It is widely known that matal physical exercise is able to induce beneficial improvements in offspring cognition; however, the effects of patal exercise have not been explored in detail. The present study was designed to evaluate the impact of patal physical exercise on memory and leing, neuroplasticity and DNA methylation levels in the hippocampus of male offspring. Adult male Wistar rats were divided into two groups: sedentary or exercised fathers. The patal preconception exercise protocol consisted of treadmill running, 20 minutes daily, 5 consecutive days per week for 22 days, while the mothers were not trained. After mating, patal sperm was collected for global DNA methylation analysis. At postnatal day 53, the offspring were euthanized, and the hippocampus was dissected to measure cell survival by 5-bromo-2′-deoxiuridine and to determine the expression of synaptophysin, reelin, brain-derived neurotrophic factor and global DNA methylation levels. To measure spatial memory and leing changes in offspring, the Morris water maze paradigm was used. There was an improvement in spatial leing, as well as a significant decrease in hip-pocampal global DNA methylation levels in the offspring from exercised fathers compared with those from sedentary ones; however, no changes were observed in neuroplasticity biomarkers brain-derived neurotroph-ic factor, reelin and 5-bromo-2′-deoxiuridine. Finally, the global DNA methylation of patal sperm was not significantly changed by physical exercise. These results suggest a link between patal preconception physical activity and cognitive benefit, which may be associated with hippocampal epigenetic programming in male offspring. However, the biological mechanisms of this modulation remain unclear.