I can already hear the uproar. It’s coming from all corners of the planet.

Did you see what el Furecat wrote today?

He said, “Weight training is bad for the brain.”

Yes, I did, and here’s the rest of the story.

Weight training can benefit the brain… a bit. You’re using your hands to push and pull, and this alone has benefits to the brain.

You’re learning to move your body in various ways, you are increasing blood flow and you’re breathing a bit deeper.

All of the above benefit the brain.

But the reason I say that weight training isn’t good for the brain is because, relatively speaking, you can train someone who has very little brains to do it.

Push – pull and do so in a straight line.

How hard is that?

Or lie down on this machine and push. Or sit on this unnecessary gizmo that costs thousands of dollars, and pull.

The real brains in weight training are those who are continuously figuring out how to make expensive equipment – and selling it by the truckload. They’re the smart ones.

Now, I’m not saying that people who train with weights are stupid. Far from it.

What I’m saying is weight training, relatively speaking, doesn’t benefit the brain anywhere close to what training with your own bodyweight does. And that’s why it’s bad. It’s bad when you compare it to other exercise methods.

Go outdoors and walk backwards and your brain will benefit far more than pushing and pulling a bunch of iron or lounging on machines. I taught this years ago in my Dao Zou program – which I recently updated in China – and scientific studies now back me up.

Learn tai chi or another physically complicated martial arts routine, and the benefits to your brain and nervous system are off the charts. Each and every movement comes with a never-ending ocean of details you are to remember and work on.

Compare that to a set of preacher curls.

What did you have to remember? How taxing, memory wise, was the movement pattern to your brain and nervous system?

As for the bodyweight exercises I teach in Combat Conditioning and in my other books and videos available to members of the Matt Furey Inner Circle, in terms of the brain benefits, it’s so far ahead of weight training that I’ll stick with my stock answer: It’s not even close.

Don’t believe me? Think I’m full of it? A shyster?

Then take the following test: Go into a gym, sit on a chair in front of a military press machine and do a set of however many reps you want. How much thinking or reorganizing of your nervous system was involved in that?

Now grab a set of dumbbells, stand on your feet, and do the same exercise. Which do you think involves the brain and nervous system more?

Last of all, find a wall, kick up into a handstand and do a set of pushups with your heels to the heavens.

Hmmm.

I think we have a winner.

And it ain’t the machine or the dumbbells.

Give your body-brain the training that benefits it most.

Anytime, anywhere, anyplace, your body is your own gym.

Use it so you can use it.

Kick ass – take names!

Matt Furey
Matt Furey Inner Circle