Slashdot Mirror
Why Exercise Boosts Brainpower
aditi sends us a report from Reuters on research indicating that exercise boosts brainpower by building new brain cells in a brain region linked with memory and memory loss. Quoting: "Tests on mice showed they grew new brain cells in a brain region called the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus that is known to be affected in the age-related memory decline that begins around age 30 for most humans. Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging scans to help document the process in mice — and then used MRIs to look at the brains of people before and after exercise. They found the same patterns, which suggests that people also grow new brain cells when they exercise."
I nevar work out and my brane wurks as well as ne1 elses!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
That explains Schwartzenegger! (Doesn't explain Stallone though).
$signature =~ s/$signature//;
Why are so many "body builder" types so dumb then? No, not all of them, I know. But there's at least a pattern there...
Wow, who would have thought that exersize actually improves your body in some way?
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
So here we are, once again, with Locke's ideal of a sound mind in a sound body.
The challenge for computer geeks: finding a way to merge exercise with mostly-sedentary hobbies and jobs. Perhaps it's a job for mobile computing: Set a tablet PC in front of a treadmill, and read Slashdot while running?
I will develop some mouse cells in my brain?
What's the catch? Have I missed something?
Do I need more jogging?
All regions of the brain benefit from the increased blood flow and do all body systems. The metabolic adaptations are also universal to most body systems.
The meditative state that many exercises induce are also beneficial.
"Exercise generated blood flow to the dentate gyrus of the people, and the more fit a person got, the more blood flow the MRI detected, the researchers found."
However, if your gym looks like this one shown in the article, I think the blood will flow elsewhere
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
That explains all those pro-quarterback particle theorists! "Gauge bosons are like running backs right? They gotta take the elemental forces of the universe to the end zone."
crazy dynamite monkey
Since the average SlashDotter can hardly do more than roll out of bed in the morning and fetch a beer from the fridge, I guess all of you are f**ked!-))
...Stephen Hawking benchpresses bulldozers when no one is watching!
I know that after I complete a heavy lifting routine or a good cardio work out, I feel great for the rest of the day. I think clearer. I don't feel any craving for caffeinated beverages. I focus more.
I can't find the study, but I read a story about a study that said exercise produces the same effect that energy drink ingredients provide to the brain. While that might be true in some fashion, I've never consumed an energy drink that gave me as good of feeling as a post work-out. I do consume sugar free energy drinks from time to time, I think they can be a good pick me up when you are low on sleep or just feel drained. Of course, that's in moderation. Drinking one every day will build a tolerance and you'll just be throwing money down the drain. Of course, drinking a good cup of stout tea will do just about the same thing.
I would love to see a study where a bunch of similarly talented gamers (that relied on critical thinking and reaction, not like an MMO) were divided up. One group would exercise, and one group would not. I would be willing to bet that after a month, the group that would exercise would have increased in skill and results over the group that did not.
this explains why only some stoners get stupid, the lazy ones....
i personally have a good paying job and i exercise, but i'll be damned if i ever pass a drug test.
So if I couple the above article with this one then I can only assume that I am supposed to exercise and smoke a whole lot of pot while I do it.
My Computer Music Tutorial Videos
Some folks run themselves to exhaustion- especially with the kick at the end of a long race. It just seems like brain cells -must- be dying when you run so hard you fall flat on your face- so does this regrowth offset that? How much?
Makes sense to me. Meatheads need the brain power, geeks are usually too smart for their own good.
I am once again in awe of the delicate balance of nature.
Regards, Lex
Stallone is an accomplished script writer and a damned good businessman. Take a look at the deal he struck when he wrote and sold Rocky to the studio (he basically retained the rights to future sequels). Stallone has been able to fly under the radar because he sounds uneducated when he talks (due to an injury sustained at birth, if I remember correctly).
I walk my virtual dog around Second Life every day you insensitive clod!
I'm in between insightful sigs right now...
How do I know this?
