Brain Healthy Exercise Prescription [Podcast Series]

Ryan Glatt is Senior Brain Health Coach and Director of FitBrain at Pacific Neuroscience Institute Foundation.

“First to define a health coach is, there's many ways of defining it, but my favorite definition is a certified professional—ideally a board certified professional—that has skillful conversations to help people accomplish their health-related goals. A brain health coach is exactly the same thing with a focus and specialty in brain health-related goals.”

“Anyone who could be a health coach can, I think, learn about neuroscience in an evidence-based manner and be able to address an individual's brain health goals. The more chronic conditions and specialties you get into of course, the more considerations have to be there. So learning about things like polypharmacy and medication management just like an exercise physiologist or a medical exercise specialist might, working in tandem with physical therapists and allied health care professionals and specifically in my area neuro psychologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, anyone that is adjacent to or interested in brain health or care therein, I'm typically working with.”

“But there is just something about helping people with their brain health where if I was training older adults before, yes, it's very impactful to train them to be able to play with their grandkids. But for me, it was even more impactful to help them remember their grandkids’ names.”

“But dual tasking has been researched—specifically dual task interventions, dual task training interventions—to be helpful in anywhere from certain aspects of cognition like executive functions or attention or processing speed, to things like balance, especially in older adults and especially in individuals with chronic neurological conditions like Parkinson's and MS.”

“And often what I find in order to get towards a what we call a brain healthy exercise prescription, whether that's an individual who wants to prevent dementia, an individual with mild cognitive impairment or a person with Parkinson's disease, the prescription is that 150 to 300 minutes moderate to vigorous physical activity minimum per week, but also adding some variety. So you want some aerobic, you want some resistance training and you also want neuromotor.”

“And so depending on the type of exercise, whether it's acute or a chronic intervention, the exact type of exercise prescription, these different mechanisms will vary. But the micro, macro and behavioral levels of the brain are all different levels in which exercise can affect the brain.”

“I find it necessary to summarize as much of this as possible because people will post something on LinkedIn like ‘See, exercise is good for the brain because of blood flow. I told you.’ It's like, that's just one piece of the puzzle. And it's quite complicated. It's not easy, and we still haven't figured it all out yet.”

“I think fads and trends can be a gateway drug to actually understanding science better. And maybe it could be a nice way for you to understand and address biases. But it's also a nice way to focus in on a particular area.”

“And I think what's happening now is there's a lot of fitness professionals with not good scientific literacy or no training in neuroscience or formal experience, and preaching about these benefits in a way that is very biased and often very much incorrect. And I think that's one of the dangers, as a fitness industry, the fitness industry can't comment on neuroscience without neuroscience professionals being in the fitness industry.”

“As a professional in the brain health sphere, a health and fitness professional, it's important to know about all these different types of professionals, respecting scope of practice, humbling yourself before them and not trying to be the person that does everything….”

“Yeah, well, a lot of people say if someone's teaching something, they look to their own lifestyle to see if they're practicing it to decide if that person is credible or not. And by that definition, I'm not credible at all, because I'm struggling with my own brain health and lifestyle practices every day.”

“But I think the fitness industry, by focusing on body composition, has become excessively judgmental. And I have had so many people who are in excellent shape that are really struggling with their brain health because they may be active, but maybe they are not focusing on sleep, or maybe they don't have the right exercise plan, or it's just exercise or eating disorder that's been masked by this societal expectation.”

“I do think that scientific literacy is one of the skill sets that we as personal trainers and health and fitness professionals need to develop. And I think people when they hear that, are like scientific literacy, it really doesn't take that long to learn. But it does, it's a lifetime of refinement. And it's just what it represents is constantly checking your biases and paying attention to details, which I think is critical for everyone for everything in some ways.”

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