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NO TIME TO THINK The best athletes are those who think the fastest when there's no time to think by Heather Cohen
They're the types of athletic feats that can't be practiced or repeated. They just happen in a jaw-dropping display of athletic ability that seems possible only with God-given talent. In fact, however, what makes such great plays possible is speed. It's not the kind of speed we normally see and think of, but rather mind speed, information-processing speed, mental quickness, and brain clarity that allows the body to move without any conscious thought. To be sure, great plays also require physical abilities, like being able to out-run tacklers, run down a fly ball, chase down a drop shot or blow past the defence. But, to take athletic performance to an extra level, they require the additional quality of mind speed. Before a football running back even gets the opportunity to out-run tacklers to the endzone, for example, there are many unconscious decisions that take place in milliseconds to set up the opportunity. There are dekes, fakes and changes in running speed that slow the pursuit. There's the accurate read of blockers. There's the perfect timing to cut through the seam, the high step to evade tacklers and explosiveness at just the right moment. It all happens in an instant and it paves the way for a great play. Players who try to think and analyze will be stopped in their tracks. The eyes must be trained to load the brain with visual cues and information. And the brain must recognize, process and react without thought. "If an athlete is reacting only to what he sees or hears, he's going to be too slow," says Steven Keele, a former psychology professor at the University of Oregon where he conducted laboratory studies on reaction times involving visual and auditory stimuli. "Nobody would deny the importance of quickness in sports, but the quickest person in the world will be demolished every time if his cognitive skills aren't good. It's as simple as that." What really sets the special athletes apart is their ability to act and react at a fraction of a second faster than their opponents, says Josh Reynolds, founder and president of Cognitive Care, Inc. "Just think what a mere tenth of a second improvement in reaction time would mean to you if you were facing a 90 mph serve on the tennis court." The bottom line, Reynolds says, is that a speedier brain makes quicker and better decisions. "While talent, physical training, and conditioning are important, they lose their impact when your experience and knowledge of what to do in certain pressure situations get lost or stuck in a mental fog." Elements of mind speed At the most elite levels of sport, all athletes are talented. Mind speed is what enables some athletes to rise far above their competition, despite having no greater physical gifts in terms of size, strength, speed, or technique. So why don't all athletes develop their mind speed? One of the reasons is that mind speed is very difficult to define. And, without definition, it's difficult to train. There are, however, three visual skills that may be the cornerstones of mind speed. They are: peripheral awareness, visual memory and visualization. All of these skills work together in the subconscious mind to allow the athlete to make instantaneous decisions with the body in motion. 1. Peripheral awareness. Reaction times associated with peripheral vision are notably faster than those associated with central vision. As discussed in detail in our special report on peripheral vision in our last issue, humans have two visual systems (central and peripheral), each with its own neural structure and its own method of mental information processing. Central vision is closely associated with consciousness; that is, we are fully conscious of what we are seeing with our central focused vision. Peripheral vision is associated with the subconscious; that is, our brains take in information from our periphery without us being conscious of it. Athletes with a better developed peripheral awareness are able to pick up more information and visual cues from the periphery, which enable them to react in ways that would not even occur to others. 2. Visual memory. The ability to store information that has been seen briefly and then recognize or recall it later can be very helpful in blurring the line between thought and action. A 2005 study at Baylor University in Waco, Texas found that highly-skilled tennis players are much more able than novice players to use visual information of an opponent's movement patterns to: • Correctly anticipate shots at much greater than chance levels. • Better determine their own shot selection. • Significantly reduce their reaction speed. The way a kicker steps into the ball, for example, can tip off a soccer goalie about the direction of the shot. The wide receiver's eyes and hand movements can assist a defensive back in reading the play and defending against the pass. The meaning of these subtle visual cues are recalled by visual memory and reveal telling details to the alert athletic mind. 3. Visualization. Mind speed is all about preparation of the subconscious mind. "The subconscious mind is the control center of all movement," explains Craig Townsend, director of It's Mind Over Matter, a performance consultancy based in Sydney, Australia. "This amazing mental computer is constantly programmed by the thoughts, words, statements and emotions you choose." Mind speed is measured in milliseconds and occurs without conscious thought. As visualization techniques develop the subconscious mind, they are a powerful tool for training mental quickness. Conclusion For most athletes, their brain speed is a by-product of their physical training and competition; they can't help but improve their mental acuity while doing other forms of training. "One of the worst mistakes an athlete can make is believing that these kinds of skills—reflexes and reactive ability—are inborn, and therefore, not trainable," says David Weck, fitness guru and inventor of the BOSU Balance Trainer. "Brain speed is difficult to enhance in any meaningful way within the boundaries of even the most solid strength and conditioning program," he says. "If you want to be the best athlete you can be, you must do isolated exercises to give you an athletic edge." Heather Cohen is a researcher and staff writer for SportsVision Magazine. She may be reached by email at: info@sportsvisionmagazine.com |
