A new study reveals that martial arts can be beneficial for both your body and your mind. This type of activity requires a good level of physical strength, indeed, but those who are training martial arts also need to develop a lot of mental acuities too. Researchers have found that mental strength is as important for martial arts as the strength of the body. The new study comments that karate experts’ stronger punching force may be down to a better muscle movement control in the brain rather than as increased muscular strength. To support the results of the study, researchers quote other studies showing that children training taekwondo achieve better maths test scores.
The main question raised by the study is does training martial arts help people achieve better control of their brain, or do people with these characteristics choose to practice martial arts? The results of this question are part of research organized by The Independent.
The Independent designed research designed to study the benefits of taking part in martial arts by specifically measuring attention to assess mental control. Previous research has already suggested that mindfulness and exercise can be both very beneficial effects on the attention span. Of course, many people assume that martial arts are already a combination of both mindfulness and exercise, or active sports that involve some aspects of meditation.
As a part of The Independent’s study, the media recruited 21 amateur adults practising martial arts, including karate, judo, taekwondo and 27 more adults with no experience in the sports. All of the recruited adults tool part in an attention network test. The test is designed to assess three different types of attention: alerting (or maintaining a sense of alertness), orienting (the shifting of attention), and executive (participants are involved in choosing the correct response when there’s conflicting information).
The alert network is expected to reveal how vigilant a person is. It is also expected that people with a high score on this part of the test are able to respond to unpredictable timed targets better compared to those with a low score.
The research organised by The Independent recognises that there are some differences between the different kinds of martial art sports both in the core philosophy and the intensity for the body and muscles. In addition, some martial sports lean more on the “fighting” side, while others are focused more on the “meditation” side.
All of the participants were invited to The Independent’s lab and details of their martial arts experienced were further recorded, including the type of martial art sport, how often they train, how many years they have been participating in this sport. Nest, participants were asked to take part in a computer-based task that involves the participants seeing a row of five arrows and having to respond to the direction of the central arrow by pressing a letter button on a keyboard as quickly as possible. In some trials, participants were given a warning cue that announced arrows will appear soon, but some trials didn’t warn them.
Most martial arts usually involve the element of sparring or simulated fighting with a partner. One of the aims of the sparring concept is that the partners will attempt to remain focused and avoid their partner making a contact. It is not that often when a sparring partner gives a warning of the exact timing of a punch. As a result, the defending partner usually has to stay alert at all times and be always ready to dodge the hit.
As expected, during the search by The Independent, martial arts participants scored higher on the alert test compared to non-martial artists. Martial arts participants responded to the arrows faster, notably when there was no warning given. As a result, it is assumed that martial artists have a higher level of vigilance and this may reflect a stronger cognitive control.
The study also looked at the effects of long-term martial arts training. As a result, the study suggests that people training martial arts for longer time periods have higher alertness. Several participants with more than nine years of experience at training martial arts showed the highest scores for alertness in the test. The results suggest that longer experience and time invested in participating in martial awards can be very beneficial. The study by The Independent also reveals that the effects of improved attention may be long-lasting.