The Long List Use it or lose it

      "Use it or lose it"

It's a common enough refrain.  We hear it in the gym often enough, and even in "The real world"

It's pretty obvious on first blush.  Don't use your legs, they get weaker, weak enough and you can't walk.  Same for any body part you care to name.

I would like all of you (especially you who are standing in the back) to take just a few minutes so ask yourself where else could you apply that phrase.  In the gym and out.

If you have read my previous post you already have one answer, now I challenge you to take that axiom beyond it's normal bounds.  Actually the ability to "think outside the box" is an example of this.  The less we do it the less we are able to do it, conversely the more we challenge our mental status quo the more skilled we get at it.

Alright, the gauntlet is thrown,  I want to know what YOU came up with.

Shake hands with your neurons

Show of hands, who has heard it's important to keep your brain active throughout your life by challenging it with activities like crossword puzzles, sudoku, and memory training (Anthony Hopkins memorizes a poem a day).

If you hand went up stay tuned, if it didn't go educate yourself and come back in a jiff.  We all will still be here.

The concept of "use it or lose it" applies to a lot of things in life, and that includes cognitive function (ability to think and remember and make associations.) We have recently been bombarded with the idea to do mental exercises to keep our brains sharp as well as physical exercises to keep our minds sharp.

But let's pull back a moment.  What is exercise but movement?  And what is movement but your brain (a mass of interconnect neuron cells) telling your body what to do and your body reporting back that it did it?

Same movements all the time and there is nothing new under the sun.  The brain says been there done that.  End of story.

My question to you, what happens when you learn a new movement pattern?

Fire up those little grey cells and let's hear what YOU think.