According to many TJ from Carrie was never supposed to be an NFL player. The chances of even becoming an athlete seemed slim when the doctor told the 15-year-old the crushing news.
Carrie had a heart defect that required open heart surgery. He recovered from the difficult operation for more than a year and a half.
Despite her harsh experience, Carrie managed to realize her childhood dream. In 2014, the NFL club Oakland Raiders booked him in the seventh round. The cornerback has since represented many NFL teams and earned more than 20 million euros during his playing years.
According to Carrie, she succeeded because she consistently practiced more than others. In 2016, he said that he used brain technology during training, which helped him train hard.
Carrie used the direct current stimulation of the brain, or tDCS method, where certain parts of the brain are stimulated with a weak electric current. Carrie used headphones developed by the American company Halo Neuroscience, which sent an electric current to the motor cortex. The motor cortex sends movement commands to the muscles, among other things.
– Halo’s device gives me a competitive advantage and helps me perform at the hardest level, the player beamed with the company’s promotional video.
Many athletes have tried
Carrie is not the only top athlete who has resorted to brain stimulation in recent years. In the United States, the method has aroused enthusiasm when representatives of the global sports power have considered ways to become faster, stronger and more skilled.
Brain stimulation has been used in the USA by, among others, NFL players, track and field athletes, golfers, cyclists and hill jumpers.
– In the USA, several commercial players sell stimulation devices and say they increase performance. These devices are sold to anyone, a Spanish doctor who studied the subject Alberto Carrio tells Urheilu.
Carrio, who works at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, says that there are various devices on the market made for brain stimulation. Some of them resemble conventional headphones or ear buds.
Research evidence on the effects of stimulation varies, but according to Carrio, brain stimulation can improve athletes’ concentration, efficiency and recovery. A swordsman familiar with the subject Niko Vuorinen is on the same lines.
– This can be potentially useful in all sports where there is a need to fight fatigue, maintain concentration or learn skills in general, says Vuorinen.
Vuorinen himself has not tested the brain technology in question, but believes that it could be of considerable benefit in a sport like fencing.
– There can be 400 participants in the world cup in men’s fencing. The races last a really long time. There are a lot of matches, but in a single match you can come to the turp in tens of seconds.
– The level of demand for the ability to concentrate and the fight against fatigue is extremely high. Such technology can significantly help performance during the race.
In Finnish sports, stimulation devices are still used by only a few. Leading expert of the Research Center for Competition and Elite Sports Ville Vesterinen knows a few individual Finnish athletes who have experimented with brain stimulation, but otherwise, according to him, the topic is quite unknown in Finland.
“Can be really dangerous”
Although several athletes have acted as the advertising face of brain technology in the USA, the topic is a kind of taboo in sports circles. Some don’t want their colleagues to know their training methods, some are afraid of having to explain their activities.
One problem is that there is still not enough reliable research data on the consequences of stimulating the brains of athletes.
– It is not known how the use of such technology will affect the athletes’ mental health and well-being in the long term. Athletes do not necessarily want to tell that they are using a method whose safety is not guaranteed, Spanish researcher Alberto Carrio thinks.
However, Carrio believes that the method will increase its popularity in the sports world. He says he’s sure there were athletes at the Summer Olympics in Paris who stimulated their brains.
There is a strong debate on the subject in scientific circles. Carrio advocates limiting brain stimulation in sports as long as the effects of the method are not properly known.
– If there are uncertainties about the use, the use of such technology should be monitored. Use should not be allowed unconditionally as is done in some countries now. This can be downright dangerous.
Many of Carrio’s colleagues agree. Some researchers have hoped that Wada, the World Anti-Doping Agency, would classify brain stimulation as a prohibited method, so-called neurodoping.
Niko Vuorinen is not as strict in his position. He reminds us that limiting brain stimulation is extremely difficult.
– Drug residues can be detected in a urine sample, but such detection is much more difficult. Then we end up with a very practical question, can something be prohibited if it cannot be credibly monitored?
Big questions for the future
Scientific circles have a lot of research ahead of them. Alberto Carrio is worried that the desire for success and medals blinds people and the well-being of the athletes becomes secondary.
– It is common knowledge that in many systems it is difficult for athletes to make independent decisions. When a substance or method that improves performance comes into elite sports, everyone rushes to use it. An athlete who would like to study the health risks of the method in more detail can find himself in a really difficult place.
Carrio says that now we cannot afford to make the same mistakes as in the wild doping years of the 1980s and 1990s. The desire to pursue success by any means later destroyed many human lives.
– The use of chemical doping has had terrible consequences for the health of athletes. We have to understand that this too can have unpleasant effects.
Sources: Nature, National Library of Medicine, Sports Illustrated, The Heart Dialogues