Working out with your mind?

So…I started wondering about imagination and consciousness, mostly because a lot of woo stuff I read in the past often link the two. Most of the time it’s to do with how visualizing something uses the same areas of the brain that doing it does, though I wonder what that really means. apparently this link seems to suggest you can strengthen your muscles the same way without working out. Though the site itself seems iffy, I’m not totally convinced about.

The study just says strength increased but doesn’t really say more than that. Nothing about muscle fibers, chemical changes, just percent increases in strength. Obviously athletes rehearsing things seems to be a thing but this just sounds…well not true.

It does seem to all be the brain, not some weird external thing like “mind” or whatever but I can’t help but jump to the wooey type of people I’ve been exposed to before and thinking that imagination says something about consciousness and the mind and body. Though to me this doesn’t sound like mind body more like brain and body. I think “mind” is just the brain. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, likely thinking that you can somehow crack your body and just mentally will all sorts of things, not that I believe that but I’m trying to argue against it.

I mean obviously all this is built on a mountain of previous causes and effect that influence and shape us, so I don’t think it’s the “god” thing they would think it is. Though maybe, if true, the potential to do so says something about us and by possible extension reality itself? Or am I just flying off on wild fancies?

It is selling things. That’s not good for a science site. The studies aren’t clear. I’m not sure they support the article. The first section is purely anecdotal.

Yeah my internal alarm screamed fishy.

I read the study and had a hard time believing it was true with how vague everything was worded.

Visualization is a real thing in sports, but it reads like they’re making big claims over small experiments.

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It seems to me like the brain is the hardware and the mind is the software or operating system

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It’s a loose analogy. The brain is tangible, so, it’s hardware. But it can’t be disassembled. The mind is memories and a lot more. And it’s not programmable like computer code. And don’t forget about all the body memory, senses, etc.