The British Olympic Coaching Programme

“I passionately believe that you cannot win a gold medal unless you have a world-class athlete and a world-class coach,” Sir Clive Woodward says. “This country is developing bucket-loads of talent. But are we developing enough world-class coaches? I don’t think we are.”

Here is an excellent article written by Owen Slot of The Times, in which Sir Clive Woodward discusses the state of athletic coaching in the UK.  Woodward is the Performance Director of the British Olympic Association.

Whilst knowledge is important, Woodward is focusing on helping coaches teach more effectively.  With this in mind, Slot’s article in The Times exclusively reveals “The British Olympic Coaching Programme [BOCP]“

Poor quality teaching limits reading skills

A recent study published in the April 23rd edition of Science shows how poor quality teaching will limit the reading potential of children.  This reinforces the importance of children having high quality teachers.

“Teachers have an effect on student reading achievement,” said psychology Associate Professor Jeanette Taylor, the study’s lead author. “Better teachers provide an environment that allows children to reach their potential.”

The classroom environment will also Click Here To Continue Reading…→

“Dreams can help with learning” – The importance of Theta…

Research has shown that people who dream about a task perform it better on waking compared to those who do not dream about the task. (BBC News)

This reinforces the knowledge shared in our brain training courses, where the importance of theta brainwave activity in learning is discussed.  For optimal functioning, new information is received in a high-alpha state.  That is then memorised or integrated in a theta state.  The theta brainwave is an important brainwave for a healthy sleep cycle, as well as delta.

During our training courses, like the Mind Maximiser,  you learn how to access this state by increasing the amplitude of the theta brainwave at will. For anyone wishing to learn information at an accelerated rate, it is essential to be able to control the levels of high-alpha and theta brainwaves.  Some people talk about the “super-learning state”.   Click Here To Continue Reading…→

“Brain Training” games don’t work

At last there is the evidence that brain training games don’t boost brain power. (BBC report)

When doing radio interviews, the most common question I am asked is how good are these electronic games recently promoted to improve brain function.  My reply is always the same…doing lots of sudoku puzzles simply makes you good at doing sudoku.  There is no wider neurological benefit which can be applied to other tasks.

If you want to train your brain, you need to Click Here To Continue Reading…→

Can you multi-task? Are women better than men?

French scientists have researched the brain’s ability to multi-task.  The reported research suggests that the brain can do two things and only two things simultaneously. And more tasks and our brains start making irrational decisions.

This backs up the training at The Brain Training Company where people are taught that their brain’s like to perform two functions and they learn to control that process for optimal performance.

It is interesting that the brain imaging showed that the primary task is controlled by the left frontal lobe and the secondary task is help by the right frontal lobe.  The brain switches the focus between the two hemispheres during the tasks.

It is known that women have a larger corpus callosum, the part of the brain connecting the two hemispheres, with more neural pathways.  So women are hard wired to have a better connection between the two sides.  It has been hypothesised that this maybe why women are generally better at multitasking than men.

This research would seem to back this up, as women can switch between the two tasks in the two side more easily.  Men are better at focusing on a single task, in general.  Someone once said to me that this comes from our hunter-gatherer evolution – men go and hunt for food, women manage the tasks at home.

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