Study Review:
Yes...it’s a proven fact. Martial arts are indeed making us smarter – both inside and outside the dojo. Who would have thought? It’s almost as if we’ve spent years of our lives attending class, studying at home, and undergoing extremely rigorous belt tests that assess our physical and intellectual understanding of our skills.
Of course! We knew this already, but a study published in 2015 by Douris, et al., discovered that martial arts training significantly improves executive function (the highest level of cognitive function) compared to other aerobic exercises, such as walking.
Cognitive function encompasses all things attention, memory, processing speed, and executive function, all which occur in the frontal lobe of the brain. We understand through years of abundant research that aerobic exercise and resistance training dramatically improves cognitive function. However, the study performed by Douris, et al. aimed to find if martial arts specifically increased cognitive function more so that typical aerobic exercises, such as walking. The hypotheses of the study included (1) martial arts training would have a greater positive effect on cognitive performance compared to walking due to the greater amount of cortical demand needed for the cognitively complex motor tasks required by martial arts and (2) atypical martial arts (described as experienced martial arts practitioners who perform their typical training in an atypical manner, such as working a kata backwards) would have a greater cognitive performance than both the average aerobic workout (walking) and a typical martial arts class (Douris, et al).
To test their hypotheses, the researchers selected 10 middle-aged martial arts members of the Soo Bahk Do (SBD) dojo (a Korean martial art) to participate in the study. The 10 members consisted of 4 women and 6 men with an average age of 53.5. Middle-aged people were chosen because this age range represents the beginning of mental decline in most people. Those who were included in the study had good overall health, normal correction vision and color vision, were black belts in SBD, and regularly attended 1-hour martial arts classes at least 2 days a week. These participants lacked major musculoskeletal injuries that would have occurred over the past 6 months from when the study began and lacked any other health issues that would have interfered with their safety (Douris, et al).
The 10 participants were randomly assigned an exercise form, which took place on Saturday mornings with each treatment condition separated by 1 week for a total of 6 weeks. Each participant was randomly assigned to a walking group, a typical martial arts class, or an atypical martial arts class. The martial arts class was 1 hour in length, including a 5-minute flexibility warm up, 10 minutes of blocking and punching, 10 minutes of kicking, 10 minutes of set forms, 15 minutes of self-defense, 5 minutes of sparring, and a 5-minute cool down. The atypical martial arts class consisted of the same exercises in the same order, but on the opposite sides, with various speeds, and reversed movement patterns. The walking group walked at a standard pace for 1 hour and served as the positive control for the study as aerobic exercises such as walking have been shown to increase cognitive function in prior studies (Douris, et al).
To assess cognitive function, each participant was given a Stroop test (a cognitive skills test that has been used in previous studies to assess the effect of acute exercise on cognitive performance) just prior to the exercise and 1 hour after the exercise. The Stroop test is composed of three sections: (1) the word section which assess attention and processing speed, (2) the color section which also assesses attention and processing speeds, and (3) the color-word section which assesses response inhibition, a specific example of executive function. The higher the Stroop score, the higher the cognitive function. Statistical analysis (specifically SPSS for Windows) was used to analyze the results (Douris, et al).
The results indicated that all three exercises increased attention and processing speed, but only the martial arts classes improved executive function including selective attention, judgement, anticipation, planning, and conflict resolution. There were no significant differences between the typical and atypical martial arts classes. Therefore, the study results supported the first hypothesis that martial arts increases executive function more than typical aerobic exercises, such as walking. The researchers stated the results may be due to the increased cortical demand that is required by the complex, mind-body, and coordinated motor tasks of martial arts that increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex of the brain in comparison to the rhythmic motion of walking (Douris, et al).
Why is this study important and what are my thoughts?
Overall, I think this was a great study that assessed the specific cognitive function involved in martial arts. Limitations I noticed about the study included a small test population and a short testing time frame. Nevertheless, the finding that martial arts increases executive functioning by a greater amount compared to walking is important because as practicing individuals, we can do two things: (1) We can now understand the extent to which our martial arts is increasing our brain capacity and specific function and (2) We can explain to people who are not yet apart of the martial arts that the exercises we do in class are both increasing physical fitness as well as brain power. In other words, you can tell them they will become smarter if they join the martial arts!
In my opinion, I think martial arts increases cognitive function because of the many types of exercises that are included, namely those that work cardiorespiratory endurance, muscle strength, muscle explosiveness, speed, agility, flexibility, balance, reaction speed, and coordination (Gunawan). I was surprised that the atypical martial arts class didn’t increase executive function more than the typical martial arts class because I thought it would require more prefrontal cortex firing. From my experience of working these “atypical” exercises in the dojo, such as when we run our katas blindfolded or in reverse, I experience some frustration and mental block, which could be why executive functioning did not increase as much in the study. However, if we included these atypical exercises into our practice at home, I hypothesize that ultimately, our executive function would increase overall.
Works Cited
Douris, Peter et al. “Martial Art Training and Cognitive Performance in Middle-Aged
Adults.” Journal of human kinetics, vol. 47 277-83. 14 Oct. 2015, doi:10.1515/hukin-
2015-0083,
Gunawan. “Comparison of the physical fitness of karate and taekwondo elite athletes.
Journal of Education, Health and Sport. 2021;11(10):221-228. eISSN 2391-8306. DOI
https://zenodo.org/record/5633331
After reading this blog, I plan to incorporate this into our training regime for our law enforcement/military training core processes. I feel that what you have explained and demonstrated here will assist the individuals in these two fields to better manage incidents in high stress volatile environments with the principles explained. I am pretty excited to mold this into our training and watch the skill sets improve those members and enhance the abilities for those they serve.