Your amazing plastic brain, and a big pitch for rowing!
Hello friends~
If you’ve spent any time training with me you’ve heard it often: your brain and body are amazing, and your brain and body are one. They work together, the communication is constant.
This is the good part: It’s actual re-creation. Neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections. As connections are continually made and improved the result is evident in the ways you move, feel, and live.
And the even better part: we can enhance this re-creation through a lifetime with strength training, and intentional (challenging) movement!
Neuro refers to the nervous system, which includes both the brain and the body. Plastic means malleability and change.
Women’s healthcare is desperately lagging when it comes to prevention of dementia and frailty.
This really pisses me off: Studies indicate that nearly two-thirds of people diagnosed with Alzheimers are women, and women experience fractures far more often than men, but our healthcare system is not prioritizing preventative measures for dementia, nor is it focusing on preventative behaviors for osteopenia and osteoporosis for women, which leads to frailty, falling, and fractures. Strength training and quality nutrition (read protein) are so much more important than just rolling up the rugs to protect grandma from tripping.
Strength training is not just for building muscles. Even when you feel like you’re not making progress, stuck, immobilized by fear, injury, sickness, stress, or trauma – even if you can’t sense it, you have the capability to adjust, repair, and restore.
Your brain is constantly rewiring along with your body. It happens automatically up to a point – but weighted strength training in particular, focusing on heavy (relative to you), slow, controlled movements can do an amazing job to stimulate neural pathways.
The automatic re-wiring means that we’re not going to be the same tomorrow as we are today – not the brain, and not the same body. We can help make the process more effective and efficient with exercise (and smart nutrition) after age 45, and particularly after age 60, which are the two aging “speed humps”.
Every second millions of cells die and millions are born. Even as you’re aging, your skin renews, blood refreshes, your gut lining renews itself every 4 days. Parts of your brain change, neurons form new connections, old ones break down and your brain rewires itself based upon what you think, do, and feel.
Strength training, plus a variety of movement is key to enhance this incredible process.
I do everything I can to make sure that my 72-year-old brain is rewiring effectively, and I coach my clients for the same reasons, whatever their age.
Your body is constantly adjusting and adapting.
Every second it’s repairing and restoring. Millions of cells die and are replaced each moment. Weight lifting can help it along.
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Skin renews about every 28–40 days.
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Red blood cells are recycled every 120 days.
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The gut lining regenerates every 3–5 days.
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Your internal organs and other tissues repair and regenerate constantly.
- Bones slowly remodel over years.
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Rowing is a fantastic tool to promote body and brain connection. In almost every session I’ll remind you that your brain is getting a great workout too! It’s strength and cardio, and the rowing stroke is a series of movements that require mental focus and intention, all which promote neuroplasticiy.
- Rowing improves focus and concentration: The mental demands of rowing, such as maintaining concentration on technique, and staying in sync, consistent with the rhythm, will enhance focus and stimulate brain activity..
- Rowing increases neurogenesis: Rowing stimulates the production of new neurons in the brain, particularly in the hippocampus, which is crucial for memory and learning!
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Your brain is continuously rewiring itself.
Even after injury, trauma, or long periods of stress, your brain retains the capacity to change and heal – but it has to be encouraged and stimulated through action and specific activities, especially strength exercise, and cardio too. Variety is important.
When it seems hard – whether you’re doing something familiar, or learning something brand new, especially when it seems hard – training works. If you’re experiencing a real challenge, if it seems like progress is slow or non-existent, you’re not broken, you’re adapting.
Every rep, every lift, every rowing stroke, every intentional moment of focused effort in strength training sends a signal to your nervous system: “Adapt.”
Strength training isn’t just about muscles—it sharpens coordination, balance, and body awareness. It stimulates neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons), enhances synaptic plasticity, and improves cognitive function, especially as we age. Movement and resistance training literally shape your brain’s architecture.
Build your body—AND rewire your brain. Promote neuroplasticity.
Let’s do it together!
x
Polli
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Thoughts
