The sport is a part of our life. Some people participate in any sport events on
amateur level another on professional. In any sport competitions each athlete
wishes to be the first and to reach the goal. They are training strength and
endurance to obtain HIGH SPEED OF THEIR SPORT ACTION. From the Physiology the
speed of sport action means the speed of body muscles performance in any sport
action. But muscle performance or, more precisely, muscle cell contraction is
the final act of a very complicated physiological process of the brain-muscles
interaction system. Everybody knows that muscle’s work is planed, guided,
controlled and executed by the Central Nervous System and the brain. It is
interesting that regardless brain priority everybody (sportsman and coaches)
train muscles without any attempts to train the brain and its interactions with
muscles. In this article it would be an attempt to show an approach how to
train brain for training speed of sport actions.
The whole step-by-step physiological
process of muscle performance is described by the Physiology as the follows:
* The first nerve
signal (action potential/electrical charge) initiates the primary muscle cell
contraction. The propioceptors (sensors) -- tendons, bones and joints -- create
the signals of changing of the tension, positions of the joints in space and
rush the signals to the brain. Shortly the picture of the signals in the brain
is: Primary sensory cortex – Association sensory cortex – Premotor cortex –
Supplementary motor area – Primary motor cortex which sends signals to the
muscles for the next stage of contraction. The muscle cells, when they have
received the next nerve signal, are contracted again and again the
proprioceptors have reacted by signaling to the brain the new tension condition
in the muscles and new position of joints. These signals pass through the brain
and rush to the muscles for the next action. Such a feedback process will
continue until the muscles complete the job – to accomplish the performance.
It could be stated that
professional actions in any sport very much depend on the performance of the
interactions between the proprioceptors and the brain. The four main points
which influence on the speed of this process are:
1.
The speed of signal created inside the proprioceptors is about 10-20
msec.
2. The speed of the signals, which
run from the proprioceptors to the brain and back to the muscles, vary between
0.5-120 msec. or 1 to 270 mph. depending on various nerves lengths and
diameters.
3. The speed of analysis, integration and
formation of nerve signals into the brain for core muscles and working muscles
vary between 10 to 500 msec, depending on the need to coordinate the decision
with various parts of the brain, based on the complexity of the task.
4. The speed of the muscle cell contraction on
the nerve signal varies between 5 to 50 msec, depending on the muscle.
These four factors play the main role in determining
the speed of professional performance actions of an athlete in any sport, as
the time for any athlete’s action would be the sum of the time mentioned above,
varying between 84 msecond to 0.570 seconds. All large muscles involved in
locomotion and movement of the body, legs and arms have large diameter nerve
fibers around 10-20 microns and the nerve signal velocity around 100-120 meters
per second. This means the whole process would take the sum of times and would
be around 100 - 300 msec, depending on the training grade of nervous system.
This is a picture of the abstract sport action with a single muscle. In
reality the body of an athlete is moving and keeping the balance and
equilibrium. It means that the brain taking into account the signals from our
vestibular system and passes them through Cerebellum – Basal Ganglia – Thalamus
in to the Motor association cortex for analyzes and integration them with other
signals from our body. It is hard to forget that a huge volume of external
information our brain receives from our eyes. The signals from our eyes through
Thalamus go in to the process of integration with Motor association cortex. Our
brain is also taking care of our internal systems regarding blood pressure, glucose,
oxygen, hart rates, and so on. All the signals from our internal systems are
also integrated in to Motor association cortex and influence the
signals which go from the brain to muscles to produce the contraction.
Everybody knows that during the race when the oxygen level in the blood is down
an athlete cannot increase the speed of sport actions.
All the brain work is very much dependent to the
communication bonds between the brain parts which are mentioned above. Our
brain as any other energy balance system is functioning on the principal of
less spending energy for all its actions. An average person has same
communications between the brain parts involved in sport action but they are
not able to produce complicated sport actions like high jumping or pole jumping
because their brain is not able to control their muscles in the short time of
jumping process. Nobody could tell that weight lifters are week in muscles but
they are also not able to make high jump. Training, repetitions of sport actions
help to establish the brain bond communications for precise sport action. The
latest research results show that the brain cell – neurons – are able to
provide extra bonds with other neurons due to demands of necessary to fulfill
the task. THIS IS THE POINT TO TRAIN THE BRAIN to increase the speed of sport
actions.
