The mental side of muscle-fitness

Strength training can be about more than well-defined abs and bragging rights in the gym. Advocates argue that building muscles is a matter of mental health too.

Excerpt: "The mind-body problem, for instance, “is nonsense,” Mr. Gross claims, “because muscle stops working and fades out of existence without constant interaction with the neurological system. Mind and muscle are not enemies. They’re the best of friends.” The author explains the push and pull of muscles, the tension and release that drives bodies forward and can hold us back if not effectively trained.

He cites recent scientific discoveries that have identified the ways—long intuitively known by those who are physically active—that exercise produces neurological benefits: “The brain’s posterior cingulate cortex, the seat of empathy, grows larger when people do weight-lifting exercise,” we are told, while “the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory, grows larger when people do aerobic exercise.”

The book connects physiology not only to philosophy but also philology. We learn, for instance, that around 700 B.C. one of the earliest gatherings at Olympia sought to bridge the human and the divine by means of a footrace. Runners competed to offer a sacrifice to Zeus. “The distance between altars,” we are told—roughly 200 modern meters—“was called a stade. The race across that distance was the stadion,” and the victor “won for everyone.”'