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110% IMPROVING ATHLETES’ PERFORMANCE THROUGH BRAIN FITNESS

SEBASTIAN HARMSEN

INDEX

VOCABULARY CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2 - GOALS AND OBJECTIVES CHAPTER 3 - AUDIENCE AND MARKETS CHAPTER 4 - RESEARCH CHAPTER 5 - PROJECTS CHAPTER 6 - BIBLIOGRAPHY

VOCABULARY

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

Since the day this thesis started many things have changed. The topic changed from smart clothing for athletes to improving athletes’ performance through mind itness. This is “The thesis of my thesis”. Now that everything is narrowed down, their is the need to start investigating in depth what it actually means to understand the mind. There is a great deal of research on sports psychology, EEG for athletes, mind exercises to improve focusing, and it is just amazing everything that is being done in this area. To make sure that this point gets across, here is a list of some terms that will be referred to throughout this thesis, in the way these are interpreted here.

Athletes’ state of scious is

Happiness: A balanced mind where the subconfree of negative emotions.

Focus: The athlete’s ability to maintain his/her brain in an alert state while competing or training.

enced by it. What are the causes and ef- Relationships: Athletes’ abilfects of pressure in an athlete’s life? ity to get along with other teammates.

Subconscious mind: The side of the Social Life: Athletes’ ability to keep healthy rebrain that stores memories and feelings lationships with people outside their sports team. that are not currently thought about but that can be triggered at speciic moments. High-Performance Athlete: An athlete who competes.

Breathing: Athletes’ technique to slow down their heart rate, send oxy- Fear and Hate: This is what athletes feel gen to their muscles and calm down. when they are threatened by another player or team. Commonly confused by saySports Psychology: Psychology specialized ing: “I hate that team” when they are acin sports which purpose is to improve the tually saying: “I am afraid of this team athlete’s performance. “Sports psychology because they might actually beat us.” can even help people off the playing ield.

The same strategies that sports psycholo- Anxiety and Depression: Most comgists teach athletes — relaxation tech- mon symptoms in athletes who canniques, mental rehearsals and cognitive not handle the pressure of competirestructuring, for example — are also use- tion and who do not have much support ful in the workplace and in other settings.”

EEG: Electroencephalography.

SenTraining: The different types of training the sors that track down brainwaves. athlete does whether it is physical or mental.

Mind-controlled Objects: Objects or apVisualization: Technique used by sports plications controlled with an EEG sensor psychologists to help athletes to get their with the purpose of exercising the mind. mind in the game and project before completing the exact movements and rou- Performance: Athletes’ level of competition tines they will be doing while competing. Mind Fitness: How it is an athlete menPressure: Mostly referred to men- tally to support moments of great prestal pressure and how athletes are inlu- sure and perform to his/her best.

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VOCABULARY /

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This past year has been a great experience. This thesis started out speciically in smart clothing concerning athletes, and everything done and investigated was about intelligent clothes. Later on it was igured out that most of this idea was for improving the athlete’s performance. Therefore, when the interviews were started, it was realized that there was so much more to design for athletes than just smart clothes. Since then, this thesis changed its focus to improving athlete’s performance. As the research advanced, the desire to upgrade everyone’s health increased, instead of just focusing on smart clothes.

Hence, this thesis was started by deining the Elite Athlete in everybody. This research showed that there are three types of athletes: The elite athlete, who is someone that competes and does twelve or more hours of exercise per week; the high-performance athlete, who does not necessarily compete but takes exercising very seriously and who probably does eight or more hours of training per week; and inally, the everyday athlete, who enjoys sports and has an excellent physical condition and who does four or more hours of exercise per week.

Afterwards, it was realized that helping athletes is fantastic, but there is still so much to be done. Therefore, this thesis was narrowed down to where it was thought it would make the most signiicant impact. The U.S.A. Olympic team tried out something similar for the 2016 Olympics. They separated their athletes’ training into different groups. The irst group had 100% physical training. The second group performed

75% physical training and 25% mental training. The third group performed 50% physical training and 50% mental training. Finally, the fourth group had 25% physical training and 75% mental training. All this was completed two weeks before the Olympics.