The process, described above,
is actual as for DIRECT action as for REFLEX action. In the DIRECT action
an athlete is consciously controlling each movement he has been trained (i.e., riding bike, driving car, skiing, and
so on).A person consciously receives an image of the goal and the necessary
actions needed to control them. The excitation of the cortex and its brain
energy creates the action potentials which pass through the necessary brain
parts and PMC (Primary Motor Cortex) sends the signals to the muscles for their
performance to obtain the goal.
The REFLEX action means that the
primary signals - electric potentialities - appear in the body sensors and
proprioceptors in the process of interactions with an environment. Information
-- signals from all body muscles, tendons and joints -- is received and
analyzed by the brain and then rushed to the muscles for actions. In this
situation the consciousness is controlling only the global tendency vector to
reach the goal – to win the race. During the race an athlete is not thinking
about the right position of his arms, legs or stroke. He is racing to be the
first. All the physical action he is doing is an automatic regimen of Reflex
actions. The faster and sharper the signals from the sensors and proprioceptors;
the faster and sharper the process of analysis and integration into the brain;
the faster and more precise the muscle contractions the higher speed of the
athlete’s reactions and actions.
All training processes are going in the
DIRECT ACTION. A coach gives the task and an athlete executes a program. An
athlete creates the goal and image of the action in his CORTEX. Then the action
potentials rush through different parts of the brain for coordination and
balance, through the spinal cord to the core and then to other muscles. The
process is rather complicated and needed to be properly understood before considering the speed training of sport
action.
Let’s consider the direct action contraction of muscle. In the consciousness, a
person indicates a goal to do some action like service, punch, hit, stroke, and
so on. The excitation of the cortex creates the action potentials. The action
potentials are going along the nervous as impulses. Each impulse activates the
cells for their contraction. But from first impulse the cell contraction could
be approximately from 0 up to 5-10% of their maximum. The second impulse will
start activation not from 0 but from already achieved contraction and will
reach 10-20% of max. Such a process will do on until the cells are fully
contracted and muscle makes the task.
The Physiology describes two ways of increasing the strength. One way to
increase the strength of contraction is to increase the FREQUENCY of exciting
stimuli. It means the brain energy concentration or willpower which depends on
motivation. A person acts in emergency situation like saving kids from death in
car collision can lift a heavy car because the tremendous motivation. Another
means for increasing contractive strength and speed is to recruit more muscle
cells by increasing the number of activated motor units. A motor unit consists
of a motor neuron (end of nervous) and the muscle cells in innervates. All
these two ways is a pure function of the INTERNAL BRAIN ACTIVITY and could be
trained together with the brain.
The speed of a sport action would be depended up on the time of analyses and
integration in the brain and the speed of communication bonds between the brain
and muscles. The speed is established by natural genetic structure of the brain
and conditions of the Central Nervous System. The time needs for exciting
stimuli to pass from the brain to muscles could vary, because diameter of
nervous determines the speed of exciting stimuli along the nervous. So each
person has his own natural individual nervous speed which is rather constant as
any other parameters of our body systems for an example the number of the red
blood cells in our blood which are responsible for oxygen delivery. It is well
known fact that to increase the sport achievements an athlete goes in high
levitation conditions and trains there where the oxygen amount is lower than in
the planes. The intensive training in low oxygen conditions presses and
demanded our organism to increase the number of the red cells in our blood. All
nations who live in high mountings have also higher blood cell number in
comparison with who lives on plane. This is an ADOPTATION LAW which helps all
living species to adoptee to the changing environment and stays alive. So to
train the speed of sport action the same principal as ADAPTATION LAW should be
used. The high speed continues exercises could demand from our organism to
increase the number of communication bonds in the brain and the diameters of
nervous as natural body reactions and adaptation due to continues high speed
disturbances from the outside. Our nerve cells – neurons and our nervous system
including brain and CNS as any other our body cells and systems COULD BE
TRAINED as they should follow the adaptation low due to a changing environment.
This is the base of the evolution of all living pieces.