Because 99% of the really smart people I've met in my life are big, fat, dope-smoking UNIX guys who think a treadmill is a place where corn is ground up to make tires.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Mouse clicking - let's get it added to the 2008 Olympics!
What country has the fastest double clicker? Position mouse on link and click in under 40 mSec!
Exercising causing a boost in long-term memory ability is not the same as making your IQ go up 20 points by going to the gym. Furthermore, sports/bodybuilding/etc don't have a high IQ requirement for entry, you basically just have to be able to put up with working out all the time. If pro football required a phd, then all pro football players would have a "phd" of some kind. It mostly requires being gigantic and being able to mentally retain some of the rules of football, so mostly that's what the players are mentally tasked with achieving.
stuff |
Maybe look at Rocky, you'll find the start of an answer.
Boxing is a great sport for the mind.
Well, there goes any hope I had of getting new memory brain cells.
How do we account for Stephen Hawking then?
This is an Advert for gyms! What they want is customers.
This study was ordered just like those Windows vs Linux Studies.
...to write and construct an interface between my brain and Madden 2007.
Minus the steroids, of course.
I've never met a smart rugby player, But they are handy in a brawl.
OK, I know you're referring to pro sports people here, but still.I know two rugby players who program computers in their day jobs and play semi-pro rugger on weekends. Not only do they have technical skills, they're also great team players and natural leaders. So it seems to be with most people who play sports outside of work.
One increases your Brain Age and lets you socialize with your pets (DS), the other lets you get exercise indoors (Wii).
But in most scientific studies, the things that consistently help ameliorate the effects of aging are: mild to moderate exercise (even walking up stairs or parking 2 blocks away), a varied diet high in vegetables and fruits, drinking red wine (men) or grape juice (anyone), and more education.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Thanks for the link!
Dude, this sucks. A year and a half ago you guys said that cannabinoids induce brain growth and man, I've really been putting that theory to the test. But now you want me to exercise? I can't do both dude. And given a choice... I think I'll stick with the old news...
I think it depends. Blood pressure is known for increasing the size of the brain, since it just expands. When the pressure lowers, the expansion is gone and goes back to normal. This counts for alcohol consumption as well.
So, these researchers could measure the brain increase after alcohol consumption in comparison to exercise.
How much time is there between the exercise and the measurement of the brain? If it within an hour, it could be the bloodpressure. If it is with 5 hours, it could be energy or other influences etc.
I would like to know if the substance of the brain is increasing or is just the volume?
- Unomi -
Good to know that every time I go clubbing, I balance out the cells that get blown away by dancing!
That us IT guys are stuuuupid?
Hell I sit on my arse all evening.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
I better write this down. I am on my way to the kitchen, and I'll forget about it by the time I get back.
".. new brain cells in a brain region called the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus that is known to be affected in the age-related memory decline..."
all obvious joking aside... the above is interpreted as improved memory that us old farts begin to lose
around age 30. this isn't saying that working out makes you smarter or more intelligent. retards!
Please do not forget that not all exercise is created equal. Those meatheads who have arms as big as your torso may be doing horrible things inside their brains.+ instruction+on+blood+pressure+responses+during+... -a08012731
Recent studies have documented cases of brain stem injury and subarachnoid hemorrhage with maximal resistive exercise. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Effect+of+breathing
So they pump and pump and their brains pop and pop. Just a note, to clarify some comments people are making in jest. Jest accurately! Lest we quest vapidly!
Die when you die -GG Allin
At the NFL level you need to be able to commit a playbook that as thick as the Manhattan phone book to memory.
I've always wondered why the so-called "nerds" who post at /. don't know the difference between To, Too, and Two; Your and You're; Lose and Loose; or goatse and a hole in the ground!
