Michael Gonzalez-Wallace explains his new book Super Body, Super Brain: Marrying Fitness and Neuroscience: SUPER BODY, SUPER BRAIN is a new Fitness Program in an upcoming book on January 1st, 2011! The New Era of Strength Training is here. Use your brain to get a leaner body and a sharper brain.

2. A New Approach to Health:
Marrying Neuroscience and
Physical Training

3. SUPER BODY, SUPER BRAIN
Marrying Fitness and Neuroscience
HONORS AND AWARDS
-Award for Fitness Excellence by Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota Governor
and Presidential candidate
-Grant recipient in Parkinson Disease-Anderson Foundation- implementation:
Capistrant Parkinson Center, Bethesda hospital
-Award for Fitness Excellence by Mayor Chris Coleman, St Paul, Minnesota
-Amazon Best Seller-Hardcover and Kindle Format

4. Latest Studies in Neuroscience, Exercise Science and Nutrition
 NEUROSCIENCE APPLIED TO FITNESS
• The More we use our brain the better physical and mental results
• The more active we are the greater connectivity between brain regions
 EXERCISE SCIENCE
1- Biomechanics: the more muscles we use the better for a greater
health/ Cardiovascular activity not only help us get fit but also
get smarter. Creation of BDNF
2. Can I get stronger at 93?
EXERCISE AND AGING
. A study from Harvard University concluded that lack of brain activity
between different areas of the brain means faster aging.
 NUTRITION AND INTELLIGENCE
• Nutrition Vs Intelligence: High Saturated fats destroys BDNF,
Omega 3 diet enhances BDNF

5. Myths about Exercise and Aging
Myth 1: Exercise is useless and a waste of my time. I’m getting
old anyway.
Fact: Exercise and strength training helps your muscles, bones look and feel younger and stay active longer.
Regular physical activity lowers your risk for a variety of conditions, including cognitive decline like Alzheimer’s
and dementia, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, colon cancer, high blood pressure, and obesity.
Myth 2: Elderly people shouldn’t move. They should save their
energy, strength and rest.
Fact: Research that a sedentary lifestyle is unhealthy for the elderly. Period. Inactivity often causes seniors
shows to lose the ability to do things on their own and can lead to more hospitalizations, doctor visits, and use
of medicines for illnesses.
Myth 3: Exercise is risky and puts me at risk of falling down.
Fact: Regular exercise, by building strength and stamina, prevents loss of bone mass and improves balance,
actually reducing your risk of falling.
Myth 4: It’s too late. I’m already too old, to start exercising
Fact: You’re never too old to exercise Studies are showing how you can increase muscle fiber plasticity at 93!.
Myth 5: I’m injured and disabled. I can’t exercise sitting down.
Fact: Seated exercises are the best functional exercises to improve strength, stamina and even balance or
coordination!

6. Motor circuits-why are they so complicated?
2 types of Signals
Afferent messages
Or sensory neurons
Efferent messages
Or motor neurons

7. Brain and Movement-basics
• Voluntary
• Planning an Intentional movement
• Sensory Proprioceptors

8. Neuroplasticity vs
Neurogenesis
• Movement affects both
• Exercise affects both
• Cardiovascular and complex training
the best

9. Motor Cortex: Controls our voluntary movements
Toes
index
Ankle
thumb
Knee
neck
Hip
brow
Trunk
Eye lid
Shoulder
Face
Elbow
lips
Wrist
Jaw
Hand
Tongue
Little
Swallowing
Ring

10. 2. PLANNING AN INTENTIONAL MOVEMENT
The Treasure of the brain lies at its bottom: The Cerebellum
Cerebellum:
50% of all Neurons
Functions:
Balance
Coordination
Muscle Timing
Posture
Learning-speech
Intentional Movement
Brain-Muscle Connection

11. Simple versus Complex movement
Different Brain Activity
Source: Jaap Murre Chapters 4, 5, and 6T his lecture can be found at: http://www.memory.uva.nl/np/motor

12. Complex Movement Uses more brain areas
The more areas we use the greater health
And connectivity between brain regions, Hillman, 2010

13. The Sensory System:
Proprioceptors are key for Movement
PROPRIOCEPTORS

14. Human Movement: How do we move- Biomechanics
A very complicated process- Brain-Motor Plasticity
Central nervous System Motor Command Body Movement Sensors
(CNS)
Cerebellum
Vision
Vestibular
Sensory
Processing
Deltoid Muscle Multi-
& Control Spindle
Plan Core
Activation
sensory
Calf-Soleus Spindle
Signals
Ankle Proprioceptor
Movement Starts:
Raise arms&heels

15. Exercise and Intelligence
BDNF
“Our most celebrated protein”
Source: University of Bologna
http://www.ricercaitaliana.it/prin/unita_op_en-2005057070_004.htm

