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...

High-performance sport is moving faster than ever. We have come so far over the last 20 years in physical preparation and now the super-elite are trying to unlock the neurological potential of every athlete.   Neuroscience and neuro-technology are advancing rapidly. Things have moved on from simply testing and studying the neurological potential of athletes. Now sporting organizations are looking for ways to include cognitive training into their athlete’s training regimes. There is now a shift from simply using ‘ brain training ’ apps and relaxation techniques to a more ‘hands-on’  approach to the actual training of mental skills and resilience. This shift has brought about more demand for neurotech.   Hardware for neurotech took an initial big step into the market. However, the situation in the world over the past 18 months has seen a second shift, now to more mobile technology. With many training facilities and athlete’s often separated, mobile technology is g...

Sport is becoming much more data-driven and teams, coaches, and brands want to look deeper look into an athlete’s cognitive performance. There are many fantastic systems available to track an athlete’s physical performance and manage their physical training load, but there are very few options when it comes to cognitive load monitoring.  The brain is the most overlooked aspect of performance and without it we do not  function. The brain is responsible for everything. Without a fine-tuned brain performance does not exist. In order to track an a thlete’s cognitive performance ,  you need to be looking at more than one metric. In this article, we will cover 4  important metrics for cognitive performance.  Currently, in the sports industry, there is a huge amount of hype around reaction  time but reaction time alone is just not enough to track cognitive performance or  cognitive fatigue. Below we will dive into each metric you should be measuring in...

With sports vision, you use specific drills to train the various skills placed on the visual system in sports. In this article, we will outline the most important sports vision drills with the highest payoff.  Sports vision is becoming more popular recently. With the extensive demands sport places on an athlete’s visual system, it only makes sense to train it. Improved sports vision can have a positive impact on an athlete’s performance and many athletes notice the benefits from training the visual system specifically.   Vision training can be a rabbit hole and it pays to have an understanding on what to train and how to train it. Walking into sports vision training without any knowledge can put an athlete at risk of over or underloading the system, thus negating the possible benefits. Much like walking into a gym with no knowledge of how to use the equipment or even which equipment to use.   However, sports vision does not have to be overwhelming. We have ...

Visual skills for Sports Sports vision training  helps an athlete improve their visual skills so they can process information faster, make more accurate decisions and see things without looking.  Smooth Pursuits Smooth pursuit movements are reflexive eye movements that are required when  an object through an environment. The eyes move smoothly instead of I  jump. Can your athlete accurately track an object while it is moving and at different speeds  without losing focus? This skill is very basic but many athletes lose focus and need  to re-fixate due to visual fatigue. Saccades A saccade is a quick, jerk-like, simultaneous movement of both eyes between two  or more points of fixation in the same direction. Switching your eyes quickly to a target is fairly straightforward forward but are you able to  do this at high speed and with accuracy? or does your athlete need to constantly re-fixate on the target? Are they over shooting or undershooting? The...