Guys (and gals, I suspect) who play sports professionally HAVE to be able to do several things: --Memorize mammoth playbooks/schemes. --Be able to overcome their instinctual training to mentally react to split-second changes in the game (the ball's supposed to come over my left shoulder...whoops, better adjust, it's over my right on this deep post route). Call this applied calculus....they don't do the math, but their bodies do the calculations. And often come up with good answers. --Know their bodies and physical limitations to almost the Nth degree. --Understand supplementation and food and what vitamins/minerals do what (enter steroids/hgh HERE). --Plus, they learn all this because of the desire to do THEIR work better. As much as you put into computers or engineering or drafting or whatever, they put into THEIR profession. Of course, the above doesn't apply to that idiot linebacker wannabe who bullied you in high school and now is cleaning your gutter, but hey, give credit where it's due.
Here's an interesting anecdote: Scientists were running rats through a maze with a reward system to measure how fast they learn. Rats soon learn the optimum path and get rewarded. COnclusion: rats are smart and learn. Now substitute in a ferret. Ferret searches maze and finds the food (hunk of rabbit). Next time the ferret does not go down that path of the maze. Conclusion: ferrets are stupid and don't learn. But if you know a bit more about ferrets, then you'd know that they know it is a waste of time to go down the same hole twice. They've either eaten or scared the occupants, so don't waste time.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Hell, this shouldn't have been AC'd!
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
There are about 30 teams in the NFL, with about 50 players on a team. That's 1500 bodies. Out of ~1 billion people, if you take the smartest 1% of the 1% that are the best athletes, you are left with a pathetic 100,000 specimens. The NFL takes the top 1% of that bunch.
It doesn't work just like that, because, as you say, size is hugely important, but don't fool yourself into thinking that very many of those guys running around have less than very above average intelligence.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Didn't Gary Larson come up with this a decade ago?
Something about scientists exercising their cerebellums in the morning.
Have you read my journal today?
DDR is too easy. The hardest songs top out at 10, and the average of the hardest difficulty over all songs is around 8.
ITG tops out at 13, has hands/mines/rolls, and almost every song has an expert setting with a difficulty of at least 9. Plus, the average ITG arcade machine is of much higher quality than the average DDR machine.
Besides that, everyone plays single...double is where it's at. It takes much more energy to move your center of mass back and forth across a distance of several feet than it does to stand in one position and turn.
ITG FTW
Disclaimer: Yes, that's me.
:(){
It's this simple: Bike to work.
Ten years ago, I weighed 250 pounds. Today, I'm at about 175. (I don't keep accurate track anymore, but I do check every now and again.)
I started by biking to school. On the first day, I had to stop about a dozen times. I didn't realize just how out of shape I had become. I stuck with it (the 4th day is the worst, since that's when you're the sorest.) and kept biking to school. I biked all the way through university, and I've been biking to work since graduating. (Electrical Engineering) I'm 30 years old and I'm in great shape. I don't take any drugs (including caffeine and alcohol).
If you can't do that, bike part of the way. Bus to work and bike home. Walk during your lunch break. (I only get 30 minutes, and I try to spend 15 of that outside.)
If you're concerned about being smelly, bike slower. Alternatively, bike to a nearby gym and shower/change there.
Biking is faster than driving or busing:
8.2 km between work and home:
Bike: 45 minutes round trip. (22 to work, 23 home)
Bus: 30 minutes to work, 1 hour home.
Car: 20 minutes to work, 45 minutes home.
At the annual "Bike to Work" week, the bikes routinely beat the cars in the "Commuter Challenge". You simply don't save time by taking your car.
I save about $2000 a year by biking. I don't pay for car insurance or gas on a non-existent second car. Mind you, I did have to spend the money on a bike, bike clothes, armour, lights, etc. I did that after biking for a few years.
I've got two kids. Buy the right kind of seat and you won't have "problems".
I wear a dress shirt and nice pants at work.
So get out of your car, get onto a bike, and get some exercise. Your brain will thank you for it.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Most of us here have desk work for 8 hours/day - not counting 1-2 hours travel time on a bus. How do we get exercise in this situation?
While I did find links to desk exercise websites, they are most frequently some simple stretches and not really much of an exercise.
