Quick Facts

• Athletes who did brain training with workouts increased total reps by 50% and bench press by 33%
• The same group reported lower perceived effort despite doing significantly more work
• Brain endurance training works by building mental resilience to fatigue signals

A groundbreaking 2026 study published in the European Journal of Sport Science reveals that training your brain alongside your body produces remarkable fitness gains. Athletes who combined cognitive tasks with physical exercise saw strength improvements of up to 93% and endurance boosts of 50%.

The research tested brain endurance training (BET), which involves completing mentally demanding tasks immediately before and after physical exercises. Participants performed activities like memory challenges, reaction-time games, or mental math to fatigue their brains before hitting the weights or cardio.

Massive Performance Gains

The results stunned researchers. The BET group increased total repetitions to failure by 50% compared to standard training. Specific strength gains included a 33% improvement in bench press, 93% boost in preacher curls, and 28% increase in squat jumps.

Perhaps most surprising: participants reported the work felt easier even as they performed significantly more. The standard training group showed only modest improvements with no significant gains on most measures.

Professor Christopher Ring from the University of Birmingham explained the mechanism. “Our study shows that adding brief demanding cognitive processing operations to a standard warmup could shave a meaningful amount of time off an endurance effort,” Ring said.

How Brain Training Works

BET forces the brain to work hard when already tired, building mental resilience that carries over into workouts. The brain becomes better at pushing through discomfort signals that typically make people quit.

The study showed the BET group had higher prefrontal oxygenation during exercise tests. Importantly, the improvements weren’t due to physiological changes like increased VO2 max or heart rate. Instead, psychological factors drove the gains by reducing perceived effort on both mental and physical tasks.

Research shows endurance performance improved 24% following BET compared to just 12% with physical training alone. Runners completed courses 2-3% faster by adding brief cognitive tasks to their warmups.

Training Protocol

Effective BET programs typically run 4-12 weeks with two hours per week divided into 20-30 minute sessions. The cognitive tasks target executive functions like sustained attention and inhibitory control.

Before workouts, athletes spend 5-10 minutes on cognitively demanding tasks. This could include brain-training apps, mental math, or memory games designed to create mental fatigue before physical training begins.

The approach works across sports. Professional soccer players showed improvements in agility and sport-specific performance. Cyclists improved time to exhaustion at both high and moderate intensities with lower perceived effort.

Ring noted that cognitive warmups help create a “flow” state where athletes can push harder than usual while being more attuned to their surroundings. The research suggests the mind represents the next frontier of performance enhancement.

Read more: Feel Like You’ve Hit A Training Plateau? It’s Time To Train Your Brain