The theory behind this is that an athlete at that level of performance is already incredibly it and maybe does not need to get stronger to be able to do his performance, due to the physical training hours per day for competing one to twenty minutes, depending on the sport. The barrier is one’s mind. At this point, competitions are won with mental strength and focus, not with physical strength, so this thesis was then focused on Mind Fitness.

The irst product consists in a wearable headset called Zenith. Using EEG technology, a hat was created with EEG sensors inside to read athletes’ brainwaves while they are training.

In this way, the athlete’s state of mind can be tracked down when competing, training, relaxing and even resting, and the brain throughout those phases can be analyzed to determine in which areas he/she needs improvements.

The second is an application that links to the Zenith wearable. Through this application, brainwaves can be tracked down and the application will recommend exercises to strengthen those brain muscles that need

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

extra work. The experience was gamiied to make those exercises fun. The idea about Zenith is to have fun by playing games in the cellphone or tablet while working those muscles in the brain that will help to stay focused in those moments during competition or training that need the extra work.

Once the athlete has deined whether he wants to use this headset or not, he will get to the main screen where he will see his daily activity, improvements, and accomplished workouts and trophies. Here the athlete will be able to choose what type of exercise he wants to do to strengthen different parts of the mind. This is very important because every person is different. Therefore, our minds evolve and strengthen different parts. This application is like a gym for the athlete’s brain.

The third product is an experience called Stealth Mind. In this experience, athletes came to the thesis’ station to try different types of mental exercises. Some of the simple ones are visualization and meditation techniques to focus on what an athlete has to do while competing. Other exercises include using an EGG headset to control a cube with his mind or lying a drone using his mind. The idea of this experience is to teach the athlete how to visualize. The stronger the athlete’s visualization brain muscles are, the more precise his focus will become because his

performance will be set on his subconscious. while maintaining their full mental health.

Finally, the fourth product is a Stealth Station. The Stealth Station is designed as an additional station in different places such as gyms for encouraging athletes to go into mind itness cubicles as another workout for exercising their minds. The Stealth Station is a service for the athlete that is located in gyms, yoga centers, meditation centers, sports facilities, and stadiums. For this thesis, there is a partnership with teams having a history of using Sports Psychology that is sponsored by Mind Fitness brands, such as Inscape, Lululemon, and Emotiv. Sports psychologists design the exercises, and there are stations with different brain exercises to help the athlete to reach his optimal performance potential. Examples of this include focus, relaxation, visualization, and breathing.

Therefore, in this thesis four products are included: First, the Stealth Performance which is a hat with EEG sensors for reading athletes’ brainwaves throughout their days and training. Second, the Stealth Focus which is an application that works with or without the Stealth Performance for training the athlete’s brain in order to achieve greater focus and precision during his training and competition.

Third, the Stealth Mind that is an experience created to teach athletes how to use visualization and to focus on exercises for improving their performance. Finally, and fourth, the Stealth Station that is designed for places such as gyms or meditation centers for providing a space for athletes to exercise their minds.

The sports psychologist at each station will adapt the exercise to each athlete depending on his/her needs. The irst users will be contacted by reaching sports psychologists that work for big teams. A subscription model will be available for accessing to these services and applications. Product sales of EEG and mindcontrolled objects (drones, cars, and chairs, etcetera), for customers who wish to repeat the experience at home will also be available.

The vision within this thesis is to help all athletes to reach their 100% performance level

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CHAPTER 2

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

PURPOSE There is one main goal in this thesis, to improve athletes’ performance, but, there are many ways to get there. There are millions of dollars invested every year on sports technology, specialists and athletes with the only purpose of improving athlete’s performance. There is technology that is being used for rehabilitation, medical purposes, nutrition, training routines; heartbeat monitors everything that might be an asset to the athlete. In this thesis it has been decided to approach this just from the mind perspective and each of the products created here has a different way of reaching that same goal.