As a marathon runner over the years I have noticed something with new runners that show up at our winter-spring clinics who have recently or are trying to quit smoking. The ones that stick with the regime (about 16 weeks) that it takes to prep for a marathon I have repeatedly told me that they lose their nicotine craving almost totally, and that the running seems to be a big part of it. These are people who were previously quite hardcore smokers for a number of years. Could it be that running (and other forms of exercise) that stimulates new brain cell production also rewires the brain from its nicotine addiction in smokers?
Getting exercise will actually increase your virility, boost your pheromone output and make you a little more dynamic in the bedroom, which then becomes a self-sustaining cycle, as love-making is a wonderful form of low-impact (if that's your style, of course) aerobic (and sometimes anaerobic) exercise!
Geeks, nerds and dorks alike, lend me your ears! You too can have a hot, steamy social life for just 30 minutes a day!
And as a free, no-cost-to-you-at-all bonus, if you act within the next few years, you may also greatly improve your chances of living a longer, happier and healthier life!
(seriously, my fiance and I have experienced a significant boost to our 'love life' by going to the gym for a minimum of 30 minutes a day, five days a week...improving your diet doesn't hurt matters, either)
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
People who don't exercise are often the way they are because exercise makes them feel HORRIBLE. Personally, I've tried to get into shape a number of times. But after three or four weeks of working out, I just can't take it anymore -- the pain, the exhaustion, the depression, the undirected feelings of anger, none of it. The worst part is the insomnia. I normally have trouble sleeping, but exercise -- no matter when in the day it takes place -- makes it much worse. Then some jock asshole tries to tell me that I'd be able to sleep better if I just got some exercise. That I'd feel happier if I just exercised now and then.
I'm sure that more blood gets to my brain when I exercise, but that's not necessarily helpful. The distracting, unpleasant parts of the brain get stimulated too. Try taking an overdose of uppers and see how that makes you feel; not all stimulation is positive. Or consider how alcohol, a depressant, can make people MORE happy and energetic by depressing the parts of the brain holding the person back.
Huh...
I think we know whose brain is really suffering from some cell-death.
More seriously, studies have proven that sexual intercourse is more productive when done with at least one partner.
A lot of athletes, particularly quarterbacks, are quite inteligent and well educated...
Consider, for instance, that two of the most dominant american marathoners of the 80's and 90's (Anthony Sandoval and Bob Kempainen) are now practicing doctors. The validictorian at my HS was on the cross country and tennis teams. One of the few people I know who has finished the UIUC chemical engineering program with a 4.0 was on the basketball team...
Also, NCAA athletes have a better graduation rate than the general student population... link
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I love smacking you self important assholes in the mouth with this stuff.
Ernest Hemingway
You are saying that exercising, bad enough in itself, also increases my chances of remembering the ordeal later? No thanks!
sic transit gloria mundi
Homer entering "The Vast Waistband", a clothing store...
Homer: I'm looking for something loose and billowy, something
comfortable for my first day of work.
Salesman: Work, huh? Let me guess. Computer programmer, computer
magazine columnist, something with computers?
Homer: Well, I use a computer.
Salesman: [quietly, to self] Yeah, what's the connection? Must be the
non-stop sitting and snacking.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
He seemed pretty smart.
Edwin Hubble
Why are so many posts with factual errors modded up?
Is that Stallone in a firefighter costume?
If bullshit were music, you'd be a brass band.
The two scales aren't exactly comparable. Also, DDR's step patterns are generally more interesting than ITG's, and the mines are mostly just obnoxious (a few songs they're used well on). I like and play them both, but DDR is definitely the superior game.
That said, double is definitely where it's at--single is almost a waste of time (though some songs are just more interesting on single. PARANOiA Evolution is one example--on single it's a classic, on double just kinda meh).
(As for the video, good speed but you lose about a billion points for using the bars. Next time without external aid!)
... by about the amount of time you spend jogging (plus its share of your sleep time).
