How to perform well in your sporting practice, how to train well and enjoy surpassing yourself without getting injured? The Euro football championship, the Paris Olympics are all showcases for high-level sport, with its athletes followed day by day, sometimes by armies of doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists… For the Sunday athlete to the hardened amateur, it is impossible to be as well supported. The wealthiest turn to personal coaches, while most glean recommendations from fellow athletes, connected tools, or even YouTube, Instagram or TikTok… where good and often not so good advice abounds. However, many scientific studies provide serious answers as to proven methods for improving. L’Express reviews four essential themes: mental preparation, diet, recovery methods and how to deal with injuries. In this first episode, we focus on the fascinating powers of the brain.
This is the most underestimated organ in sports. And yet, it is possible to train it to have more fun and perform better! And the interest is great, because the brain is endowed with little-known superpowers. First of all, that of imagination. “The advantage of mental visualization is scientifically proven: the simple fact of imagining a movement uses the brain structures and the muscles involved”, summarizes Vincent Nougier, director of the CNRS Sport and Physical Activity research group at the University of Grenoble. In life, when we move, motor commands are sent to the limbs by our motor cortex. “Each of these areas is associated with a limb, and the more we practice making a gesture, the more we strengthen the connections between the neurons in the corresponding area,” explains Camille Jeunet-Kelway, a CNRS researcher at the Aquitaine Institute of Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience. “When a person simply imagines themselves performing an action, they call upon similar brain networks.”
Using the visual or motor cortex, two uses, two benefits
There are several ways to use your brain. The first is visual brain imagery, which aims to see yourself performing a gesture, which activates the visual cortex. By training regularly in this way, it is possible to improve self-confidence, but also memorization and strategy, for example to better climb a route in climbing or go down a slope on skis. “There is also kinesthetic imagery, which consists of imagining while feeling all the sensations linked to the gesture, such as the muscular contraction of the arm and the pressure of the racket when imagining a forehand in tennis”, continues the researcher. In this case, it is the motor cortex that is activated. We then strengthen the neural connections linked to the gesture. “Strong scientific evidence indicates that motor imagery can improve precision, flexibility and strength – not in muscle gain, but in efficiency”, she adds.
It is possible to practice these imagination exercises at any time, especially when physical fatigue is too great or in the event of an injury.. The researchers nevertheless point out that it remains difficult to know precisely whether athletes are using the right imagery and therefore soliciting the right cortex – visual or motor – depending on their objective. This is why they use “neurofeedback” using brain-machine interfaces and electroencephalograms to determine whether a person is activating their motor or visual cortex. While these precision techniques are currently mainly intended for high-level athletes, tools for the general public could soon arrive on the market, for example thanks to connected electrodes, which Camille Jeunet-Kelway is trying to develop within a start-up she has just launched.
“Another type of brain imaging is flash visualization, which takes place at the heart of the action, when the athlete imagines what he wants to do a few seconds before his action,” adds Jean-Philippe Lachaux, neurologist at the Center for research in neuroscience from Lyon, author of the work In the brains of champions. A particularly useful aspect in technical sports, such as racket or ball sports. “Research is still in its infancy in this area, because it is impossible to carry out imaging in the heart of the action, but we are working by collecting the testimony of great athletes. We know, however, that it is positive to get into the habit of visualizing what we want to accomplish just before doing it,” says Professor Lachaux.
The effect of motivation on performance proven mathematically
But the powers of the brain don’t stop there. The ability to adapt is also essential. The advantage is that it is easier to work with: you just have to confront variable environments. “This has been demonstrated in many areas of learning: we learn slower, but better in unstable situations. In the same way, it is interesting to train when we are physically and mentally tired, because it allows you not to collapse during an event”, indicates Vincent Nougier.
Scientists have even managed to put the mind and motivation into equations using a mathematical model, details a study published in March in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. “In order to minimize the cost induced by an effort, it is necessary to reduce the instructions from the brain to the muscle, therefore reducing external and muscular requests and variations in instructions, which can be done by concentrating on the action”, explains Amandine Aftalion, CNRS researcher at the Center for Social Analysis and Mathematics, co-author of this work, and author of Why do we lean when cornering? a popular work.
The authors explain that motivation allows for more intense action, by increasing the speed of execution while reducing the perceived difficulty. “For amateur athletes, this can be done by following someone who is running at the right pace, or by copying their movements,” the researcher explains. More generally, to progress, it is better to do sport with others.” It is also more important to learn to know yourself and moderate your effort, to keep up the chosen pace, rather than relying on your smart watch, whose instructions can completely cancel out the psychological relaxation effect of the brain by producing mental fatigue and distracting attention. “You also need to know why you are going to make an effort, because when you are motivated and want to, having a goal reduces the difficulty of the effort,” adds Amandine Aftalion.
Pay more attention to the brain, without being fooled
“The brain is still too obscured today, because entry into sport is always done through the physical, so the mental dimension does not intervene, except in the case of mental preparation, and there, it is often a vast hodgepodge, like neurolinguistic programming and transcendental meditation which are not based on anything, warns Vincent Nougier. 99% of those who proclaim themselves ‘mental coach’ have no skills or training in psychology or on the functioning of the brain.”
The heart of the problem of mental preparation would consist, according to him, mainly in ensuring that athletes have the most serene environment possible, by alleviating external problems (family, work, finances). And if this aspect is increasingly addressed in high-level sport, in particular because the methods for technical and physical improvement are beginning to reach their maximum, it is on the other hand difficult to put in place for amateurs. For them, mental preparation as sold by coaches of all kinds therefore turns out to be globally useless.
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