The purpose of these products is to analyze the athlete’s brain in order to help him or her to understand it better and to train it in order to perform better. Each of the four products is an individual way to reach an optimum level of performance through brain itness. When used, the athlete’s mind will be able to stay focused and clear for longer periods of time, the athlete will be able to visualize what is going inside the court from the outside, he/she will be able to help, and guide teammates and they will feel better throughout their day.

Even though there are plenty of EEG headsets and EEG headsets applications in the market, this is the only one designed speciically for athletes. The goal of Zenith is to understand what is going inside the athlete’s brain throughout the day including his workouts, so that he can understand what section of his brain is working more

GOALS & OBJECTIVES / 11

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than the others. In this way, the application will have recommended certain workouts to strengthen certain parts of his brain which will make his brain itter. The goal here is not just to strengthen the mind but to focus that strength

in the athlete’s daily life and sport activities thus allowing him/her to perform better.

Stealth Station is more of a business model on how to reach more people with this technology. The goal is to pair up with gym brands in

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

order to offer this service to their clients so that Stealth can reach as many people as possible. Once people get used to using the brain itness station, their daily life will have changed because their mind is now different, it is more aware of everything, and as an individual, he will start seeing things differently because he will understand how his brain sees, not how he was used to seeing them.

Stealth Mind has a similar goal since the idea is that they will also be using Stealth Performance and Stealth Focus.

The goal here is to reach younger athletes who have no idea of what brain itness is or what can be achieved with it. The idea here is to make brain itness so fun and competitive that students will want to compete on it, thus, helping students to improve their grades, social life and performance in their sports.

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CHAPTER 3

AUDIENCE & MARKETS

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

MARKETS Even though this thesis is very speciic for improving athlete’s performance through brain itness, there is much around that comes together to make this possible. This thesis tackles three markets inside a huge system which is the athlete’s world. Many markets play a role in this economy. In this thesis the focus is placed on two users: high-performance athletes who compete and high-performance athletes who do not but who still take their exercise very seriously. This means that these people are willing to invest money in order to improve in a certain sport or personal itness.

The irst product comes from the technology market. The advanced Zenith Wearable is a hat with EEG sensors used for reading athletes’ brainwaves throughout their day. Here, many companies will have to align in order to make this product. First, there is the designer who designs the product, then this product needs to be torn apart and be made piece by piece; the pattern of this hat has to be cut out and assembled together in order to build the actual hat. Then, the sensors need to be applied and soldered. and once the product is assembled, in order to work it needs to be programed. Finally, after doing some user testing the product goes out to the market.

The application needs three people to be made: First, a designer who understands the purpose of an EEG headset for designing the user’s journey in order to get out as much information as possible. Second, a sports psychologist working to-

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Derek Jones August 16, 2016 Bringing Technology to Life

gether with EEG experts, for developing exercises in order to improve brain itness; here a designer is also needed to design the games and exercises. Finally, a graphic designer and a coder are needed in order to make this application look awesome and to run smoothly.

In Stealth Mind the market is narrowed down. After testing the irst part of the experience and having people realize that it actually helps the athlete to improve his focus by understanding how meditation, visualization and positive talk works, this product is aiming to hit all high schools and colleges that have strong sports teams with outstanding athletes to create a brain itness culture.

The market here is directed to young athletes but it should be encouraged by schools

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and colleges. Students, schools and colleges will be buying this technology to improve their athlete’s performance.

Finally, the Stealth Station is a concept applied directly to a market already exploited: gyms, yoga and meditation centers.

Even though companies innovate every year on inding a better and more creative ways to bring new clients to their facilities by changing up the workout style or even the infrastructure, there is still space for innovation. The Stealth Station is a station inside these places in an area where people can inish their work out and go to these capsules that block sound and light and create a perfect, comfortable seat to meditate and work on brain itness.

