At Actin Fitness each workout is designed to work your brain and your body. Did you know that by 2038 the incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias in Canada will rise to one new case every two minutes? The good news is staying active — both in body and mind — helps protect your brain against neurodegenerative diseases, and can reduce your risk by upwards of 50 per cent. In other words – Use it or lose it!
So, why is exercise good for the brain? First off, it increases blood flow to the brain, which is essential in the production of new cells. In addition, increased blood flow to the brain decreases inflammation, a concept that many researchers believe leads to cell death and a neurotoxic environment. Newer research has shown that physical activity also increases growth factors in the brain leading to greater connectivity among neurons. These growth factors play a crucial role in the survival and proper functioning of neurons, the building blocks of the brain.
Physical activity does more than protect against dementia, it also improves your mood and combats chronic diseases such as osteoporosis, type-2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer. Regular exercise also helps you manage your weight, sleep better, increase your energy, and maintain a great sex life!
At Actin Fitness we focus on six core areas of physical conditioning:
- Agility
- Balance
- Power
- Reaction Time
- Speed
- Strength
Our exercises build lean muscle, strengthen bones, and reduce fat, but that is only half the equation because a healthy body also means creating your sharpest mind.
At Actin Fitness, we also focus on training your mind through mentally stimulating workouts. This is why Actin Fitness is different from anything you have ever tried before. Research has shown that exercising your brain directly through cognitive stimulation is an important piece of the puzzle in ensuring your mind ages as gracefully as your body.
Why is exercising your brain essential to overall health? Exercising your brain allows new connections to be made between neurons. These connections strengthen the ability of nerves to transfer messages and communicate with different areas of the brain. Think about how a computer stores information. If you store a file with only one pathway to access it and something happens to that pathway, the information in the file can no longer be accessed. However, if there are multiple routes to gain access to a given file and one pathway breaks down, you still have many other routes available to gain access to the information in the file. This is exactly why exercising your brain now is so important for your health in the future. Studies show that in order to achieve your personal best mental acuity it is essential to cross-train your brain in a variety of ways, much like how you would cross-train your body.
At Actin Fitness, we focus on four core areas of neuronal conditioning:
- Attention
- Memory
- Processing Speed
- Executive Functions (Planning, Problem Solving, Mental Flexibility)
By strengthening these four components you can expect to be able to recall information more quickly with greater accuracy. You can also look forward to increased focus, accuracy, and efficiency when completing tasks. In other words, we help you build smart muscle.
In each 60-minute workout you can expect a mix of physical conditioning exercises paired with brain-stimulating puzzles and challenges. The combination of physically- and mentally- challenging exercises done in unity allows for an efficient total body and brain workout that takes advantage of the increased blood flow to the brain during physical exercise. Our classes create a fun, team-building atmosphere allowing you to reach for your fitness goals.
To read more about the workouts and our client types click on one of the links below:
