Yesterday, at my JHS, we had a sports day. I was completely immersed in Japanese all day. Despite this seemingly perfect opportunity I didn’t learn much Japanese at all. I’m white so the hot sun – as well as running a few sprints and participating – bogged my mind down and made me too mentally fatigued to process much verbal information. I was so focused on the activities and tracking movement and visual stimuli that everything else took a backseat.

There are a few threads here that claim physical activity improves brain function. I agree with this sentiment. What I have a hard time reconciling, though, is how people then deduce that physical training will improve ALL aspects of learning. It’s only another simple step – which many people have made – to extrapolate and say physical activity will help you learn Chinese or Japanese. I no longer agree with this.

I regularly engage in intense physical training and I have noticed that instead of stimulating my language studies it usually, sadly, depresses them. Maybe I’m an anomaly though. Any high-level athletes here who could chime in?

I believe intense exercise is both good and bad. It depends on how it is used. If you run just enough to get your heart going and then stop to study for a long time; it can be good. However if you are constantly exhausted while exercising all day while trying to study it can be bad. The key difference is the first is invigorating you while the second is draining you.

High level I don't know but I do at least do my 6-8 sessions per week training. There are two things to the whole idea. Directly after (and during) any physically demanding activity you do have a higher oxygen burning activity going on. You also have a higher flow of blood. This do help the brain to process more data. This is not the same however as you also will have an easier time to remember what you are learning. Learning is largely about creating more connections in your brain so you can faster get the data when it is needed. This however have also been proven to be increased by better physical stamina. Some tests indicates that for every 30% increase you gain about 1 percentage point in intelligence. This is believed to be due to the body starts to produce building blocks for your cells, muscles etc that also benefits the brain. So, back to my own reality. If i train hard, e.g. a interval pass running with an pace around 3-3,45 / km I will have a nice oxygen burning activity going on but I will also be be so tired and full of dopamine that I will be unfocused on any Japanese or Chinese study I do directly after this. If I however do my normal evening run that typically is some 15-25 Km I will come home and truly see a great improvement in what I can recall and process of new data. This is not the whole grail in any way but every thing that do help me learn faster or better I will take advantage of. I think that i have more effect by study just before i go to bed so the brain can spend the night processing the words. Or as I do now, live my life in Japan/China. When I force my self to speak and listen to the language all the time I for sure learn better than if I just sit in front of the computer and study. This includes reading what ever sign i can see on the trains, talk to anyone I meet etc. For me one side effect of the running is that i tend to read every sign I can see on the way and those tends to stay in memory since they get context for me. I recall the run and the signs. No science to back that up but since it works for me I am happy about it anyway. Similarly, when my wife follows me for a run and we talk Chinese I tend to recall those patterns better as well. She is very much correcting my Chinese and that works great. Context, concentration and low speed training is working at least for me. I think that when we talk at home I get distracted about everything else with work, children etc so i loses focus on the discussion.