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

AUDIENCE & MARKETS / 17

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

AUDIENCE This thesis started out speciically on smart clothing for athletes. All the efforts and investigations were in relation to smart clothes. Then it was igured out that most of these ideas were to improve athletes’ performance. So, when the interviews started it was realized that there was so much more to design than just smart clothes for athletes. Since then, this thesis focus switched to athletes’ performance improvement. As the research advanced, the wish to improve everybody’s health increased, instead of just focusing on smart clothes. Hence, the thesis was started by deining the high-performance athlete in everybody. Finally, after this thesis’ irst stages evolved, it was decided that the thesis of this thesis will be about elite athletes’ performance improvement through mind itness. This will help the athlete to improve his focus on training and competition through hard times when there is much pressure, and to work out their minds.

The research done showed that there are three types of athletes: The elite athlete is someone who competes and does ten or more hours of exercise per day.

The athlete is someone who does not necessarily compete but takes exercising very seriously; he probably exercises eight or more hours per week. Finally, there is the everyday athlete who enjoys sports and has a good physical condition, who does four or more hours of exercise per week. These design solutions are meant to help these athletes to improve their health, sport and everyday life.

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Aliaksei Zharnasek

Let us imagine an important presentation throughout someone’s career. It could be a thesis, a big business meeting, a special client; everyone has felt that pressure of something coming up as well as feeling and hoping that everything is going to work out well. In the case of a thesis, the aim is for a good grade and recognition; if this is a big business meeting this person would like to hear that the company is doing well and that he makes sure people understand why we are is doing whatever he is doing; and if referred to a special client he will be hoping to close that contract with.

In the case of high-performance athletes, this is the feeling they have every time they compete but adding to the pressure they have is the competitive part where they have to perform their best, which actually means beating the other guy in the same team or he is out. This

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pressure is sometimes treated by a specialized psychologist but most of the time it is not and many of the athletes do not know what to do or who to go to. Some of them get so hardly hit by the mental pressure that their performance starts to decline. Then, the big question is how can we help to improve this issue?

Over 24 athletes and coaches were interviewed for this area. A large number of these athletes had much in common when it came to stories about their experiences as high-performance athletes. All the interviews started in a similar way, with everyone speaking about their pre-seasonal trainings. Most of them had to lose the weight they gained over the break, get their muscles activated and the majority started with a gym routine to burn fat and gain strength, mostly working on speed, power and strength. Then they would continue on to season training which involves a little less gym

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

training and more technical training regarding the sport they were competing in. They would focus a great deal on strategy and technique and just repeat this continuously until the workout was implanted in their body and brains. Finally, during competition week, they would just review those areas that they needed to work on and two days before basically just warm-up and stretch and do some visualization exercises in order to get their minds ready for the competition. From all these Interviews it has been possible to extract insights that will help to develop work for solving, through these experts’ real problems in the ield, with exercises that vary depending on the sport.

Competition athletes train all year-round.

They only get about four weeks off every year and then they start with pre-seasonal training to get into shape before the actual season starts. While they are on “vacation” they still need to do some sort of workout whether it is yoga, cross it, gym or anything that keeps them active. Their training varies depending on what part of the year they are in. All training is focused with one main goal: the best possible performance for the competition date. This training involves a very high itness level to achieve and a higher one to maintain it. When it comes to sports psychology, most of them have a psychologist if they belong to a team but it was found out through this research that a lot of individual athletes

do not use a sports psychologist. When big tournaments like the Olympics arrive, the entire team has a sports psychologist, no matter what discipline the athlete is participating in.

The US Olympic Committee started realizing that those athletes who had a greater mental training while approaching the competition, actually performed better. The group with a 25% physical training and 75% mental training performed the best. This is when it was realized that mind itness is very important.

Since there was some wondering about their struggles through these experiences, especially after experiencing my own during training when I was younger, the athletes were asked to perceive if there was some sort of relationship between one athlete and another. Some of them struggled with nutrition, some others with motivation, waking up early, the team’s pressure, staying always on top, and several other problems. Aliaksei said:

“Competition never ends. There is always someone who wants to take you down and you are always someone’s target. Plus, sponspors, your team, your coach, your country expects you to excel everytime. It’s hard to stay at the top”.

