A cheap (but previously overlooked) way to work on brain wiring in the gym

Japanese
#1

tl;dr - If you lift weights or do anything else in the gym where you regularly count (in your head or out loud)… why aren’t you doing it in Japanese???

I have no idea if this has been discussed before. It seems simultaneously simple and brilliant, and I’m kind of mad I only just thought of it now after wasting an entire year not doing it.

After ~1 year studying Bunpro and Wanikani, and only more recently starting to try to focus on listening exercises because I realized how much I suck there, I am astonished to find how often my brain crashes mid sentence when I hear either:

  • a katakana word, even if it is borrowed from a common English word (I am aware this is common)
  • a long number (e.g. 3,456) or a few short numbers (e.g. Nov 12 @ 2:35pm)

The number thing drives me crazy because (a) I’m a math nerd and (b) numbers are like the first thing you learn (so shouldn’t they be… easy)! Clearly, in order for me to parse long number strings more quickly, my brain needs to be more hardwired to recognize every one of the 10 base numbers lightning fast.

The conclusion, which has already been spoiled: I work out several days per week, and I count to 12 for most of my sets. I’ve always found the counting boring and painstaking, but I do it because I need to keep track. Well, now I do it in Japanese, and it’s a tiny bit less boring, and (presumably) a lot more profitable! (And maybe also I can pretend I’m a karate master training to save the world).

I’m also trying to force myself not to immediately imagine the English translation in my head. E.g. when I say 六, I try not to picture “6” or “six” in my head… instead I try to picture :ok_hand::ok_hand: (3 fingers, times two), or maybe even ⚅ (six dots on die face).

I have not seen major profits from this change (yet)… but here I am giving you all advice anyway. :thinking:

3 Likes
#2

when I hit the gym thats what I did. Granted I live in the land of sun so when I joined gym classes they also spoke and counted in Japanese(except the odd trainer that would use English every so often)

I wouldnt say it helped that much but it has somewhat. Breaks up the boringness of counting. Also dont forget that if you have treadmill/stationary bike you can just like, watch anime. I would watch an Episode of hajime no ippo and during the more intense fighting scenes increase my speed because the adrenaline of the show kept me pumped.

#3

Integrating study into other aspects of your life is almost never a bad thing. Whether you count to yourself in Japanese, have conversations with yourself in Japanese, watch anime with Japanese subtitles and try to read along as you go, or watch with English subtitles and try to listen as you read, etc. All great.

I work out with Japanese people so numbers come up all the time in stuff when talking about weight, sets, reps, etc. Even if you aren’t working out with Japanese speakers you can of course talk to yourself about that, e.g. “次はベンチ、3セット、1セット8回、100キロ” or what have you.

I don’t really do this anymore but I used to look at license plates on my commute and say the numbers in Japanese. So if the plate in front of me was 12-34 I’d say 千二百三十四. YMMV with how the plates are around you though.