Looking for a mental edge, more professional athletes adopt brain training apps

.

Brain train­ing gain­ing momen­tum as new app for ath­letes to be unveiled (ESPN):

“Brain sci­ence for ath­letes is get­ting more atten­tion, not only as scruti­ny over con­cus­sion test­ing becomes greater with reports of long term dam­age to pros but also as brain train­ing becomes more professionalized.

“Every­one is look­ing for that edge, there’s only so far you can go with tal­ent and your phys­i­cal traits,” said Toron­to Blue Jays out­field­er Jose Bautista, who along with golfer Rick­ie Fowler, race car dri­ver Dale Earn­hardt Jr., foot­ball play­er Richard Sher­man and soc­cer play­er Alex Mor­gan, among oth­ers, is endors­ing the new tool. “The men­tal part of the game is the hard­est to explain because you can feel it and, the sense was that until now you could­n’t prac­tice it like hav­ing pitch­es thrown to you or field­ing fly balls.”

In 2012, Sharp­Brains, a mar­ket track­ing com­pa­ny focus­ing on dig­i­tal health said busi­ness was worth $1 bil­lion and would like­ly be worth $6 bil­lion by 2020…

The Head­Train­er app is free to down­load, but offers a $4.99 month­ly sub­scrip­tion to do more advanced training.”

Learn more:

• Info­graph­ic on the Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020
• Can brain train­ing work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
• Trend: Har­ness­ing bio­met­rics and cog­ni­tive train­ing to improve ath­let­ic performance