Optimal Being

Strength athletes who replace some of their workouts with sessions in which they imagine training with weights achieve almost the same progression as athletes who don't miss any training sessions. Sports scientist Mathias Reiser of Justus Liebig University Giessen came to this conclusion after doing a trial with 43 healthy students. Imaginary training is a good option for athletes with a lively imagination. Imaginary training Imagining that you are training strengthens muscles. This was proved in a famous study done by sports scientist Vinoth Ranganathan.  [Neuropsychologia. 2004;42(7):944-56.]  Without even moving your biceps, for example, you can strengthen them just by thinking of curls. Researchers in the Netherlands discovered that it was possible to  strengthen the calf muscle  of subjects using this method, and that people with serious injuries  recovered more quickly . Scientists at the University of Lyon  discovered  that imaginary training is...

You lose strength if you close your eyes during physical exertion, sports scientists at Samford University in the US discovered when they did an experiment involving 27 students. But if you are used to doing the movement then the reduction as a result of sight loss is negligible. Study The researchers got the students to do leg press exercises on two occasions, using 60 percent of the weight at which they could just manage 1 rep. On one occasion the students were blindfolded once they had got onto the machine, on the other occasion they weren't. Results The lack of vision reduced the power the subjects were able to develop - the speed with which they could push the weight away from themselves - by 6 percent. In men and women who trained with weights in the gym twice a week or more, the loss of power due to loss of sight [white bar] was negligibly small. The blindfold reduced power by a statistically insignificant 1.1 percent. In inexperienced test subjects, the blindfold reduced th...