Scientific American story on exercise and brain health

[Bill_S]

The newest issue of Scientific American magazine (January 2020)  includes a story about exercise and brain health. It goes into the background of why humans are evolved to exercise compared to other hominins, and how that is particularly beneficial to brain health. The hunter-gatherer ancestor changed walking to the upright position, walking on two legs instead of four. That had implications for increased demands on the brain, i.e. coordinating muscle activity throughout the body to maintain balance when shifting from just one foot to another, all while consciously mapping out the best path to food, water, or shelter.

The story goes on about how exercisers should recreate the demands of our ancestors when exercising. They had to watch out for obstacles and danger, and make quick decisions about where they were heading. The story implies that using exercise bicycles or treadmills in front of a TV is not enough to challenge the brain during exercise. They stated "If we can augment the effects of exercise by including a cognitively demanding activity, the perhaps we can increase the efficacy of exercise regimens aimed at boosting cognition during aging..."

If you are like me, I was thinking about how perfectly figure skating fit this prescription for effective exercise:
1) maintaining balance on one foot or the other - oh, big-time, check!
2) thinking about potential obstacles in our path and taking corrective action - check!
3) aerobic exercise - check!
4) adjusting speed to suit conditions - check!
5) undertake challenging mental processes while exercising (Moves patterns, here we come!) - check!

In the spirit of the Scientific American story, and how I believe figure skating would be one of the best exercise activities, I offer this...

[Query]

Would make a great tee-shirt!

But could you replace what I assume to be a spear or walking stick with a hockey stick?

[Bill_S]

Oh, that's perfectly evil! A hockey stick instead of a club or spear!

Plus GOE!!

EDIT: I couldn't resist the suggestion. Here you go...

[CrossStroke]

Now do you have that by any chance in a vector format?  And would I need to pay royalties if I can't resist making something with this image on it?   

[Bill_S]

The original is vector. PM sent.

For this non-commercial purpose, I merely snagged some raster art after a quick search, cleaned it up in Photoshop, and converted it to vector with Vector Magic. Then I imported the vector AI files into my vector program for some quick editing.

For commercial usage, you'd need to get permission or pay the clip-art fee from a couple of places. I suspect that the fees would be low for such simple art. Here's the link to the silhouette of the figure skater...

https://www.123rf.com/photo_98908211_stock-vector-young-figure-skating-man-silhouette.html

I'll leave the search for the other graphic up to you. I don't recall which one it was.

T-shirts or bumper stickers in mind?

[Query]

I'm not sure, but it is possible the original drawing was by Charles Darwin or Thomas Huxley, or was drawn during the time period that Darwin lived, or maybe even earlier. There are certainly some very old drawings along those lines - possibly copyright expired.

E.g., you might look at
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Huxley_-_Mans_Place_in_Nature.jpg
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Place_in_Nature
  https://www.visionlearning.com/en/library/Biology/2/Charles-Darwin-III/112
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Progress
to see if anything that you can use isn't copyrighted now.

I've also seen a tee shirt sold within the hockey community in which one of the non-upright figures is replaced by a hockey player, as I suggested.

The idea of a human evolutionary drawing sequence ending in a figure skater isn't completely unique - e.g., see

https://www.shutterstock.com/search/figure%2Bskater%2Bsilhouette?page=3&image_type=vector&search_source=base_related_searches

and

https://www.canstockphoto.com/figure-skater-man-and-woman-43559301.html

So I don't know if there are any potential plagiarism issues.

You can find lots of non-copyrighted pictures of figure skaters. Or you could turn an old copyrighted stock photo into a silhouette.

E.g., I'm not sure if these are copyrighted.

See also https://www.shutterstock.com/search/figure%2Bskater%2Bsilhouette?page=3&image_type=vector&search_source=base_related_searches

You can find a bunch of images that might be usable with a search of "Royalty-Free Ice Skating Drawings" or "Royalty-Free Figure Skating Drawings"

I found those in a very quick web search. I'm sure you can find more if you work at it.

[Loops]

+ goe for all of you. And let me know when merch is available!!! I need to make myself a new jacket, and this could be something for the back!!!!

Ooh..maybe instead of stroking, the skater could be doing a school figure. Just kidding. Well, half. 

[Query]

I apologize for pushing this discussion off-topic with my discussion of the drawing.

In at least one retirement home, exercise teachers have students do mental challenges while doing exercises. As far as danger, some also deal simulate danger by having them practice recovery techniques from positions from which they would otherwise fall. Something that also happens in skating practice.

In the same vein, I'm still working a lot, with minimal success, on the balancing on one foot (on the floor) with eyes closed.

Maybe ice skating coaches should push their students to supplement skating with more dangerous sports...    ?

Of course it is safer to practice skating skills while doing stuff like rubbing your tummie, or doing unrelated things with your hands.

Or music training. I just discussed with someone why prior music training is supposed to help students learn math skills. In addition to dealing with fractions (time signatures, rhythmic patterns), and feeling those rhythmic fractions in your whole mind and body, she claimed that music pushes people to concentrate and learn self discipline. Which skating does too. So, music, skating, and other dance should all reinforce each other. Not sure if that applies to martial arts, rock & ice climbing or sky diving. Though Kata practice resembles dance.

On a side note, I'm skeptical of claims that people are radically different from other creatures. Can it really be true that other hominids don't exercise? Do they play? I assume exercise is needed to adapt muscles, connective tissue and bones to each other's sizes, shapes, and to the physical stresses movement place on them, and to adapt the nervous system to control and receive information from their bodies, all of which vary too much from individual to individual for genetics to fix without exercise.

[Bill_S]

Here's a link to the online version of the story about levels of exercise necessary to stay healthy among hominids...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-evolved-to-exercise/

It will cost $6.99 online, or perhaps you can visit the library for the January 2019 issue.

[CrossStroke]

+ goe for all of you. And let me know when merch is available!!! I need to make myself a new jacket, and this could be something for the back!!!!

Ooh..maybe instead of stroking, the skater could be doing a school figure. Just kidding. Well, half. 

My temptation of wearing something with the 2nd version of the image has been greatly reduced by remembering that the rink I teach at (not skating for myself right now) is 95%+ hockey... I'd be fearing for my safety!!! 

[Loops]

My temptation of wearing something with the 2nd version of the image has been greatly reduced by remembering that the rink I teach at (not skating for myself right now) is 95%+ hockey... I'd be fearing for my safety!!! 

Yeah, I've thought of that too.  We share our ice with a hockey club AND a prof team.  And they're all nice.  No reason to create unnecessary waves.....