Optimal Physical Performance
Biofeedback
Biofeedback has been used with both professional and Olympic level athletes for over 30 years.It’s ability to improve mental focus, mind-body control, and overall sport performance is well documented. EPR Biofeedback made its Olympic debut in 2008
at the Federal Sports Hospital in Beijing. For four months prior to the Beijing Games, over 1000 sessions were performed with 50 physicians and over 200 athletes of the Chinese National and Olympic Teams. Thirty two of China’s record 100 medalists were participants in the biofeedback health management program.
Subtle factors like diet, minerals, emotions, allergies, and air pollution can separate Olympic-class competitors that are compared by inches and fractions of a second. For instance, sub-clinical dietary deficiencies may reduce endurance, affect sleep, cause muscle cramps, and impair performance and recovery in countless ways.
The earliest signs of distress are exhibited by the body’s bio-field, and only Electrophysiological Reactivity (EPR) testing is capable of this kind of subtle measurement. The Biofeedback System measures the athlete’s own reactions, using their own baselines as the control, rather than comparing them with a “norm”, though results correlate well with standard diagnostic tests when cases are more advanced. This way, each athlete’s individual needs can be ascertained and corrected proactively.
Injury Prevention and Treatment
When athletes are healthy, balanced, and have good stress management strategies, like EPR biofeedback, then the probability for injury is decreased. By monitoring the athlete for the earliest signs of distress, it easier to identify and treat overtraining, poor recovery, insomnia, nutritional imbalance, or other factors that increase the chance of injury. Of course, not all injuries can be prevented.
When an injury occurs, Biofeedback programs should be used in conjunction with standard medical interventions to dramatically accelerate healing and recovery. Results are surprising, especially when done frequently.
Training Recovery
The excessive demands of world-class training require quality rest and recovery. All current EPR biofeedback athletes are impressed with the improved recovery time they experience when using the device regularly. Quick recovery translates into better training tolerance and improved contest preparation (particularly between heats or events). During high-volume training cycles and as athletes get closer to peaking, they often struggle more with sleep, digestion, and rejuvenation.
As the body becomes more stressed, the autonomic nervous system gets stuck in a “sympathetic-dominant” state, which increases the likelihood of injury, infection, and emotional distraction.
Mental Emotional
One of the most intriguing abilities of the Biofeedback System is in providing insight into mental and emotional states. With a skilled operator, very specific emotional stress and historical information can be uncovered with uncanny accuracy and effectiveness. Discussing relevant emotional stress with athletes helps to validate their emotions and helps them to consciously comprehend the impact that emotional factors have on performance.
All athletes have full lives, and athletics are only a part. Their ability to deal with concerns about family, peers and coaches, finances, relationships, competition pressure and other events in their lives have profound impact on competitiveness. This capability serves as a perfect complement for sport psychology and mental conditioning performed by the athletes’ trained counselors and coaches.
Biofeedback
Biofeedback has been used with both professional and Olympic level athletes for over 30 years.It’s ability to improve mental focus, mind-body control, and overall sport performance is well documented. EPR Biofeedback made its Olympic debut in 2008
at the Federal Sports Hospital in Beijing. For four months prior to the Beijing Games, over 1000 sessions were performed with 50 physicians and over 200 athletes of the Chinese National and Olympic Teams. Thirty two of China’s record 100 medalists were participants in the biofeedback health management program.
Subtle factors like diet, minerals, emotions, allergies, and air pollution can separate Olympic-class competitors that are compared by inches and fractions of a second. For instance, sub-clinical dietary deficiencies may reduce endurance, affect sleep, cause muscle cramps, and impair performance and recovery in countless ways.
The earliest signs of distress are exhibited by the body’s bio-field, and only Electrophysiological Reactivity (EPR) testing is capable of this kind of subtle measurement. The Biofeedback System measures the athlete’s own reactions, using their own baselines as the control, rather than comparing them with a “norm”, though results correlate well with standard diagnostic tests when cases are more advanced. This way, each athlete’s individual needs can be ascertained and corrected proactively.
Injury Prevention and Treatment
When athletes are healthy, balanced, and have good stress management strategies, like EPR biofeedback, then the probability for injury is decreased. By monitoring the athlete for the earliest signs of distress, it easier to identify and treat overtraining, poor recovery, insomnia, nutritional imbalance, or other factors that increase the chance of injury. Of course, not all injuries can be prevented.
When an injury occurs, Biofeedback programs should be used in conjunction with standard medical interventions to dramatically accelerate healing and recovery. Results are surprising, especially when done frequently.
Training Recovery
The excessive demands of world-class training require quality rest and recovery. All current EPR biofeedback athletes are impressed with the improved recovery time they experience when using the device regularly. Quick recovery translates into better training tolerance and improved contest preparation (particularly between heats or events). During high-volume training cycles and as athletes get closer to peaking, they often struggle more with sleep, digestion, and rejuvenation.
As the body becomes more stressed, the autonomic nervous system gets stuck in a “sympathetic-dominant” state, which increases the likelihood of injury, infection, and emotional distraction.
Mental Emotional
One of the most intriguing abilities of the Biofeedback System is in providing insight into mental and emotional states. With a skilled operator, very specific emotional stress and historical information can be uncovered with uncanny accuracy and effectiveness. Discussing relevant emotional stress with athletes helps to validate their emotions and helps them to consciously comprehend the impact that emotional factors have on performance.
All athletes have full lives, and athletics are only a part. Their ability to deal with concerns about family, peers and coaches, finances, relationships, competition pressure and other events in their lives have profound impact on competitiveness. This capability serves as a perfect complement for sport psychology and mental conditioning performed by the athletes’ trained counselors and coaches.
Light Therapy
Treatment with the NIR light system is simple and painless. Flexible pads, containing multiple infrared and visible red diodes, are placed directly on the skin over the area of pain or injury. Light energy from the diodes penetrates beneath the skin and is absorbed by proteins within cells that lay beneath the skin. Those cells release nitric oxide, the body’s natural vasodilator. After just 20 minutes of treatment, blood flow is increased to nerves and other tissues, and this boost in local circulation persists for several hours after the pads are removed.
Fatigue
One of the common sensations of exercise is “fatigue”. Fatigue is a biochemical response to the metabolites and heat created by exercise. Endurance is measured by the onset of fatigue. Fatigue commonly interferes with optimal performance. An endurance training program combined with Light Therapy leads to a greater reduction in fatigue than an endurance training program without Light Therapy.
Recovery
Recovery time is also a function of exercise. A study in 2009 measured changes in blood lactate levels and creatine kinase (CK) levels before and after exercise. The application of Light Therapy resulted in a reduction in the post-exercise CK levels and acceleration in post-exercise lactate removal, which contributes to an accelerated post-exercise recovery.
Reduction of Creatine kinase (CK) levels and acceleration in post-exercise lactate removal should allow athletes to resume their workout quicker, workout harder and longer and feel less fatigued.
Light therapy has been shown to support the innate healing processes of the body precisely because of its ability to increase circulation and thereby the delivery of needed nutrients to damaged tissues. It is an effective therapeutic approach to modulate oxidative and nutritive stress and to reduce inflammation in injured muscle.” In studies, Light Therapy resulted in the acceleration of the muscle-regeneration process. Research clearly suggests light therapy could be utilized in rehabilitation to improve muscle performance in elite athletes.
Light therapy applied BEFORE resistance exercise can:
•Enhance contraction function
•Reduce the fatigue response
•Prevent exercise-induced cell damage
Light therapy applied AFTER resistance exercise can:
•Delay the onset of fatigue
•Improve post exercise recovery of strength and function