Exercise strengthens the brain of sports athletes, whether they are champions of video games, chess or mahjong

has How much exercise can help sharpen the brain of sports athletes? The question is at the heart of the documentary, Physical games. experiment It will be broadcast from January 19 on the Amazon Prime Video platform. Led by equipment manufacturer Asics, the scientific experiment involving a total of 77 people was conducted by Brandon Stubbs, a researcher at King’s College London, who studies the links between physical activity and mental health.

The one-hour and thirteen-minute documentary follows the trajectories of four world-class competitors: Japanese mahjong player Ryoei Hirano; British memory competition specialist Ben Pridmore; and two Americans, video game champion Sherry Nunn and chess master Cassa Corley. They have in common a significant term in the discipline and, above all, the level of physical activity on the floor, thirty minutes a day recommended by the World Health Organization. And this, for months, even years. Thus, Ben Pridmore, 45, a three-time world memory champion in the 2000s, finds himself in poor physical shape, unable to chain or push a few steps at first…

Over the course of sixteen weeks, they will benefit from a personalized training program led by a coach, with the goal of achieving one hundred and fifty minutes of weekly activity. Before and at the end of this period, their physical and cognitive parameters are objectively measured by a battery of tests. In the final minutes of the documentary, some data is presented that indicates a marked improvement in their cognitive indices. The young chess master, in particular, made progress in the problem-solving tests (+50%); player of Street FighterShort-term memory (+20%), anxiety level reduced by 50%. The memory athlete gained 40% short-term memory and 75% concentration.

10% increase in cognitive performance

Scholar Brandon Stubbs concludes by presenting some of the results for all 77 study participants recruited from twenty countries. Their profile is comparable to that of the four protagonists of the documentary: Competitors in Brain Sports, with low levels of physical activity for at least six months. Overall, their cognitive performance increased by 10%, with varying degrees of favorable effects on different components.