Each sport action is a very complicated synchronized process with many
different muscles and systems. So our brain should make goal, plan, analyses,
integration and time synchronization for all muscles and systems involved in
any sport action. Our brain has established order of muscles contraction and
the speed of their contractions to produce sport action. What would
happen if a muscle contracts earlier or later of synchronized process? An
athlete would get a trauma. What would happen if a muscle contracts faster or
slower than it is necessary due to synchronized process? An athlete would get a
trauma. So when an athlete makes a physical action to reach the goal, THE
BRAIN HAS TO ESTABLISH THE PLAN OF THE SPEED OF MUSCLES CONTRACTIONS BASED ON
REALITY AND POSSIBILITY TO KEET THIS SPEED AND FOLLOWS IT PRESICELY TO COMPLETE
THE SPORT ACTION WITHOUT TRAUMAS. It looks like that in the DIRECT action
when our brain creates plan and control the speed of muscles contraction the
process of the speed training could be in the area of increasing the number of
repetitions to get the higher speed but up to the limit of its natural
possibility of the CNS. If an athlete makes a numbers of repetitions to
increase the speed of sport action he is doing well but the number of
repetitions should be in thousand times higher than in any direct action
exercises.
In the DIRECT action one high speed sport action for example a punch of boxer,
will last 0.1 or 0.2 sec. This is a single action is managed, organized,
provided and controlled by the brain. It is really high speed signal action but
not in continues regime. In such situation brain and nervous system CAN NOT BE
TRAINED, as the whole process is going under the brain control and supervision
based on the natural speed ability of the person’s nervous system. Usual repetitions
of numerous punches will help but not be enough to train the speed of boxers
punch.
The speed training can
occur when a person creates a situation that presses the brain, nervous and
muscles to work in extreme fast and unpredictable conditions in CONTINUES
PROCESS. It can be done only in the REFLEX ACTION, when outside disturbances
can continuously change the situation of the balance, equilibrium, movement,
resistance and press the brain, nervous system and muscles to work in unusually
high speed actions ( more precisely REACTIONS ) or otherwise the person can
stop. Each time one’s arm is moved by the machine the perceptual threshold
(sensitivity level of sensors) is triggering the arm’s proprioceptors to create
the signals. The signals run to the brain, interact with the brain components
and return back to the muscles. If the arm is moved for one second 40 inches
(one meter) and the proprioceptors will create a signal every one-tenth of an
inch (sensitivity level) we are generating 400 separate signals from EACH
MUSCLE INVOLVED IN THE MOVEMENT INNITIATED BY THE MACHINE. The brain will and
should react on each signal and will send the first signals to THE CORE MUSCLES
and after the core muscles contract additional signals will run to the primary
muscles. The Physiology calls it “the reflex arc”.Remembering that the reflex action exercises
can create from 1000 to 10 000 reflex arcs per second (it means punches per
second), an athlete can get the unique possibility really press the organism to
function with tremendous high speed reactions. It means to train the brain,
nervous system and muscles in their interactions which can increase the speed
of sport action as the results of body adaptation to high speed reaction on
continuous disturbances from outside. That is why the reflex action exercises
CAN TRAIN THE SPEED OF SPORT ACTIONS.
Based on the above it could be stated that the REFLEX
ACTION creates the possibility to train our brain and the Central Nervous
System in their interactions with muscles which increase the speed of sport
actions with the assistance of special exercises and machines.
All reflex action exercises can be done only by power
machines with motors (electric, pneumatic, hydraulic) which are able to create enough
forth for power disturbances of human body. All exercises are very simple and
much easy to complete in comparison with exercises in direct action as they are
not occupied the brain and not taken the brain energy. Everyone can easily use
a simple treadmill for reflex action exercises. The catchword for reflex action
exercises is “LET THE MACHINE WORK WITH MY CLEVER BODY THAN MY BODY WILL WORK
WITH STUPID MACHINE”.
I have created the principals
for revolutionary new machines for brain training. I have designed 15
applications for this new wave of brain training, which could be easily
patented and could be sent for information. The existing cardio and resistance
machines also could be easily and slightly changed for this new type of exercise
and training. I have developed a method designed just for top level athletes to
increase the speed of their reactions, especially in combination with heavy workloads.
My system includes some 365 different exercises for training the propioceptors,
reflexes and brain, which are described in my book, “Brain Training for Healthy
Life and Sport Achievement.”
Wouldn’t you want your athletes to greatly
enhance their performance – without having to consciously think about it?
It is often happened that a very experience athlete in any sport has decided to
finish his sport career not because he is not able to produce high level
performance but because an athlete (more precisely his brain) is deadly tired
of doing the same exercises for decades of years to keep him in shape. That is
why my new system of REFLEX ACTION exercises will be very effective as training
is on consciousness free base without using the brain energy.
I am ready to meet and discuss any kind of cooperative
business venture for implementing this new approach to the brain training
process. I assure you these methods will result in significantly greater sport
performance.