Athletes

To be an elite athlete, the multiple planning, training, and execution processes require a level of brain fitness well beyond that of people engaged in ordinary activities. Athletes have a higher demand for brain fitness, because they routinely push themselves to the physical and cognitive limits of human function. This typically also places extreme metabolic demands on the brain and body, which can result in losses that, over a season or career, add up to measurable performance decrements (decreases).

In a world where a 5, 10, or 15 percent gain in efficiency (or the loss of such efficiency) is the difference between success and failure, athletes who give the proper attention to brain fitness will routinely gain a competitive edge. In that same world where brain injury is common, attention to refined brain fitness practices is even more critical. Add this to the competitive landscape where environmental extremes prevail (cold, heat, humidity, pressure, altitude, distance, etc.) and attention to brain fitness is indispensable.

What Thought Leaders Say:

“In my 40 plus years in the football world, I’ve never met anyone as knowledgeable and talented as Dr. Michael Schmidt. His unique blend of science and sports medicine is truly astounding and makes a significant impact on the performance of the athletes lucky enough to have worked with him.”

Coach Tommie Robinson
Former Assistant Head Football Coach, LSU Tigers, 2019 NCAA National Champions
PAC-12 Recruiter of the Year, University of Southern California Football, 2017
Former Assistant Head Coach, Current Special Teams Coordinator, University of Colorado Football, 2023- Present

Specialized athlete capabilities

The central goal in elevating brain fitness in athletes is to optimize the numerous attributes that translate into improved performance today and career longevity. Among these are enhanced processing speed, memory, decision making, focus, and attention.

The adjacent list shows the attributes needed by athletes that generally improve along with improved brain fitness. Our fundamental goal is to optimize the biological drivers that shape these attributes, so that all athletes can pursue optimal performance in their chosen sport and in their chosen position in that sport.

We use the phrase, “A leader’s brain is built, not born.” This is because an athlete’s brain is being continually remodeled based on their training, diet, specific nutrients, lifestyle, environment, medication, exposures, and other factors. Athletes who understand that they are actually building a brain through their deliberate action will gain a competitive edge. Athletes who leave this to chance will lose the opportunity to gain that edge.

Incremental gains and losses in brain fitness can determine how an athlete’s capabilities (skills) are acquired, developed, and deployed. Thankfully, many of the drivers of brain fitness are known, actionable, and are under an athlete’s control.

Enhance perception and decision-making

Enhance psychomotor speed

Psychomotor speed refers to the time it takes to process a stimulus and respond with a physical action. It is one of the most prized of all athlete capabilities. It is influenced by a wide range of factors, such as nutrition, inflammation, dehydration, injury, and other actionable items. For example, the ability to see a 95-mph fastball and swinging quickly enough to accurately hit the ball is heavily dependent of psychomotor speed.

Operate with speed and accuracy

Both speed and accuracy are critical in sports. Fitts’ law states that there is a linear relationship between the duration and the difficulty of a given movement. In general, the greater the required accuracy in reaching a desired target (or the farther away the target), the slower the movement must be. Each sport has its own unique speed vs. accuracy requirement. The capability to optimize the speed/accuracy paradigm is strongly dependent on brain fitness parameters. Speed of processing can be measured with assessment tools, such as NeuroCatch^®. Biological drivers that are actionable can be measured by other means.

Balance speed and accuracy

Accurate prediction of trajectory

An athlete must become expert at predicting the trajectory of an object or of their own body in space. A batter must locate and predict the location of a 98-mph fastball, while a receiver has to predict the location of a 50-yard forward pass while running downfield. A gymnast has to predict where her feet will land on the balance beam, while a snowboarder has to predict where he will land after a 30-foot aerial jump. These ‘predictions’ require immense neural complexity. Their execution is heavily shaped by brain fitness.

Make time-pressured decisions

In many sports, there are mere seconds or even milliseconds in which to make decisions under pressure. A Le Mans driver traveling 190 mph has only milliseconds to decide on evasive action on a wet track at night. A quarterback has only milliseconds to seconds to read the receiver (and defense) and deliver the pass. Any loss in speed of processing or psychomotor speed will impair this decision making process. It is especially true with cognitive slowing or head injury. If one can improve their processing speed, the advantages gained will impact each of health, safety, and performance.

Highly responsive sensory system

Optimizing vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste, proprioception (the sense of self-movement, force, and body position in space), and our refined senses is crucial to the information processing needed in sports and field operations. These are all neural processes that can be optimized or impaired by a range of influences. Numerous biological drivers of brain fitness can serve to enhance these capabilities. For example, omega-3 fatty acids are critical for the structure of the retina (vision), which is central to processing images fed from the eye to the brain. Many athletes have clinically important deficits in omega-3 fatty acids that are only one-half of what they should be.