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

It was a constant pressure on him that never ended. It started out as qualifying for nationals, then qualifying for the team, afterwards qualifying for competitions and inally qualifying for international competitions. In the case of those athletes interviewed that possess World titles, it was even harder because team coaches assumed that they should repeat everything again next year. Their sponsors were expecting a similar success every season and basically this became their life. Delina Wiese said: “Every year it gets harder and harder, there is a greater competition and they want to beat me because I am at the top; it is a constant pressure.”

Therefore, the most interesting area of every athlete is the psychological side. Jose Visconti, a 74-year-old psychologist who works at the Argentinian Olympic Federation and who treats over 170 athletes every year, said many interesting facts, among which he mentioned that by the end of the day, it is up to every athlete to do whatever he is supposed to be doing. He divided the interview into four parts corresponding each to his teachings to the athletes (assuming that they do not have any other psychological problem): visualization, routine, auto-conversation and personal goals. The most important part is visualization. Athletes have to enter into a meditative state before every training session and every competition, which then falls into the second Top: Jose Visconti - Latino Competition Lima Peru with his wife Alisia- Personal Pic Middle: Jose Visconti coaching Argentinian Rally Driver Bottom: Jose Visconti with rally team

stage, the routine. The idea of the visualization exercise is to close one’s eyes, put some soft music on and visualize the things to be done. So, for example, if someone is a race driver, he must visualize the track, every corner, every turn, every shift, and walk his mind through everything he will be doing on that track that day, so when he goes out there, the actions are imprinted in his subconscious, he is not thinking about them. Jose said:

“If I tell you to show me how you eat soup and how you carry the soup from the plate to your mouth and I say DON’T SPILL because you have never thought about this, you might actually spill, but when your subconscious takes over, it does it perfectly”.

Athletes’ performing works the same way.

If they think about it, they will spoil it up; it is when their subconscious takes over that they can take it to the next stage because they have trained their subconscious to do so. The only way to do this is the following:

“The routine is extremely important.... Doing the same routine every day means your subconscious will come on-stream, learn it, and try to improve it so that when competition day arrives, your mind controls your body without the athlete having to think about what he/she is doing and basically driving in autopilot”, Jose Visconti says.

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Ryan Dodd coaching one of his young students in Jumping. Personal Pic from in Facebook

Next come the auto-conversation stage, which is talking to oneself or to one’s subconscious in a positive way. In this stage the athlete unconsciously has a positive feedback which makes him feel conident and happy, hence producing endomorphism, which in the long run provides him more energy and motivation for his training. It also helps him to relax and to go over things in his mind, technique, position, speed, power, and to go over his training.

The inal stage is on personal goals. Jose Visconti said: “Not goals of winning the gold medal, but personal goals like beating your personal record, or getting every track timerun under 1.054 minutes, personal goals that will help you to get motivated as an athlete. It

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applies for training and competition”. These personal goals will help the athlete to feel successful, allowing him to improve faster.

The main users for this thesis are high-performance athletes. These athletes either take their sport very seriously or compete professionally. They are very centered on the sport they practice, and their life’s goal consists on improving their performance in that sport.

They spend endless hours training to improve and put their 100% effort into it. This kind of athlete would be the main user because they are the ones with the experience to share herewith. This thesis’ goal is to ind out how they train their minds in order to improve their performance especially under pressure situations.

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

The second user would be a sports psychologist. The thesis’ product would be created from the research and information that will be obtained from them. The idea is that they would use the product to help the athletes that they are treating and advising. These doctors work with a team or teams and sometimes with individual athletes. They usually have private sessions with them or work with the athletes directly in the ield. Some of the psychologists that I interviewed also compete in some sport or have competed at some point in their lives.

This is great because they can relate to their patients and speak with them from experience.

The third user would be the team coaches.

Not all teams can afford a sports psychologist, so the coach should also be aware of mind training. They know their players and what they are going through. They can tell which players are lacking and falling out.

