Mental Workout

Mental Workout Grows Muscles (Wright and Smith, 2007)

• Background: This study is related to mirror neurons, the same neurons can fire when you watch yourself exercise as when you actually do exercise
• Aim: How does a mental workout compare to physical workout in terms of muscle growth
• Method: Control group did physical exercise for 6 weeks and the Imagery group watched a video of themselves performing the workout for 6 weeks
  
  • The dependent variable was strength measured after 6 weeks
• Results: Imagery group outperformed controls even though they did less physical exercise
• Conclusion: Suggests that muscles (physiology) can interact with cognition (thinking about exercise) and become stronger without doing any physical work