Rapidly learn new material

The ability to rapidly learn new material and new instructions is central to advancing in any athletic or military application. This can take the form of more long-term foundational learning, such as learning a new playbook in football. This can also be a tremendous advantage when the learning is intense, focused, and short-term, such as learning a new game plan for an upcoming competition or an operational plan for a military operation.

Maintain focus and attention

The top athletes have all learned the capability for optimal focus and attention. The attentional field consists of everything outside of you, such as sights, sounds, weather, and noises. It also includes everything inside of you, such as emotions, thoughts, sensations, and your physical responses. Focus is the ability to properly attend to the external and internal signals in your attentional field. Where you put your focus is one critical element of success, as one can focus on items either relevant or irrelevant to the chosen activity. The biological drivers that give your brain the optimal capacity for focus and attention are another critical element of success, which is within the domain of brain fitness.

Manage emotional dynamics

Mental sharpness during fatigue

The brain is the most energy-hungry organ in the body. It is only 2 percent of the body’s weight but consumes 20 percent of the body’s energy at rest. As we become fatigued or exposed to harsher environmental conditions, the demands on the brain’s energy systems are elevated.

There are numerous methods to optimize the brain’s operations under low resource, fatigue, or harsh environmental conditions. These are among the tools of the brain fitness paradigm.

Psychomotor speed when fatigued

As these demands increase, psychomotor speed (speed of the motor [muscle] response to a stimulus) can be diminished (slowing). There are numerous methods to optimize the brain’s operations under low resource, fatigue, or harsh environmental conditions. These are among the tools of the brain fitness paradigm.

Convert training into memory

Training and competition require constant repetitive action. It is this repetitive action that begins to build long-term memory and procedural memory (e.g., remembering how to ride a bike; shooting a fade away jump shot). Our goal in brain fitness for leaders is to optimize the biological (often molecular) features of training and preparation that help further facilitate this natural process of converting repetitive action into consolidated memory. We also seek to identify any factors that impair this process and correct them.

What Thought Leaders Say:

“As a 30-year coaching veteran (13 yrs Division I football and 17 yrs NFL), I have been on the front lines of the Human Performance puzzle my entire adult life. After meeting and working with Dr. Michael Schmidt, I can only say ‘I wish I knew then what I know now.’ Dr. Schmidt operates on the very cutting edge of what it really takes to maximize Human Performance, regardless of the discipline or any other environmental factors. The work he and his team are doing is truly amazing!”

Coach Curtis Modkins
Minnesota Vikings Football; NFL; Running Backs Coach/Run Game Coordinator
Former Offensive Coordinator, San Francisco 49ers, Buffalo Bills
Former Running Backs Coach, Kansas City Chiefs, Denver Broncos

Athletes Competing Today

We are acutely aware that athletes have relatively short careers. The need for action is now, so that full advantage can be taken of the competitive window. We also understand the need to support career longevity from early in one’s career. This assures that you will be able to stay in the game as long as possible, competing at a high level. An added goal is that, after retirement from your sport, your state of health and thriving is preserved to the highest degree possible.

For athletes where rapid speed of processing and critical decision making within seconds to milliseconds is critical, optimizing brain fitness can result in incremental gains that impact performance, health, and safety.

In many contact sports such as football, hockey, soccer, rugby, boxing, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and others, the residual effects of repeated blows to the head can impact cognition in ways that render attention to brain fitness as essential. In cases where there is an actual history of concussion, the need for brain fitness tools is even more crucial. Attention sooner is better than later. Differences between males and females are also important, as females demonstrate even greater vulnerability to brain injury.

Those bigger bodied athletes who play positions such as offensive or defensive line, heavyweight wrestlers, and others, already carry some of the cognitive risk factors while active in their playing years. These features working against brain fitness in bigger athletes should receive attention early in their careers. For example, the average NFL offensive tackle weighs 317 pounds, while the average collegiate offensive lineman weighs 310 pounds. In these cases, there is often increased visceral (belly fat), increased inflammatory markers, and blood sugar imbalances. All of these can adversely impact brain fitness. Add blows to the head to this scenario and the need for attention to brain fitness measures only increases.

Retired aThletes

Retired athletes often carry the residual effects of having competed for many years in high performance environments.

In many sports such as football, hockey, soccer, rugby, boxing, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and other contact sports, the residual effects of repeated blows to the head can impact cognition in ways that the tools of brain fitness can address. In cases where there is an actual history of concussion, the need for brain fitness tools is even more crucial–the sooner the better. Whether a former player that is now a coach or a former player now leading in business outside of sports, the demands for optimized brain fitness and optimal performance remain a major factor.

Also, retired athletes who do not remain fit begin to take on many of the biological attributes that work against brain fitness. Those bigger bodied athletes who played positions such as offensive or defensive line, heavyweight wrestlers, and others have already carried some of these risk factors while active in their playing years. Thus, the features working against brain fitness in bigger athletes aggregate and are amplified during retirement. When aging is added to this dynamic, the impact on cognition is even more pronounced.

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