Train the Brain: Future of hockey?

HARPREET KAUR LAMBA

Putting on weight? Try jogging. Putting on weight in the brain? Try jogging.
Confused?

For ages, building up core muscles has been the most integral part of an athlete’s training. But what happens when the body reaches its limit, and drains all that it is capable of? `Brain-jogging’ is Horst Wein’s answer to that. “A new dimension of training in hockey has arrived,“ says the master coach.

“One ounce of brain tissue weighs more than one kilogramme of muscles and playing the game without thinking is like shooting without aiming.“

Much like the muscles in the body, the Train the Brain methodology aims at developing the cerebral side and attaining results beyond the physical realm.

If Wein is to be believed, the practice could lift performance levels in world hockey, and even football.

So, what is brain-jogging?

Explains Wein, who has had assignments in five Olympic sports in 53 countries and is the author of 34 books on hockey and football, “All organs, especially the muscles, have to be stimulated with specific training optimally and effectively.

“At the start of the new millennium -being told by scientists that the majority of the population is using less than two per cent of its brain and that remaining 98% is dormant -there was a demand for unlocking the potential of the brain to get performance,“ said the 60-year old German.

The methodology is simple: every athlete undergoes a series of exercises with a special brain-trainer -twice a week for one hour -which integrate his/her brain consciously with basic or specific, more or less complex patterns.

“An example can clarify this. Say, the task is to catch with both my hands, the two balls that I have thrown vertically in the air. It is easy to achieve the objective, but when you are asked to do the same with your hands crossed (making an X), it becomes a completely different skill.

“This new motor pattern forces you to execute a movement you have never done before. Besides a certain grade of concentration, your brain has managed to open up new circuits, and things become more or less automatic after a while.

“Now if four balls of different colours are thrown in the air, and you are asked to catch two, you will again need an increased degree of concentration for making the right choice. But when the brain-trainer tells you to grab one yellow and one red ball, you need to activate a remarkable ability to concentrate -to evaluate the colours, make a shortcut and then the movement of catching the balls.

“Even this basic exercise can become more complex: The colours can be associated with numbers or alphabets, or even with the names of animals or plants.
In such a case, your concentration has to be superior, as also your perception and decision-making skills.

“As you train with such stimuli, your brain creates millions of new neurons which look for connections with the older ones in order to built new circuits, which then allow you to perform better.“

Interestingly, the German hockey team were first to try the exercise prior to the 2010 World Cup in New Delhi.

The Germans -who finished runners-up -tried the method for 18 months, but team assistant coach Andrew Meredith remains reserved in his analysis.

“For a programme like this to succeed, you require standardisation for all athletes; quantifiable results built over a minimum 12-24 month period (ideally longer); which enables you to develop which exercises improved a specific sport.

“However interesting the theme is, we have no short or long term quantifiable results due to the restrictions,“ Meredith said.

Besides hockey, some German football clubs -Borussia Dortmund, VFB Stuttgart and Hoffenheim -too have put the method to use.

The practice, it is believed, has a flip side too.
If not followed on a regular basis, the new brain cells may die, forcing the athlete to start from scratch.

Says Wein: “Brain-jogging will have a promising future in the second decade of this century as the first results in some German football clubs are overwhelming. Being mentally up to the demands of the complex game of hockey, by producing fewer mistakes, is now possible.“ WHAT IS BRAIN JOGGING? Objectives To train the non-dominant eye Open the visual field Improve the internal representation of space Transpose information simultaneously and react now Make the legs independent of the upper limbs Increase the ability to concentrate Results Increased physical relaxation Increased self-confidence Increase speed of movement and harmony Reduction of emotional stress Reduction of energy expenditure Reduction of compensatory movements