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I'd be interested to know more precisely whether the subjects were doing more aerobic or anaerobic exercises.

My hunch, given my distant past life as an athlete, is that the correlation is with aerobic exercise and not anaerobic.


You can build aerobic power (at least to some extent) using anaerobic exercise like sprints / intervals. I would assume a combination of aerobic & anaerobic exercise is probably the healthiest because that way all energy pathways and muscle fibres get activated.

I always think it's crazy to expect humans to function properly without exercise. We see the problems in all other animals when they become sedentary below the level that they would historically be expected to do. Yet somehow some people seem to think we are an exception to this rule.

"Healthiest" is pretty vague in this context, as we're tracking a particular result - mental ability, and possibly neurogenesis.
Why so? Surely, if the correlation is explicitly with leg power rather than endurance or general fitness, then anaerobic exercise (squats, deadlifts, lunges, leg-presses, as well as running/bike sprints etc) would be the a better driver for building that power rather than aerobic exercise?
That's why I wish they were more explicit when defining the kind of exercise the subjects were engaged in.

My comment was primarily from personal experience. When I did my anaerobic exercise when I used to train, it was heavily anaerobic, where I would do a lot of short bursts of heavy lifting. Later I transitioned to primarily focus on aerobic, where I did a lot of distance swimming. So I think I had a good amount of both extremes to at least provide some insights. Everyone's experience will likely be slightly different.

My hunch, though, is a lot of people who do lifting still get aerobic benefits because they're not training as intensely. So I think I'm speaking more about the extremes of the two types of exercise and not a middle ground.

I agree with you. This is a very good question to ask. If this is from extremely intense workouts, then I would say very few would benefit.

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