Canada’s first gold medallist at Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics used brain training.
The first few reports are starting to come out of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, about those athletes who have utilised brain training technologies. Various brain training systems are used by an increasing number of National teams. However for many it is a closely guarded secret to gaining that competitive edge.
Sports Psychology has been applied for many years and is now seen is essential for any top athlete, whatever their sport. The brain training I refer to is the Sports Neurology – a new field of peak performance giving athletes an extra edge. This encompasses the maturing field of neurofeedback as well as more cutting edge systems as used by The Brain Training Company.
At the Sydney 2000 summer Olympics, I was one of the first people known to have used brainwave training systems with athletes. This resulted in a gold medal for Men’s Double Trap. At that time it was then reported that “Brainwave training is the future of competitive sports“. Since then, with each subsequent summer and winter Olympics, coaches and athletes have realised that this is giving others an edge, so they need to include neurological training into their regime.
At the Beijing 2008 summer Olympics the brain training technology and training of The Brain Training Company once again proved itself as leading the competition.
“Henry Hopking gave me all the skills I needed to control my concentration helping me to win this Gold Medal.” – Glenn Eller – Olympic Gold Medallist, Beijing 2000
And here we are now at Vancouver 2010 winter Olympics. I would hazard a guess that the majority of teams have now included some sort of “sports neurology” in their training repertoire. Many like to keep it a closely guarded secret, others are happy to talk about it, especially after the event!
From my own personal experience in training athletes, it is amusing when two of the three people on the winners podium have been trained by me, but neither person knows this.
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