Neuro Athletes,

Happy Wednesday! If you’re reading this, hopefully, you’’re having a great start to the week! To those gearing up for Black Friday, you got this!!

Yesterday, I was catching up with a friend of mine who trains one of the best NBA players of our time and as we were touching on the nuances to player performance he said “I think one thing that separates him from every other player is his ability to be there, where he is, 100%”. Meaning, when his player is at training then his entire self is at training, when he is at home his entire self is at home and it reminded me of a book I read recently. 

The book is called ‘The Inner Game of Tennis’ which  tells the story of an athlete have two versions of themselves. Self one and Self two.

Anyways, this trainer started telling me stories about how there is always a way to get better within each domain of sport. He was telling me about the training methods he uses, the recovery protocols he implements and also the mind aspect of performance and I sat there thinking, “Wow, no matter how good you are, even if you are the best, you can always do better and be better”. It inspired this instagram post which then inspired today’s newsletter. 

When we bring on a new client to work with at Neuro Athletics. there are three things we make sure exists before we agree to work together:

1. You must be open and willing to push the limits: let’s be honest. If you are a high performance person and you want to do better and be better, then you have to go places you have never gone before. Your entire life you have been taught how to prevent an injury from occurring, how to gain more strength and outrun your competitor. You have never been taught about how the brain controls the body and how to fasten the decision making process and decrease your reaction time by training your brain. It’s like I say to my new recruit from the Miami Heat, Omer Yurtseven, “The moment you are ready to give everything up is the moment you get everything you ever wanted”.

2. You have to have a strong goal in mind: every athlete that we work with at Neuro Athletics has to come with a strong goal in mind. Some want to be the MVP of the NBA and other want to close on a $40M deal and outperform their colleagues. Without a clear, laser sharp focus you won’t know what your target is. Being able to have a target that can be placed on the head of a pin will enable forward progression each and every day that you wake up. Your brain likes targets, but it doesn’t like broad targets, it only likes narrow and concise targets.

3. You are only as good as your last at bat: I don’t care how many trophy’s you have or how many teams are begging for you. I also don’t care how much money you make. I care about how willing you are to implement the program that I give you. You see, there’s always a threshold with physiological training. Eventually you will reach the fastest 100 meter dash and after that it becomes more about maintenance. I’m not interested in that, I’m interested in making your brain more durable, more compliant and more adapted to change. I want to see hard core data and analytics that show how your baseline measurements have changed since starting at Neuro Athletics to now, 6 months into the process. 

Without these core ingredients, it wouldn’t be lawful for me to take on a client to the level that I do at Neuro Athletics.

Back to the book I read. In his book, Timothy Gallwey says that Self One is the analytical side, it’s the athlete who thinks hard about everything, if they're not making a shot it's because their elbows are not in or they're not following through. They always think there's some sort of correction. So we can call that the conscious side. 

And then there's Self Two, which is more of that subconscious side where, when you're in that zone, when you're in that flow, and you're just killing and you have no idea what you're doing.

This got me thinking about my conversation with the trainer, a lot of the best players in the world don't become great trainers, because a lot of times they're so ‘Self Two’, that they have no idea what they're actually doing on the court, they are just in the moment.

Here are some easy ways to ensure you’re staying in the zone and focusing on your craft:

1. High self-confidence: It is rare for athletes to play well without self-confidence. Self-confidence is a belief that an  athlete  possesses about how well he can play or how  good  his  skills  are.  “I was unstoppable,” an athlete will say about his  performance after being in the zone.

2. Focus in the present: The ability to focus completely  on  the  task  is  critical to peak performance in any sport. Most athletes can concentrate well but often do not focus on the right  cues. Total  focus means becoming immersed in the present moment and the process.

3. Narrow focus of attention: To play in the zone, athletes must be able to narrow focus when needed. Athletes perform best when they can narrow their focus on one external thought at a time. Don’t overthink or think too far ahead.

The mark of a good athlete is their intelligence in all athletic domains. Being good at the athletic domains is driven by precise daily routines. It’s also the only way to really outperform your competitors. People are too attached the physical and not yet understanding the neural so taking advantage of this will pay dividends.

Alright, on to some fun stuff...

Drill of The Week

I have been using this drill below to activate reaction time, hand-eye coordination and accuracy with many of my players.

As you can see here, the athlete has three lights flashing; Red, Yellow and Blue.

I assigned him to ‘right foot red’, ‘left foot blue’ and ‘bounce ball on yellow’. We started off with 5 sets of 20 where the lights would flash every 2 seconds which meant that he had 2 seconds to deactivate the lights with the correct prompt.

It’s very hard to do while also maintaining high faced fast feet!

The results?

Well, after doing this repetitively amongst the many other Neuro Athletics drills, we can see an increase in his speed to react to certain stimuli which then translates to game day performance speed.

What do you think of this drill?

Black Friday Deals!!!

Neuro Athletics Membership: 35% off the Neuro Athletics monthly and premium membership only for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you are a coach, athlete or high performer waning to gain an in-depth understanding of how to optimise data for performance, please consider becoming a member.

Eight Sleep: Improve Your Fitness Through Sleep

This holiday season, give yourself or a loved one a gift that keeps getting better night after night. Science suggests that there is no one universal sleep temperature to give you deep, and high quality sleep. Moreover, our sleeping temperature needs to change throughout the night, as body temperature affects both your circadian rhythm and sleep quality.

However, the average mattress actually absorbs your body heat, giving you those nasty night sweats and causing restlessness. Who wants that?

Right in time for the holidays, give the gift of better sleep and a present that will keep giving back, everyday of the year!

Span Health: The ‘All-In-One’ App

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You can skip the waitlist and join today with a discount which is exclusive to our Neuro Athletics members.

Somavedic: The Ultimate EMF Mitigation Device

Wi-Fi, smartphones, and wearables are making our lives easier and more comfortable than ever before. But there is a price for this comfort — the long-term harm all these wireless devices are having on our bodies.

Somavedic is a device that can reliably eliminate and then completely remove unwanted influences of EMF, 5G, geopathogenic, and psychosomatic zones.

It eliminates other negative influences that affect the cellular structure of the physical body. On top of that, it can give a great boost to your mind and spirit.

I use this in my home office to mitigate the EMFs in the room.

The best part?

It will change the way you think about health and longevity.

MUSE Headset: Discover More Calm, Sharper Focus and Better Sleep.

Muse S helps you understand and track how well you focus, sleep, and recharge so you can reset during the day and recover each night. I started using the MUSE headband 6 weeks ago to calm my mind after a crazy day in the office!

The results?

I was able to fall asleep faster and reduced my tosses and turns throughout the night.

Healthy hot cocoa for better sleep? Yes Please. 

Beam’s new peppermint Dream Powder is packed with zzz-promoting ingredients, like nano CBD, reishi, magnesium, l-theanine, and melatonin. And now, it’s available in a new limited edition white chocolate peppermint flavor.

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