Neurotechnology for Sport

There are several forms of neuro-cognitive training available to athletes. There are pros and cons for each method and depending on your end goal, you will need to weigh up which is going to get you the results you are after and which is the easiest to adopt into your training regime.  The most effective and yet underestimated form of neuro-cognitive training is Brain  Endurance Training or BET. This kind of training is well studied which means there is plenty of proof to say that it does work. It also takes work and intentional programming in order for you to reap the benefits.   Brain Endurance Training (BET) is a form of neuro-cognitive training that focuses on increasing an athlete’s neural capacity so they better withstand the effects of  fatigue both mentally and physically. Brain Endurance Training focuses on inducing a certain amount of mental fatigue to create adaptations in the brain.   Cognitive tasks are used to induce mental fatigue in...

To improve your reaction time there are many methods available such as light systems, catching rulers, responding to audio cues from your coach, catching balls, and using strobe glasses. These are all great methods to improve your reaction time if you have limited resources.  One of the most important aspects of improving reaction time is having enough load on the brain to make significant lasting changes. So doing 10-20 reps of a reaction-based task is NOT going to be sufficient to make changes within the brain. Most research studies will perform cognitive tasks for 20 minutes or longer to induce high enough levels of mental fatigue. This would add up to 800 + or more repetitions!   In the brain, skills are not refined unless we perform a huge amount of reps and usually to fatigue. If you think about your sport, that’s how you arrived where you are today, you practiced over and over for years, performing hundreds of thousands of reps over that time. Reaction time is a sk...