Over the past century, the development of sport has been about developing the human body. The next big step is figuring out how the human body and mind respond to stress. Athletes’ minds and bodies must adapt to increasingly greater stress. After training, the most important thing is learning to manage that stress.
Improving athletic performance
It’s often said that “it’s all in the head,” or that someone “gave up mentally.” That’s why psychological methods were among the first to be used to improve performance — self-hypnosis, autogenic training, visualization, and positive affirmation techniques. Sport has always been the testing ground for alternative methods before they became generally accepted. Electrostimulation, ultrasound, and infrared light have all been used. In recent years, a growing number of athletes have been using mental training techniques, such as brain training, to reach and maintain peak fitness levels, master their “inner game,” reach a state of peak performance, and support the release of performance-enhancing biochemicals, such as growth hormone.
Sport and stress
Recently, the attitude toward stress in sport has changed. Increasingly, mental training is about confrontation rather than avoidance. Brain training, which uses AVS technology, is one of the widely known and well-tested tools among mental techniques. A growing number of athletes are finding that it allows them to reach a depth of relaxation they hadn’t experienced before, and that brain training helps them reduce stress during training and competitions, delivering peak performance even in increasingly high-pressure situations.
Muscle relaxation
Peak performance comes from looseness. An athlete who is tense makes mistakes and finds even the simplest play difficult. A growing body of research, using electromyography to measure muscle tension, has shown that mental tools can bring the body to a much deeper state of relaxation than traditional relaxation techniques. Relaxed muscles improve performance — greater endurance, speed, strength, and coordination.
Injury prevention
Relaxed muscles mean not just better play and training, but also safer play. According to sports physicians, most sports injuries stem from improper muscle tension and could be prevented with proper relaxation. Many athletes start their training with stretching. But this only provides a relatively loose state. Many runners stretch almost every time, yet their muscles remain as taut as piano strings. Most people have never experienced full relaxation, so they have no idea what it’s supposed to feel like or how to achieve that physical state. Brain training can achieve full relaxation, which can last for several days.
Mind and body relaxation
The body and mind respond to stress with a “fight or flight” decision, which can be triggered by mental and emotional pressure in the heat of competition. The body-mind system’s response to this is a rise in blood pressure and heart rate, along with an increase in stress hormone levels, such as adrenaline and cortisol. Normal brain activity changes, and random, disharmonious waves develop. This automatic response is great for escaping a tiger attack, but it’s not beneficial for the mental clarity and excellent physical and cognitive coordination required in most sports. Practical experience shows that brain training can teach the relaxation response to stressful situations, avoiding these unfavorable effects and producing further beneficial outcomes, such as improved visual processing, improved manual dexterity, reduced lactic acid buildup, and improved problem-solving ability. Alongside the decrease in stress hormones, the levels of beneficial hormones such as serotonin and beta-endorphin increase, resulting in further physical relaxation and mental calm.
Recovery
High-intensity training and peak performance delivered in competitions push the body to the limits of its capacity. Muscles get damaged and fill with lactic acid, causing fatigue and pain. Stress hormone levels rise in the body, which can cause irritability, depression, and anxiety. In an exhausted body, the chemical balance needs to be restored and muscle tissue needs to be rebuilt, which can take days, or even weeks. Intense work demands intense rest. Brain training can achieve deep rest, which can speed up the recovery phase. During full-body relaxation, blood vessels dilate and blood flow speeds up, allowing necessary substances to reach damaged cells more efficiently and clear lactic acid more easily. Some marathon runners have found that even a single brain training session could shorten the necessary rest period by several days.
The relationship between cortisol and testosterone
Too little rest can easily lead to a state of constant fatigue known as overtraining. At this point, muscle growth stops and muscle strength begins to decline. The main indicator of overtraining is a constantly elevated level of the hormone cortisol, which leads to a suppressed immune system, poor mood, and constant fatigue. Scientific studies have revealed that high cortisol levels speed up protein breakdown, meaning muscles begin to atrophy. Cortisol’s other effect is that it inhibits testosterone production, which is necessary for building muscle, bone, and blood, and which provides athletes with a sense of wellbeing. With the help of brain training, the relaxation effects can reduce the risk of overtraining, both directly and indirectly.
Concentration
Sport and learning are very similar in that, in both cases, one key to success lies in the ability to concentrate. One of the largest areas of application for brain training is treating learning difficulties, which includes improving concentration ability. This is especially helpful in sports where, alongside physical strength, attention and precision are of great importance (e.g., target shooting, archery, golf).
Pain reduction
Certain brain states are capable of significantly reducing pain. In a relaxed alpha state, even dental treatment without anesthesia becomes possible. In such states, endorphin levels can increase by as much as 90%, providing natural pain-relieving effects, especially when using CES devices. Before competition, it can prevent pain from developing; afterward, it triggers the body’s self-healing processes.
Body awareness
Users of brain training have found that during sessions, their attention increasingly shifts from external stimuli toward bodily sensations. It sharpens sensitivity toward different parts of the body. Over time, they may become able to sense an imbalance in a body part before it leads to an injury.