16. Nutrition vs Intelligence

17. Debate:
• Multitasking good or bad?
• Stress good or bad?
• Exercises

18. Exercise and Memory
2 Types of memory:
• Explicit: found in the hippocampus and medial
temporal lobe----dealing with facts or events through
conscious recall
• Implicit found in the cerebellum, amygdala and reflex
pathways dealing with motor tasks or perceptual
skills through unconscious recall
• “Once you master explicit memory allows it to be part
of the implicit since it is more efficient”

19. Sensory, Short and
Long term Memory
Sensory, Short term and long term:
Sensory memory
The sensory memories act as buffers for stimuli received through the senses.
Short Term memory
The idea of short term memory simply means that you are retaining
information for a short period of time without creating the neural
mechanisms for later recall
Long Term memory
Long term memory occurs when you have created neural pathways for
storing ideas and information which can then pass and be recalled
weeks, months, or even years later. To create these pathways, you must
make a deliberate attempt to encode the information in the way that you
intend to recall it later.
Mechanisms: Visual memory, material must be actively visualized.
Auditory memory
Kinesthetic

20. Memory and the Brain

21. 5 TIPS TO PREVENT COGNITIVE DECLINE
D
DeclineCognitive abilities such as attention, memory, auditory processes, motor
coordination or executive functions like planning or multitasking deteriorate over
t
the time unless used regularly
TIPS:
1.- Keep your Mind motivated and your brain active in any field that makes you
constantly learn: reading, problem solving, brain fitness exercises, learning a
language, playing an instrument or a memory game.
2.- Work your brain with movement. You can train your brain with movement in several
ways:a.- From left to right b.- From Front to back c.- From your sixth sense
(proprioception) d.-From constant learning of new movements e.- Movement
mastery f.- Practice cardiovascular activity daily.
3.- Eating can influence your brain in a powerful way. Foods with high antioxidants,
low fats, low sugars (apples, yogurt, berries salmon, walnuts, strawberries)
4.- Stay active! keep yourself socially active and make sure you are surrounded by
great friends: you can join a book club, walking club or a gym. Staying socially
active is really important.
5. Meditate daily.. Meditation helps reduce stress and increase oxygen flow to the
brain. Practice daily meditation to achieve a powerful, calmer mind and a more
focused brain.

22. The body

23. Biomechanics and Motor
control of Movement
Biomechanics of human movement
can be defined as the interdiscipline
which describes analyzes and asses
human movement
Movement analysis can range from the
average gait to the star athlete
Human movement science is
kinesiology

24. Functional training offers great results
ADULT MOTOR BEHAVIOR IS HIGHLY adaptive and can be
modified in response to a variety of different motor
experiences, including skill, strength, and endurance training.
Acquired motor behaviors also endure in the absence of
continued training, demonstrating that motor experience is
somehow persistently encoded within the nervous system.
There is now extensive evidence that motor training can induce
structural and functional adaptation ("plasticity") within several
motor areas, including basal ganglia ( 13, 21, 39 ), cerebellum (
14, 47, 48 ), and red nucleus ( 27 ). The present review focuses
on plasticity within motor cortex and spinal cord that occurs in
response to skill, exercise, and endurance training.
http://journal.shouxi.net/qikan/article.php?id=366151

25. strength training,
a method of improving muscular strength by gradually increasing the
ability to resist force through the use of free weights, machines, or the
person's own body weight. Strength training sessions are designed to
impose increasingly greater resistance, which in turn stimulates
development of muscle strength to meet the added demand.
Strength Training Hypertrophy *Resistance
(Adding Resistance *Free Weights
to one’s Body Weight)
*Machines
Endurance
Most studies
Body Weight Great program
Strength Training As long as Combined
With Strength and
resistance
ACSM states that strength training
With additional resistance or weights is the best

26. “Strength training is the absolute best exercise program”
American College Sports of Medicine
NEURONAL BALANCES DEPRESSION&ANXIETY
GROWTH HORMONES (MILD)
CARDIOVASCULAR ANTI-AGING EFFECTS MUSCULAR
HEALTH (BP, RHR,BPM) (movement) STRENGTH
BALANCES
Improves CHEMICALS IN
Immune THE BRAIN
System STRENGTH TRAINING
REDUCES
BENEFITS
BODY FAT
Fights
Disease PROMOTES
(flu&others) WEIGHT LOSS
POSTURE ALIGNMENT
FLEXIBILTY MAKES US
GET SMARTER
BONE DENSITY JOINTS
RESILIENCE

27. Brain, Strength Training and Movement
From left to right 5 ways of From Front to back
Training the
Brain with
Strength training
movements
From your senses
(proprioception)
From Movement
From your heart
learning
EYES CLOSED HAND-EYE
COORDINATION