Biofeedback Contributes To Gold Medal Performance

Main Category: Sports Medicine / Fitness
Article Date: 21 Aug 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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When Abhinav Bindra took home the gold medal in the 10 metres air rifle event at the Beijing Olympics, he not only earned the first individual medal ever for India, he also demonstrated how biofeedback training can be an integral part of performance optimization at the highest level.

Skills of a Shooter

Dead aim is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the skills needed to excel at shooting. In addition, shooters need controlled breathing and heart rate, no excess tension in their muscles, no interior monologue, and sharp focus and good reactions to trigger at the moment when the sight image is correct.

Sport psychologist Timothy Harkness used biofeedback training to help Bindra master control over all these areas. Using the a FlexComp Infiniti hardware system with BioGraph 4.0 software, Harkness joined a team of shooting coaches, a physician, chiropractor, dietician and physiotherapist to prepare Bandra for the 2008 competition. The result was that an already world-champion athlete was able to push his skills and focus even higher. He achieved his personal goal and earned the only medal for India during the 2008 games.

Biofeedback and Optimal Functioning

Biofeedback is a process that enables an individual to learn how to change physiological activity for the purposes of improving health and performance. Precise instruments measure physiological activity such as brainwaves, heart function, breathing, muscle activity, and skin temperature. These instruments rapidly and accurately "feed back" information to the user. The presentation of this information - often in conjunction with changes in thinking, emotions, and behavior - supports desired physiological changes. Over time, these changes can endure without continued use of an instrument.

Biofeedback is used primarily for treatment of various medical disorders, including ADD/ADHD, chronic pain, headaches, and other. But it is gaining prominence in a more proactive capacity as well. Individuals, ranging from athletes to artists to business leaders and more, are tapping into the benefits of biofeedback to optimize health, mental, physical, emotional and spiritual functioning, and peak performance fields.

Biofeedback training can help individuals optimize brain function for peak mental performance. It empowers people to achieve their goals, be they Olympic level or within day-to-day activities. It helps users manage their mental and emotional states and how these may help or hinder achievement of goals.

Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB)
10200 W 44th Ave., #304
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http://www.aapb.org