Why does it seem like we can improve our bench press, minutes-per-mile, or alcohol tolerance much more than we can increase our IQ? Can a person with a 100 IQ get a 120 score after training? 130? Seems quite believable to me.
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Your muscles get bigger when you use them; brain does not. Human muscles are the oddity here - most animals don't get stronger by exercise because they have a single defined role; humans have such variable roles that your body needs cues from use to decide how to use resources.
Maybe our brains don't get bigger, but they get more connected. Your liver doesn't 2x like your biceps do, but it certainly gets better at processing something you keep giving it.
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Training a limited system to be more efficient at a specific task is certainly possible; you can improve at any skill - that's what learning is. Learning skills absolutely doesn't translate into improving your overall mental acuity.
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Isn't that kind of analogous to muscles though? If you practice pushups, it won't help much with your pull-ups.
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And neuromuscular efficiency increases with exercise. So your muscles increase in size and “connectedness”.
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What's going on there is that your body is learning to trust your conscious mind with more and more control as you prove to it that you aren't going to do something totally stupid so your ability to recruit muscle fibers increases with exercise.
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