For those of you golfers out there, you know the old saying: drive for show, putt for dough!

But do you have a hard time getting in the zone, and does a lack of concentration affect your ability to sink that birdie attempt?

The latest in sports performance--it’s called neuro-biofeedback--is not a new technology or technique.

Biofeedback has been used since the 70’s to help people relax. But the latest generation incorporates brain waves, pulse, and respiration along with video games to help teach people off the court to focus and relax during the game.

So maybe the answer to fixing that free throw lies in a couple of animated mice on a computer screen.

Russell Adams, doing research for his article in the Wall Street Journal Weekend on neurobiofeedback, isn’t using his mouse….to move the mouse.

Nope, it’s all brain power, powered by concentration.

The other mouse moves because Russell’s relaxed.

They know if Russell is relaxed and focused because of the electrodes hooked up to his head which are detecting his brain waves on EEG.
His respirations, heart rate, skin temperature and muscle tension are also monitored.

“This bottom mouse is associated with a Theta brain wave pattern, which is a slower pattern, it’s very relaxed,” demonstrates James Thompson, an EEG Biofeedback expert.

Together, focus and relaxation translate into improved sports performance.

And the learning done in front of the computer during neurobiofeedback sessions can be applied to the playing field or the court. But it takes training to get to that calm zone of concentration.

Russell says, “I talked to a number of high school athletics and amateurs. It’s not easy but they can anticipate when they are started to feel that kind of stress and when their brain is starting to move to quickly, and they know from repetition how to settle their brain down and focus back in on what they have to do.”

If Russell loses concentration, the top mouse starts to move backward.
The point, over time, is to train the athlete not to be distracted by outside influences and to focus on the task at hand.

“In the middle of that game I got a call from my editor. And when I got off the phone and got back in the game I could not focus,” states Russell.

Here’s another task: try focusing on quickly naming the color of the colors listed, although the colors of the words are different than what they are themselves (“green” is colored red, for example). It sounds confusing, and it’s difficult to do rapid fire. But it’s training the brain to focus.

Mr. Thompson says, “Each exercise will have specific tasks. Sometimes they need to reduce muscle tension so that they’re not tense before their activity. If you’re tense, say prior to your tennis serve, you suddenly lose a lot of power in your serve because you don’t have that reserved tension.”

This is actually good for any sport or any area of performance, even work, where you need to be calm and focused.

But what’s interesting is that perhaps the sport where there is the most benefit is the biathlon, where you have to ski hard, and then all of a sudden you have to drop your heart rate, relax, focus, shoot, and then get back on your skis and rev it up again.

So maybe, to keep your head in the game, and not in someone’s chest (like the play that cost France the world cup), a little focus training--courtesy of a rodent--might just do the trick.

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