Brain Training
Consider the following situations: Is the pitch coming at you going to be a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball or slider? Will the fast bowler swing the ball out or in? Which way is Roger Federer going—down the line or will he whip the ball cross-court and out of reach? What is footballer Cristiano Renaldo’s next move (after you’ve already been dazzled by his endless scissor moves and amazing foot speed)? Whatever choices you make, you only have split seconds. Solving the problems you face is not simply about physical moves or fitness, it’s as much about brain fitness.
Most people in this world see dealing with these situations—and many others like them—as being purely physical in nature. They see people as being physically gifted and born to be able handle the rigours that any sport might present to them. What few understand is that every move and every reaction is managed by the athlete’s brain, and to get to the very top of the athletic food chain brain-training has to be a major part of their training programme.
Every athlete has to develop their skills and ability through years of physical work, but all that work can be for naught if the athlete remains unaware of how the brain manages everything they do. Is it good enough to just have great technique without having the ability to read your opponents body? No. You have to spend time studying and working not only with your physical abilities, but in many sports you have to constantly update the brain’s experience-level with regard to how it reacts to what it sees. Understanding that can be the difference between being able to win a gold medal in the Olympics and being a spectator at the final.
I’ve used very open sports with hundreds of options or iterations above. But even in closed sports like cycling (single pattern of movement) and semi-closed sports like swimming (multiple similar patterns of movement) one needs to understand how the brain is involved in everything we do. How the management of things like body posture and patterns of movement or metabolic resources are all managed by the brain based on its experiences in day-to-day training.
We like to think of the brain in purely psychological terms, but there is much more to it than that. So, the next time you head out onto the playing fields (pun intended) or the tennis courts, take the time to think about how your brain manages you, and how you might go about training your brain to be better at helping you to meet your expectations in competition.
Most people in this world see dealing with these situations—and many others like them—as being purely physical in nature. They see people as being physically gifted and born to be able handle the rigours that any sport might present to them. What few understand is that every move and every reaction is managed by the athlete’s brain, and to get to the very top of the athletic food chain brain-training has to be a major part of their training programme.
Every athlete has to develop their skills and ability through years of physical work, but all that work can be for naught if the athlete remains unaware of how the brain manages everything they do. Is it good enough to just have great technique without having the ability to read your opponents body? No. You have to spend time studying and working not only with your physical abilities, but in many sports you have to constantly update the brain’s experience-level with regard to how it reacts to what it sees. Understanding that can be the difference between being able to win a gold medal in the Olympics and being a spectator at the final.
I’ve used very open sports with hundreds of options or iterations above. But even in closed sports like cycling (single pattern of movement) and semi-closed sports like swimming (multiple similar patterns of movement) one needs to understand how the brain is involved in everything we do. How the management of things like body posture and patterns of movement or metabolic resources are all managed by the brain based on its experiences in day-to-day training.
We like to think of the brain in purely psychological terms, but there is much more to it than that. So, the next time you head out onto the playing fields (pun intended) or the tennis courts, take the time to think about how your brain manages you, and how you might go about training your brain to be better at helping you to meet your expectations in competition.
In many ways this blog helps figure out the solution to many problems
Reply to this