Concurrent brain endurance training improves endurance exercise performance

AbstractObjectives Mental fatigue impairs endurance exercise. Brain training (BET) – engaging in cognitively fatiguing tasks during exercise - can develop resilience to mental and improve physical performance over alone. The mechanism for this effect is unknown. This experiment examines if BET enhances investigates potential underlying physiological mechanisms. Design A mixed design randomised control trial. Methods Pre- post-testing: 36 participants completed dynamic rhythmic muscular handgrip requiring generation of as much force possible once a second 300s, performed under 3 counterbalanced conditions: following 600s 2-back memory/attention task (subsequent); while performing (concurrent); on its own (solo). Cardiac activity, electromyographic forearm pre-frontal cerebral haemodynamics (near infrared spectroscopy), were recorded. Training: Participants (randomised Control or group) 24 (6 weeks) submaximal hand contractions sessions. group also concurrent cognitive (2-back, Stroop). Measures motivation, exertion collected throughout. Results Endurance performance, across the tasks, improved more (32%) than (12%) (p<0.05). better occurred with higher oxygenation post-training time relative Conclusions Concurrent was accompanied by training-induced maintenance oxygenation, suggestive reduced effort activity.