Unleash the Capabilities You've Already Earned
Several years ago, we helped an athlete improve his already impressive 36” vertical jump by 4” after one minute of visual drills. An NFL prospect would pay a lot for that before the combine. Did he suddenly develop new powers? Or did changes to his nervous system give him access to capabilities he already had?
The Central Governor
Your brain plays the dominant role in your level of sports performance. Understanding of this differs substantially from sport to sport. Some think it is only relevant to motivation, toughness, and strategy. Even technique acquisition is chalked up to “muscle memory” because when technique is honed, it doesn’t require much cognitive thought. In fact, it requires considerable thought to master motor skills and make them autonomous which remains under the control of the brain.
Many sports participants have never understood that the brain acts as a “central governor” on performance. It limits access to your true capabilities to protect you and ensure your survival. When an athlete ventures outside the range of his or her experience, the brain has multiple levers to adjust bodily function or reduce activity.
Introducing NeuralTraining™
Beginner or expert, regardless of sport, your training likely emphasizes physical adaptation. You might be doing cardio, metabolic, strength, speed, and energy system training. As your training load increases, you may focus on flexibility, nutrition and recovery to be able to train more. All of this increases your physical fitness, eventually with diminishing returns.
If you play a “skill sport” (we think all sports are skill sports), you may be working on your stroke, swing, shot, form and technique. Again, most athletes tend to see diminishing returns because their training is mostly through mindless repetition of the basics.
You may feel that improving is too hard, that your progress has plateaued, that you are in a never-ending cycle of injury and recovery, or maybe you just aren’t performing at your best. What you may be missing is NeuralTraining™.
"Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical."
It’s said that 90% of most sports is mental. Then, why is 90% of training typically physical? We have known for some time that the same brain that enables us to perform in in the first place also holds back our performance to protect us. Navy SEAL instructors estimate that people have used only 40% of their resources when they feel they need to quit. NeuralTraining™ is about getting access to those remaining resources, to all the fitness that you’ve earned.
You may be thinking that NeuralTraining™ is a grueling mental toughness and motivation program that would make a SEAL ecstatic. In reality, while that’s part of the picture, it’s relatively small and hard compared to sensory training, brain activation, respiratory training, and threat management. NeuralTraining™ is about working smarter not harder. It’s about taking the brakes off. And the results can be quite quick and dramatic.
The NeuroAthlete Companies
NeuroAthlete is a group of companies dedicated to bringing the latest and most useful advances in brain science (neuroscience, neurology, neurobiology, cognitive psychology, etc) to sport-specific athletes.
NeuroRunner
NeuroSwimmer
