The headsets in question are manufactured by Halo Neuroscience and claim to send pulses of energy to prime the athlete’s brain and increase overall performance. This improves the athlete’s response to training and enables the motor cortex to send stronger signals to muscles. Allegedly, this results in more motor unit recruitment, more muscle fibre activation, and greater skill acquisition. For athletes, these headsets are basically purporting to be the Philosopher’s Stone of training.

The track and field athletes aren’t the first on the US Olympic Team’s roster to have tried Halo Sport’s headsets. A case study promoted on the company’s website shows a 13% improvement in propulsion force in US Olympic skiers using the headphones compared to a control group. That said, the study is miniscule – totalling just seven subjects, with the internal organizers also having a clear bias.

For interested functional fitness athletes, some of the team at CrossFit Invictus also tried the headset prior to the 2016 CrossFit Open, reporting a 5% increase in weight lifted in training when performing 20 minute “neuropriming” sessions with the Halo headset on. The write-up specifically touts Maddy Myers’ response to the Halo technology, enthusiastically listing the Junior American records she achieved after using it. I would speculate that this was more to to do with Maddy Myers being an incredibly dedicated (read: consistent) 19-year-old (read: super adaptable) lifter, who had no trouble breaking records the year before without a pair of £495 headphones. But that’s just me.

The retail price is alone is enough reason to be sceptical, and the need for independent studies with bigger samples and less bias is incredibly clear. Nevertheless, the headset and its results are compelling. If the athletes in the Halo test groups come back from Rio with medals, we may just see a new vogue amongst affluent athletes in 2017.

And you thought those goofy electric muscle stimulators were bad.

Teaser photo courtesy of Pixabay.

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The Root of Movement Efficiency

The nervous system is made up of the brain, spinal cord, peripheral, nerves, and cranial nerves. With reference to athletic training, each component works together to mediate muscular action and govern the following systems:

• Cardio-Respiratory Training (aerobic and anaerobic cardio)
• Musculoskeletal Training (resistance training)
• Endocrine/Metabolism/Fat Loss Adaptations

The purpose of the nervous system is to create movement; therefore, the more efficiently it functions, the higher the quality of movement it produces. Movement efficiency is rooted in coordination, accuracy, and balance. Developing these qualities is the key to unlocking athletic performance, promoting resiliency, and preventing injury.

The nervous system has many “loops,” or neural pathways, to create, control, and coordinate movement. In this video series, Dr. Eric Cobb identifies three brain loops that are responsible for facilitating efficient movement. Let’s explore each of them, in detail.

The more efficiently the nervous system functions, the better your movement will be.

The Three Brain Loops: The Movement Loop

The movement loop has three primary actions:

1. Receives sensory inputs. Eighty percent of the total sensory input comes from vision. The rest comes from the vestibular system (balance and head movement), and the proprioceptive sensors found in joints, muscles, soft tissue, skin, and organs.
2. Integrates all inputs and makes decisions. The more closely the sensory signals match, the faster a motor decision is made. Optimal performance occurs when all sensory inputs are saying the same thing.
3. Provides a movement output. The brain creates the best motor plan based on the information it is receiving. As movement occurs, new sensory information is created, thus repeating the process and allowing the nervous system to fine-tune the movement.

There are three neural pathways originating from the movement loop. They send messages downstream from your brain to directly control your muscles, and assist in the other loops as well.

1. Corticospinal tract (CS): Provides the direct connection from the cortex (which initiates movement), through the spinal cord, to the motor units (nerves) that “switch on” the muscles. The CS tract only deals with voluntary movements.
2. Reticulospinal tract (RS): Keeps the body stable and balanced during movement. This tract begins in the brain stem and receives inputs from the cortex, the vestibular system (balance sensors), and cerebellum (which handles coordination, motor learning, and balance).
3. Miscellaneous sensory tracts: Multiple types of sensory information travel from the body to the brain along various tracts from the limbs through the spinal cord. Sensations caused by movement and joint position give the brain feedback about the movement that was just performed. Other sensory types, such as pain, temperature, and chemical sensations, inform our brain of our external and internal environments and help us adapt to potentially dangerous conditions.

The reticulospinal and corticospinal tracts make up two of the neural pathways of the movement system.

The Three Brain Loops: The Coordination Loop

The coordination loop compares what the cortex told the muscles to do with what the muscles actually did. Essentially, did the movement happen as it was intended? It also makes small adjustments to the movement plan when new sensory information is introduced, like when you shift your balance to catch a ball.

The Three Brain Loops: Preparation and Prediction Loop

The preparation and prediction loop (interoception) is how the body becomes aware of its own internal state and predicts future needs for maintaining homeostasis. Sensory information flowing into the insular cortex creates an internal representation of nearly everything happening in the body. This internal representation has the ability to change how we feel subjectively or how we think in order to direct our attention toward something that is not going right so that we may take corrective action.