They are also aware of those players who are performing great. They will not only train them but will also give them advice.

Some of them are very aware of nutrition and psychology; others just focus on the physical part of the training and do not mention the health or mind side of the training. They would like tools in order to help their students to improve their performance and their mind itness.

This thesis is not only designed for athletes who compete. The ultimate user could also be an athlete who takes his sport very seriously but who does not necessarily compete.

These kinds of athletes still want to improve at their performance and take it very seriously. If they are offered a product that has proven to improve athletes’ performance, they will probably take it. These athletes have a job or they are studying, and they have more of a social life than competition athletes do but still have a high-performance level.

These are the main four users who will be providing more insights for this thesis about their experiences and who will help to focus this thesis on mind itness through the use of psychological exercises, meditation and EEG In the interviews that were performed for this (Electroencephalography) and mind exerthesis, the coaches had similar answers in some cises in order to improve the mind’s capabilareas. They all want to have a positive impact ity to focus on performing better in sports. on the student. Some students are not so easy to reach or to connect with. Ryan Dodd said:

“You have to get to know your students inside and outside the field to create a bond. Then, you have to find a path to understand him/her in order to create this positive impact and help them to find their path.”

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CHAPTER 4

RESEARCH

The Future of Sports site: http://futureof.org/sports-2016/machine-medicine/

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

EARLY EXPLORATIONS At irst, the exploration was on how to improve a elite athlete’s performance. This was researched and analyzed from every possible different angle. Several training ways through applications and trying to ind ways of coming up with more personalized exercises for that speciic athlete and his/her sport were explored. Likewise, a highperformance athlete consultancy for athletes who cannot afford an entire team to help them to improve was also explored. Then, a rehabilitation smart accessory to help athletes heal faster in such a way that they could do their rehab at home and still follow his therapist’s instructions and track down improvement was designed. Another area explored was nutrition as well as ways to improve athletes’ nutrition that will make it easier to eat healthy. Finally, all of this combined with sports psychology in order to focus on a goal and actually achieving it. This is some of the research done for this thesis.

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USER INTERVIEWS Athletes that used to compete and who now they just exercise for fun were interviewed.

When talking about what would be the “ideal” product for an athlete, they all wanted the same thing. This product is smart clothes, both pants and shirt, which can perform the following tasks: First, smart clothes that can map out the athlete’s body into an application. In this way it can be seen exactly how his body is moving through an exercise. If the application or computer program is designed for a speciic sport, and in order to improve by comparing to the best, the athlete can ix his technique, posture, and compare to other athletes. The second feature that is critical for an athlete is muscle use. Smart clothes that detect what muscles they are using (similar to Athos technology) and that can detect muscle tension, this will tell the athlete which are the tired muscles and which need extra work to strengthen those muscles around the ones that he is using for a speciic sport. With this technology people who are doing a sport for fun will not need a personal trainer or coach to help them to improve, and for the professional teams that have personal trainers and coaches this would help them to get exact data and help them to improve. Finally, the usual, heartbeat, breath (lung capacity) and calorie count.

Another interesting fact that came up is that

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with this technology it can be perceived which muscles are extremely tired or detect fatigue. “Some muscles work on different exercises and you are not aware of it”, says Paola, who is an athletes’ physiotherapist in Peru; this would be a huge step in preventing injuries. According to Alfonso Garcia Miro, Sporting Cristal Director (a professional Peruvian soccer team) much money is being invested in this ield, so their players can last longer, play longer and retire injury free.

Alfonso had some interesting insights about working with Sporting Cristal He used to be a player and then continued staying in the team for its improvement; later on, he climbed to the Director position. He has constant meetings with the team’s nutritionist, psychologist, physiotherapist, and coaches where they discuss not only on how to improve but also on how to preserve their players’ health, not just throughout the season but also after they retire. They are currently working with a company named Catapult that focuses on improving elite athlete’s performance through smart gear. They can track down speed, impact, strength and movement and they are still working on improving this technology. He said: “Even though our training routines keep changing and evolving, this smart gear can help us to focalize our workouts on independent players depending on what they need”, which would help each player individually.