Which means that, as is alleged for fishing, "God does not deduct from a man's alloted span the time spend jogging."
So go ahead and jog. The time isn't wasted. B-)
= = = =
On the other hand, the alleged benefits of exercise in the brain are an increase in the count of cells in a section used for memory. Any bets on whether the added cells are only used to remember exercising? B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Re: Your Sig. Perhaps your Grad Student buddy thought he wanted to drink a beer, and then on second thought decided not to?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Stallone has been able to fly under the radar because he sounds uneducated when he talks (due to an injury sustained at birth, if I remember correctly).
I always thought the reason Stallone sounds the way he does is because he was an Italian kid growing up in a predominantly Irish crime-family part of Noo Yawk City.
I for one personally welcome our new bigger brained mice overlords.
Why UNIX?
(Imagine any "stereotypical scientist speech pattern" here)
Mmm, yes, and now we move from our expensive brain imaging lab into our even more expensive mouse gymnasium. Yes, and here you can see our little locker room, with little lockers and showers for the mice, including some nice wood shavings. Here is the weight room with little freestyle barbells, and a full set of weights from 10 mg all the way up to 2000 mg! Here we can see our tiny little weight machines, the mice really love these, especially gnawing holes in the seat padding. Replacing the seat padding alone is a budgetary line item.
Ah, here comes Reggie Mouse to do some exercises. Mmm, yes, he sure loves his treadmill! Look at his little feet go!
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
One could presume that exercise grows new cells to replace cells damaged by the motion. Therefore, beating your head against a wall would contribute to the growth of new cells as well. Which would explain why I beat my head against a wall so often! Beating your head against a wall is not only a stress reducer, it's fun, it also contributes to your overall....wait. What were we talking about again?
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
And a cockroach can identify 3 - 5 potential cracks in the woodwork, track their viability, and decide how to run away in under a second -- while avoiding my foot. If you are able to redefine terms like that, everyone is genius-smart.
It takes no special ability to follow the instructions given by the coach on how to play against the limited number of tactics used in football or other sports, all it takes is training. If athletes were truly intelligent they wouldn't need a coach, they could just read about it in a book and do it, the way people who are *really* intelligent do at mathematics, for instance.
Intelligence means being able to adapt to *new* situations. People whose mental processing is at something that could be rightfully called "genius level" are innovators. They are bored by the strict and often illogical rules of sports. It's one thing to exercise for fun, it's an entirely different thing to perform a sport professionally, where success depends on how many hours a day you can keep doing and redoing exactly the same exercise just to be able to do it a fraction of a second faster than the other guy.
Haha, typical DDR response.
The two scales aren't exactly comparable.
The two scales are definitely comparable. At least, according to everyone at the arcade that I play at. And the other arcade I play at. And...you get the picture. Or are you trying to say that Pandemonium/Vertex/etc is not way harder than Paranoia/Max/etc?
Also, DDR's step patterns are generally more interesting than ITG's
Right, DDR's streams of 1/4 notes and 1/8 notes with the occasional 1/16 note tossed in, jumps in obnoxious positions, excessive double stepping...
At least with ITG stepcharts you don't end up backwards if you try to alternate your feet.
And, if you're talking about the prevelance of 1/16 notes in ITG, or the existence of 1/12 notes, 1/24 notes, 1/32 notes, or 1/64 notes, you could opt out of playing on expert. Or, do you absolutely have to play on the hardest difficulty? Even a lot of ITG players refuse to play hard and only play expert, and I think they're silly too.
and the mines are mostly just obnoxious
That was my first impression of them, too. But then I got used to them, and they definitely increase gameplay strategies. I hold this opinion even though I hit five mines in that video.
I wonder how many people thought holds were obnoxious when Konami introduced them. To think, Konami took how long to introduce holds, and in two versions ITG had mines, hands, rolls, and scripted marathons. Yes, Konami failed the hardcore dance crowd...they failed us miserably. Roxor delivers, and they get sued out of existence.
