Exercising a mind, body at same time tests out as winner

Learning a second language as an adult is difficult. Could learning while you exercise make it easier?

A new study reports that working out during a language class amplifies people’s ability to memorize, retain and understand new vocabulary. The findings provide more evidence that to engage our minds, we should move our bodies.

In recent years, a wealth of studies in animals and people have shown that we learn differently if we also exercise. Lab rodents given access to running wheels create and maintain memories better than animals that are sedentary, for instance. And students consistently perform better on academic tests if they participate in some kind of physical activity during the school day.

Many researchers suspect that exercise alters the biology of the brain in ways that make it more malleable and receptive to new information, a process called plasticity.

But many questions have remained unanswered about movement and learning, including whether exercise is most beneficial before, during or after instruction, and how much and what types of exercise might be best.

So for the new study, which was published in PLOS One, researchers in China and Italy decided to home in on language learning and the adult brain.

Researchers recruited 40 college-age Chinese men and women who were trying to learn English. The students had some facility but were far from proficient.

The researchers then divided the students into two groups. Those in one group would continue to learn English as they had before, primarily while seated in rote vocabulary-memorization sessions.

The others would ride exercise bikes at a gentle pace beginning 20 minutes before the start of the lessons and continuing throughout the 15 minutes or so of instruction.

The students completed eight vocabulary sessions over two months.

And at the end of each lesson, the students who had ridden bikes performed better on the vocabulary tests than those who sat still.

They also became more proficient at recognizing proper sentences than the sedentary students, although that difference did not emerge until after several weeks of instruction.