The next outstanding interview was with Keith, an Olympic Athlete and second place medalist in fencing. He is also the co-founder of Physiclo, a sport wearable compression pants company that helps training. These pants create resistance through compression, making the athlete’s work harder, so when he takes them off, he feels light and strong. Keith also agreed that the “ideal” would be what was described in paragraph one. Of course, many brands are investing much money so that this would be possible someday (not so far away if Athos technology advancements are seen). He said something very interesting: “There’s a lot of tech out there, and people are trying to make it better, but maybe the solution is to grab what is out there and change the use”. And that is so true; if someone grabs Athos technology, the smart pants and shirt, and change the application the way it reads information, the muscle usage information can be redirected to be applied to speciic sports and the application can help to work around it. Of course, Athos is more interested in the common user, so their technology can be used for every sport, not just for one. Another interesting insight from Keith was that not many athletes do massages and relaxing therapy, which is a great way to prevent injuries. He also said that the lack of sleep, bad nutrition, not warming up and not stretching can increase the injury chances. The good news is that these things, except for nutrition,

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

can be tracked down through smart clothes. really close on doing something like that. It detects tense muscles which can help to preAnother product that came up in the interviews vent injuries. This application just needs to be was the Meditation Helmet which was de- modiied in order to suit her needs and focus signed together with Ayse last semester within the sensors on the neck area. But if an athlete this thesis frame. Jose Visconti, psychologist knows which muscles he is using for a specifof the Argentinian Olympic Federation, said ic sport or exercise, he also knows which ones this was an amazing tool for athletes to use in he is not using, which could be great because order to perform visualization exercises and the athlete can start working on those muscles. meditation techniques which would help them to meditate anywhere. When this idea was Another product that is being worked on this pitched to some athletes, they loved it. Keith thesis is the smart knee brace. According to said this would have deinitely been useful Mike, my personal coach in the Athletic and in competition days. Juan Carlos Cuglievan, Swim Club local gym, this would help a lot Senior Slalom second place World Champi- of people who have an injured knee and still on, said he always meditates and has a hard workout. In effect, this would avoid injutime doing it when there is too much noise or ries. This knee brace vibrates when the knee people around. He actually requested one of is bending, and the vibration is telling to these meditation helmets and also requested a stop. Then, it vibrates again when the leg is meditation pillow to sit on, because the ones stretched, again telling to stop. Jerry, a prothat exist are not suitable, according to Juan fessional body builder, also had some knee Carlos. This is a possible new area of design. problems and cannot wait to test this out. He said: “The athletes don’t know what they need Delina Wiese, who used to be a profession- until you put the product in front of them and al water skier, had a disc replacement in her they realize that they actually do need it.” neck due to some hard falls in slalom; she had surgery about 10 years ago and could never In water sports, a few water skiers and a few compete again. Now she bikes, swims and surfers were interviewed. In this category, practices slalom skis for fun but sometimes are found Julio Vignati and Guillermo Gonher neck starts hurting again. She said: “I zalez, Peruvian surfers, and Ryan Dodd, curwant a piece of technology that could tell me rent World record holder in long jump water in advance that your neck will hurt if you keep skiing. Something interesting was that they pushing like this.” The Athos Smart Clothes is came up with the same technology explained

in the irst paragraph but applied to a wetsuit. This would require the technology to be waterproof, but if this is accomplished, then these wetsuits could be used for surfing, water skiing, wake boarding, wake surfing, diving, spear ishing, swimming, sailing, and any other water-involved sport!

It is deinitely a huge market. Sports technology is growing day by day and this technology will actually help athletes to achieve more and to take better care of them. The smart clothes that detect movement by mapping out the body while detecting muscles use and tension is something everyone wants, including surfers and skiers to be applied on wetsuits. The meditation helmet, although not everyone wants but might consider using it once they appreciate it. The knee brace can help to prevent injuries; this is something athletes with knee surgery will deinitely use.

