Using Neuroscience To Improve Your Training Experience

Using Neuroscience To Improve Your Training Experience

By MET UK Faculty: Phil Wilde

phil@metmethod.com

At MET we’re passionate about our mission- we show trainers, coaches and physical movement specialists how to inspire fitness and change lives. Central to our strategy and a huge focus of our Level 1 coaching certification is the use of the latest neuroscience research to synchronise the brain and body in movement.

What can neuroscience add to the skill set of the trainer, coach or physical movement specialist? That is a question we hope to answer over the course of a series of blogs that will cover some of the fundamental neuroscience concepts and what it means to the work you do with your clients, athletes and teams.

A Brain of 2 Halves

Let’s start with some basics on function- brain function. We’re going to focus on two of the big players in the brain and their sometimes conflicted interaction with each other.

The Pre-Frontal Cortex:

The PFC is your brain’s equivalent of the board room. It’s the area of executive function, where the big decisions happen and where new or difficult tasks are co-ordinated before we commit these skills to memory. This part of the brain is what is theorized to have developed at an accelerated rate to allow us to develop more sophisticated thought processes than other species in the great evolutionary race to the top.

The Limbic System:

Often referred to as the caveman, or PRIMAL brain. The limbic system is a collection of different components that serve to act as your brain’s panic station. It was the limbic system that kept us safe from predators and other threats thousands of years ago in our primal surroundings. Even in our relatively safe modern world, this part of your brain still subconsciously scans your surroundings for threats up to 5 times per second!

So on the one hand we have a very civilized, rational portion of the brain and on the other we have a deeply instinctive, impulsive and often very risk averse area of the mind. These polar opposites interact through ascending and descending pathways. In a split second, the limbic system processes all of the external and internal stimuli from any given set of circumstances we find ourselves in and cross references this information with our memory bank to drill down on two key questions:

1. Going by past experiences, are there any risks or threats to be wary of?
2. If the answer to question 1 is no, are there any prospects of rewards (food, shelter, sex or in the modern world, financial gain)?

When the limbic system senses a threat, it sounds the alarm and signals to the PFC that action is required (the ascending pathway). This is often felt as the sudden swell of emotional urge that we sometimes experience and the limbic system will prepare a response to these feelings- pending approval from the board room.

The PFC, in its executive function, will either give the go ahead or, as is often the case inhibit the emotional response and ‘rationalise’ with the jumpy limbic system (the descending pathway). The problem with this relationship is that the channels heading up are believed to be 5 times greaterthan those going down- the PFC has limitations on its ability to override the panic station. The long and short of it is this- the impulsive and emotional limbic system will have a huge bearing on movement, performance and behavior.

The task for the coach then becomes managing the negative emotional responses to get less inhibitions and better performance, or, synchronizing the body and the brain.

How? Here are some basic suggestions that we cover in more detail on MET Level 1…

1. Be aware of the sensory input the limbic system will be scanning for when assessing for threats- learn your client’s triggers. What surroundings are they more comfortable in? How can your coaching cues create a different response? Rather than repeat one set of verbal instructions over and over without improvement in performance (‘flex the hips and load up your glutes’), take a different approach (‘sit backwards as if taking a seat’)

2. Exercise Complexity- think about your client’s comfort zone in relation to movements that the brain finds familiar. Anytime we introduce new exercises, the PFC has to co-ordinate the activity to learn proper movements. If the complexity of an exercise goes beyond the skill of the client, the PFC can’t manage all of the information and we get negative emotional interference from the limbic system. Use your progressions wisely- this is a key aspect of MET Level 1 certification and why MET coaches will work through progressive zones of exercises

3. Exercise Order- When introducing new variations on exercises, give some thought to what stage of the workout that introduction occurs. Remember new movements need PFC involvement and the PFC needs oxygen and glucose to function properly- both of which are in shorter supply in the latter stages of a workout.

For more information on the M.E.T Method in the UK, please connect with Phil:

Phil@METmethod.com

Facebook: MET Method UK