The Cognitive Benefits of Resistance Training

When most people think about going to the gym, they’re targeting aesthetics. Whether it’s girls who want to be toned or guys who want to look big or “ripped,” the gym mirror selfie generation knows exactly what the visual benefits of lifting weights are. Yet these are just the surface-level perks. Over the course of the next four posts, we’re going to take a deeper dive into some of the physical, mental, and emotional advantages that regular resistance training provides. In this first installment, let’s begin with what lifting weights does for your brain. 

1) Increasing Self-Efficacy

A client recently told me a story about how she’s been getting her groceries delivered since the pandemic started. When the driver dropped off that big weekly box of provisions on her doorstep, she used to take each bag and smaller box out and carry them up to her kitchen individually. But since she’d been feeling stronger in the gym lately, thanks to her consistently showing up for three sessions a week, she started believing that maybe there was a quicker way to move those groceries. So she put her self-doubt aside, got down in a deep squat, and picked up that big box. Then she carried it into her kitchen and put it down on the counter. 

It might seem like no big deal, but for someone who’d always previously questioned her physical capabilities, it actually was. This particular client translated her wins in the weight room into an unexpected success in her everyday life and now feels that when a neighbor needs help moving a couch, she should be the one to step up and help. Her newfound strength led to increased confidence, which empowered her to challenge herself in new ways. So while you might think that achieving a milestone in the gym – like building up to doing one pull-up, then three, and then five – is trivial, it could actually be the catalyst you need to redefine what you’re capable of and utilize a sense of self-efficacy to say, “I’ve done this, so now I can also do that.” 

2) Keeping Your Brain Young

You’ve probably seen plenty of posts discussing how doing crossword puzzles, playing board games, and reading can help you prevent age-related cognitive decline. But did you know that resistance training can also keep your mind active and young? A long-term study led by researchers from the University of Sydney in Australia discovered that strength training for six months helped protect the brain areas of older people that are vulnerable to Alzheimer’s up to a year later¹. Speaking to his school’s communication department about his findings, study co-author Professor Michael Valenzuela said, “The message is clear: resistance exercise needs to become a standard part of dementia risk-reduction strategies.”²

This isn’t the only study to reach such a conclusion. A 2020 meta-analysis of previous experiments released via the International Journal of Sports Medicine found that people who were at risk of cognitive impairment improved their general cognitive function and executive function when they did two strength-focused sessions twice a week for around an hour each time³. There’s also a growing body of evidence to suggest that resistance training improves retention and recall. A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology found that just a single, 20-minute workout improved participants’ episodic memory⁴. 

3) Lighting Up Learning Pathways

Learning a language or a musical instrument gets a lot of press about the positive changes they make in your brain’s neural pathways and their transference to acquiring other types of skills, and rightly so because the evidence is there to back this up. Yet too few people are aware of the benefits that movement literacy provide. This is a fancy term for being able to competently and safely perform a wide variety of patterns that are highly applicable to sports and everyday activities. These include hinging, lunging, squatting, crawling, stepping, carrying, pressing, and pulling. 

In his book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, John J. Ratey cites numerous studies that show how students’ learning outcomes improved when their schools introduced daily exercise into the curriculum. He also writes that "By showing that exercise sparks the master molecule of the learning process, Cotman nailed down a direct biological connection between movement and cognitive function.”⁵

The scientist he’s referencing, Carl W. Cotman, is a professor of neurology at the University of California, Irvine, and has authored numerous studies showing the profound connection between moving your body and stimulating your brain. In one such paper published in Trends in Neurosciences, Cotman wrote, “It is now clear that voluntary exercise can increase levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and other growth factors, stimulate neurogenesis, increase resistance to brain insult and improve learning and mental performance.”⁶ So next time you think about skipping a workout because your muscles are sore, remember that your mind will benefit from you showing up too. 

Check back soon for part two, in which we’ll explore some of the overlooked physical benefits of resistance training.  

1. Kathryn M. Broadhouse et al, “Hippocampal Plasticity Underpins Long-Term Cognitive Gains from Resistance Exercise in MCI,” NeuroImage: Clinical, 2020, available online at  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213158220300206?via%3Dihub.
2. “Strength Training Can Help Protect the Brain from Degeneration,” The University of Sydney, February 11, 2020, available online at  https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/02/11/strength-training-can-help-protect-the-brain-from-degeneration.html#.
3. Lulu Zhang et al, “Meta-analysis: Resistance Training Improves Cognition in Mild Cognitive Impairment,” International Journal of Sports Medicine, 2020, available online at https://www.thieme-connect.de/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/a-1186-1272.
4.  Lisa Weinberg et al, “A Single Bout of Resistance Exercise Can Enhance Episodic Memory Performance,” Acta Psychologica, November 2014, available online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001691814001577?via%3Dihub.
5. John J. Ratey with Eric Hagerman, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, (New York: Little Brown, 2013), 43.
6. Carl W. Cotman and Nicole C. Berchtold, “Exercise: A Behavioral Intervention to Enhance Brain Health and Plasticity,” Trends in Neurosciences, June 2002, available online at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12086747/.