PARANOiA Evolution
Paranoia always sounded like a bunch of noise to me. And the rest of DDR's selection for that matter is lacking IMO. Jpop, Jrock, and some techno trancy stuff. The selection from just two versions of ITG is way, way wider.
(As for the video, good speed but you lose about a billion points for using the bars. Next time without external aid!)
Ah yes, I love nobar whores. What's the difference between a nobarwhore and a barwhore? A barwhore doesn't care if you don't use the bar...
Thank you, we all know doing it without the bar is harder than doing it with the bar. You probably also think it's a sin to use speed mods? What about different colored noteskins?
I like how the default colors are not Vivid. And how the default speed is 1.5x. It suggests that the elitist attitude from DDR doesn't apply to ITG.
By the way, I don't care about your compliment regarding speed. My goal isn't speed, but accuracy; compare 96% to 78%, which is the highest score on groovestats that's labeled nobar. Consider also that I had two misses, a way off, two dropped holds, and five mines, which would have probably been 98%
Also, you probably didn't even notice the hands, or the fact that I didn't do them with my hands. You probably stopped watching as soon as you saw me using the bars. Which, using both bars on on double is harder than you think.
Oh, for the record, sometimes I do play nobar. But only when using the bar would do little good for my score (8 and below)
Thats like great and all, but when is somebody going to do something about how fat I am?
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Why waste billions on wars, cosmetics, bling, etc. just support the mprize and their research on reversing aging in mice models and then humans (this could be done in about 10 to 15 years timescale). Nerds of the world have produce the computer revolution, lets use that computer tech to re-invent the world of biology (DNA technology) and develop new advanced biotech and nanotech tools to gain control of the DNA programming in our cells and improve/customize it (like an advanced version of MIT biobricks). After all, DNA is just an evolved version of an information technology based on evolution of DNA and RNA systems..
Also, other cool web sites are www.betterhumans.com and http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/ just look up longevity research/news sites on google.
Looks like a class action suit in the making.
That's why there so many professional athletes who are nobel prize winners.
This research yet again provides the conclusive evidence that humans are direct descendants of mice..
Growing more brain cells by exercise? Great. When are they gonna come up with something useful?
One of her "Little House" Books has a description of a red indian competing against horses on a race track and winning the race (this is around the 19th century i guess). Saying that humans aren't built for running long distances is baloney..rather you can say that our generation is generally less physically capable.
:) (I forgot which SF book thats from)
If you want a sports example then take cricket..in the 1970s 80s, there were fast bowlers (bowling speeds of above 90 mph) who were really fast and they were springing all over the world..in the west indies there were such people sitting in the sidelines where they would have walked into any team today...yet today fast bowlers are by the far a lot fewer..
I think as lifestyle improves humans become softer and less physically capable and this gets passed on to the next generation as well and so on.. eventually we will just be brains carried around by insects
and put it in front of your computer.
Watch DVDs while you use either. If your real inventive put the keyboard on the damn machine and attach a mouse pad. Then you play your world of warcraft and get a work out as well.
I think installing some versions of linux will provide enough time for a work out too. Installing XP may make you into an Olympic athlete so I advise not doing it too much as people will wonder what your up to.
PS: I use an elliptical and watch DVDs (good old geek stuff like Red Dwarf / Stargate / South Park / etc)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
See yourself as the intellectual type with sports being beneath you?
9 14238877457&q=sabre to see how it is done at the top level.
Choose a sport that exercises both body and mind. You could try *cough* fencing for instance.
Have a glance at http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=1478623
They're geniuses! All the benefits of high intensity interval training on an easy to use AJAX web page. They'll make millions!
Maybe that's the title of an article about evolutionary biology.
Speed's a pretty darn major component of accuracy at that level--while following the step patterns is definitely challenging, getting your feet (or other pressure-generating object) to the correct place within the time allotted is also difficult. It also happens to be the bit I'm struggling with at the moment, so it's what jumps out at me about your play.
