It is a couch potato's dream - just imagining yourself exercising can actually make you stronger. That's right, you don't even have to get up from your couch, and you don't need a magic device to do the exercise for you. However, it is not just an easier way to exercise, but as an example of the incredible power that your brain has on your body. Investigators have already found that mentally visualizing exercise was enough to increase strength in a muscle in the little finger, which it uses to move sideways. Muscles move in response to impulses from nearby motor neurons. The firing of those neurons in turn depends on the strength of electrical impulses sent by the brain. That suggests you can increase muscle strength solely by sending a larger signal to motor neurons from the brain. But would the same technique work for other muscles, like biceps?

Every two weeks, they measured the strength of the volunteers' muscles. The volunteers who thought about exercise showed a 13.5 per cent increase in strength after a few weeks, and maintained that gain for three months after the training stopped. Controls who missed out on the mental workout showed no improvement in strength.

It is established that mental power can help your physical condition, but it does not give you an excuse not to exercise if you can. Besides, imagining yourself training will never give you the whole range of physical and psychological benefits you will receive from a good heart-pumping workoutl. The real application of the discovery could help patients too weak to exercise to start recuperating from stroke or other injury. And if the technique works in older people, they might use it to help maintain their strength.

Source: Annual Meeting of Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego, California November 2001