Optimal performance occurs when there is minimal discrepancy between what the movement and coordination loops command, and what interoreceptive system reports back. Elite athletes have a high-level interoreceptive system, which prevents their brains from overreacting when faced with a physical challenge.

Bring the Brain Into Your Training

Many athletes and coaches are unaware of how their training impacts the nervous system, and vice versa. Accordingly, most do not consciously include the nervous system as part of their training, and the few who do typically focus on the CS tract. But about 90 percent of movement and posture is controlled reflexively, which means there is a lot of potential for improving stabilization, movement, and performance by ensuring the RS tract is functioning well.

Unilateral work will force your weak side to make positive neurological adaptations.

If you want to take advantage of the performance benefits of a well-trained reticulospinal tract, here are some ways to include the nervous system in your training:

• Include a sensory warm up in your training sessions.
• Include a variety of skill-based training in your program. Apply the principle of progressive overload. Through progressive skill-based training, your nervous system will learn how to manage and meet physiological demands.
• Include Vestibular Ocular Reflex (VOR) drills in your program.
• Train your eyes.
• Include individual joint mobility drills in your program.
• Do unilateral work to improve your weak side. Single-leg balancing with VOR and vision drills are highly effective.
• Use Heart Rate Variability (HRV) technology to measure your body’s parasympathetic output, or built-in “recovery mode.”
• Start tracking performance metrics. A low-tech notepad and pen work great. I also recommend using technology such as Train with PUSH when lifting to acquire power measurements. This can help you gauge changes in function within sessions and over time.
• Smile a lot, be happy, and laugh. Training with joy makes use of a few cranial nerves, including the cranial nerve that controls facial expressions and feeds into the reticulospinal tract.

The athlete with the best functioning brain wins because a better functioning nervous system creates better movement. Train your nervous system and watch your performance exceed your expectations.

More on Neurological Fitness:

• Your Brain on Movement: Challenge Your Nervous System
• The Critical Role of the Head and Eyes in Speed Training
• See It, Do It, Win It: Charge Up Your Visualisations
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photos 1 and 2 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 3 courtesy of J Perez Imagery.

The post The Athlete With the Best Brain Wins appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Background

There are three areas of the brain that affect our food choices:

1. The first is the striatum system. When you observe some kind of external cue like food, this system is driven by the rewards of consuming that food. This neural system might be overactive in people who have trouble with self-control when presented with delicious food.
2. The second neural system is a combination of the decision and impulse control systems. These areas allow us to postpone gratification for greater long-term goals, such as health. In a person who overindulges in food, decision and impulse control would be underactive, preventing them from making the smarter decision.
3. Finally, there is the insula system. This system is involved in the homeostasis of your body, which is disturbed when you eat. The insula system also regulates self-awareness, the conscious aspects of yourself. This, too, may be suppressed when overeating is an issue, which would result in the lack of sensations of satisfaction.

Study Design

Using an MRI, thirty young people ranging from fourteen to 22 years old were examined. All the participants answered a questionnaire about their diet, and they took an IQ test to factor out intelligence as the primary difference in food choices.

The subjects were shown pictures of various kinds of foods, some appetizing and some not. The foods were divided into low- calorie options, like celery and broccoli, as well as high-calorie options, like cookies and potato chips. The researchers examined two of the above neural systems (the striatum system and decision and impulse control system) on each participant while the subjects were looking at these foods.

In addition to viewing the images, the participants were required to take an action. They were told to press a button as fast as possible when presented with a high-calorie food in one test or a low-calorie food in the other. This task demonstrated their ability to respond to appetizing food that could override their food choices.

Results

The participants pressed the button more often than they were instructed to for high-calorie foods, indicating they had a conditioned response to favor these foods. The more prone to overeating they were, the greater the odds were that they would press the button correctly when viewing high-calorie foods.

The striatum was also more active when presented with high-calorie foods. The greater the body mass index (BMI) of the participant, the stronger this response. The right striatum, which controls the rewards that enforce habits, experienced a particularly powerful response.

Finally, the impulse and decision-making systems were more active when the participants were supposed to abstain from hitting the button for high-calorie foods. Thus, their impulse control was most active when they were not supposed to select the foods they found appetizing.

The researchers pointed out that while these brain systems might alter our food choices, it isn’t yet clear if they are genetically wired this way, or if these decisions are the result of years of habitual overconsumption of food. Either way, now we are armed with more information about how we choose the foods we eat.

References:

1. Qinghua He, et. al., “Poor ability to resist tempting calorie rich food is linked to altered balance between neural systems involved in urge and self-control,” Nutrition Journal 2014, 13:92

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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