The thing is, by using the bar you're creating a subset of the entire game, with a number of balance and movement-related issues removed--it's simply different, less complex. Speed mods seem to me slightly unkosher (though not as bad), but noteskins is a non-issue IMO--difficulty in reading individual arrows has never seemed to me to be part of the game.
Anyway, my issue with it is that it fundamentally changes the game.
My anecdote says "no significant number", but I don't have a study or anything to back that up.
You may have parsed what I said incorrectly. It was intended to be read "the two scales aren't (exactly comparable)", not "the two scales (aren't exactly) comparable". As it happens, 13s are definitely harder than 10s. 12s to a lesser extent. 11s? Not so much in my experience. They're different scales, made by different people, even if one group did base their scale off the other one. As such, simply saying "ITG goes to 13!" isn't very useful.
When I used to smoke pot, I only did it while I was exercising. On the rare occasion that I did get high before watching a movie or something, I would go batty because I wanted to be outside hiking or something. For me, getting high reinforced exercise. If you get stoned and watch TV all the time, pot reinforces being a mental zombie.
I dunno, I've seen a lot of people try to make fun of me by stepping as fast as they can on a pad and thinking they're tough shit. It's not hard to move fast, but moving fast and accurately is indeed a challenge. I wouldn't hesitate to say that it's impossible to move with the accuracy that I had without the bar.
Oh, and if you're having trouble with speed, try the flat-footed heel-toe technique. If you watch my feet during the video, you'll see that I'm not up on the balls of my feet, but instead I use my toes and my heels to hit the arrows. The amount of distance you have to move your feet decreases dramatically then, from about a foot to a few inches. In fact, with practice you can hit two arrows at the same time, if you place your foot in the right position; one arrow with the heel, and one arrow with the toe.
I beg to differ regarding a "subset of the entire game" and "less complex", but I will agree with "different". Bar technique is WAY more complicated than nobarwhores ever realize. For instance, when you first start using the bar, it's difficult to hit the up arrow, because most people tend to step shallow when they hold the bar.
As far as removing balance and movement issues, if this is such a concern to you, I can add some lubrication to your pad. Then you can REALLY test your balance and movement.
Additionally, the bar helps you torque your body back and forth, but you have to learn how to use it. And, sometimes, people don't hold the bar with both hands, but just one. Or they swap hands on the bar, back and forth. I've been known on double to grab the bar with one hand and push or pull me to the appropriate side and then let go, kind of like throwing yourself.
Having to manage both your arms and your legs is way, way more complicated than just keeping track of your feet. Plus, I don't look like a drunk ballerina when I use the bar, and I don't almost hit the guy on the pad next to me while I flail my arms trying to generate the torque I need to turn with the stream.
Speeds mods adjust the difficulty in reading individual arrows. They change the arrow density from more than a dozen on the screen at a time, down to a more manageable 4-8 arrows. It also becomes easier to discern whether that's really a gallop or a jump, with less mental time spent processing the amount of distance between two arrows.
They also DRAMATICALLY help with accuracy, because now you can visually align yourself to the beat. You'll know if you're stepping early, because you'll see the arrow isn't all the way to the top. This is much harder with slow speed mods, because the arrow spends more time close to the top.
I also think it's odd you consider noteskins a non-issue. I mean, if I had to choose what helps me the MOST, I would say colored noteskins. Second is speed mods, and third is the bar.
It gives you the OPTION of changing the game. Options are good. You can still nobar if you want, nobody is going to stop you and everyone will respect you for it. It changes the balance issues a lot, and gives you an edge. An edge similar to speed mods, properly colored noteskins, and flat-footing.
IMO, ITG was designed with using the bar in mind. The Fantastic window is so much smaller than DDR's Perfect window that balance issues are far more pronounced. Sure, some people can pass Pandy single expert without the
If exercise builds intelligence, why is there such a surplus of brainless muscleman doofs in the world?