  Both Goebel and Peller offer the weak defense that they should not be dq'ed since so many other people were doing the same thing. USATF rules state that non-elite runners can wear headphones, and Goebel seems to also want us to believe that she is, in fact, a non-elite runner, so she should not be disqualified.  "If they're going to disqualify me for having an iPod they should disqualify everyone who had one," she said. "It's just a little ridiculous. I went there to have a fun race with my friends." 

For her part, Peller said, "There were several other people that took aid," she said. "I had some friends running the marathon who said people around them were doing the same thing."  "Everyone else was doing it too" is hardly a justification, and it actually underscores why this rule is in place: if people are allowed to take water anywhere on the course, there could be collisions as runners cut each other off trying to get to the spot where their accomplice is standing with the water. 

(From a rhetorical point of view, Goebel's argument is more incriminating.  It's an example of how the less you say, the more credible you appear.  I read her statement and had a hard time believing that she really thought she was just going to have a good time with her friends and not try to win the race.  And that thought never would have crossed my mind had she not put it there in the first place.  In other words, she unintentionally arms her detractors.)

Both runners, however, are receiving support from fellow runners who think they should be reinstated.