This will be known once user testing begins.

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

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Designing Smart Clothes for Elite Athletes to Enhance Performance and Prevent Injuries While investigating about elite athlete’s performance, different aspects that inluence athletes were encountered, therefore, interviews were broken into four different types of specialists. These four areas were: Nutrition, Smart Clothes, Athletes Training and Psychology. Experts were contacted and interviewed for each of the four areas of investigation and through these experts’ interviews it has been possible to extract insights that will help to develop the work for solving real problems in the ield.

The irst area of investigation was dedicated to nutrition. Plenty of athletes have a really hard time staying on a strict diet. Most of them just have a pretty good idea of what is healthy and what is not but they do not really care that much as long as they stay in good shape and have enough energy when they are training and competing. Of course, some do care much and follow a nutrition plan.

Carmen Quinteros is a nutritionist working for the Peruvian Olympic Team. She said that 80% of an athlete’s performance is affected by what and how he eats. Then the interview went on speciics. During each different phase an athlete goes through he has a different focalized diet. Whether he is in pre-season, in season or competing, the body needs different

32

foods for each activity and this differs for every sport. The anatomy of the athlete’s body is also deined by what he/she eats. If he/she is not eating correctly, it will affect his/her performance. Finally, she also speciied how easy it is for athletes to get dehydrated. They sweat so much during exercise that plenty of athletes do not recover from hard trainings just because they do not consume enough water. Carmen said: “It is proven that athletes start performing better once they start a nutrition plan.”

The second area of investigation was the athletes. Over 12 athletes and coaches were interviewed for this area. Many of the athletes had much in common when it came to stories about their experiences as elite athletes. All the interviews started in a similar way. Everyone was speaking about their pre-seasonal trainings. Most of them had to lose the weight gained over the break, get their muscles activated and likewise most of them started with a gym routine to burn fat and gain strength, mostly working on speed, power and strength, considering that all these exercises vary depending on the sport. Then they would continue on to the season training which goes to little less gym training and more technical training regarding the sport they were competing in. They would focus much more on strategy and technique and just repeat con-

stantly until the workout was implanted in their body and brains. Finally, during competition week, they would just review any areas that they needed to work on and two days before just basically warm-up and stretch and do some visualization exercises in order to get their minds ready for the competition.

Since there was some wondering about their struggles through these experiences - especially after considering my own during training when I was younger- they were inquired in order to see if there was some sort of relation between one athlete and another. Some of them struggled with nutrition, they said that nutrition was the hardest thing for them because it was not easy to cook every day since it required waking up extremely early.

Aliaksei said: “Competition never ends.” It was a constant pressure for him that never ended, which started out as qualifying for nationals, then qualifying for the team, afterwards for competitions and inally for international competitions. It was just a constant pressure that never ended. For those athletes with a World title that were interviewed, it was even harder because the team coaches assumed that these athletes were going to repeat everything again next year. Their sponsors were also expecting a similar success every season and basically this became their life.

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

Another thing that is a big concern in the athlete’s life is fatigue and injuries. When anybody trains as hard as these athletes do, he lives his life in constant tiredness. So, athletes think their bodies can just keep on going and that they can keep pushing on and that everything will be ine. Since there is no real way of measuring muscle exhaustion, athletes get injured all the time due to fatigued muscles.

The idea of smart clothing has been explored.

Some interviews were made to people like Alexia Cohen, who is a master’s student at SVA’s Products of Design in Products of Design, who also worked for BFDA (Brooklyn Fashion Design Accelerator) and who has some experience with smart clothing. The technology being explored in this area is amazing. So many different things can be done, from touch sensors to leads to smart fabrics that compress or decompress, and this is just a huge area of investigation. Regarding the issues athletes are going through it is believed that smart clothes could be one of the possible solutions.

Finally, the most interesting area is the psychology behind every athlete. Jose Visconti is a 70-year-old psychologist who works at the Argentinian Olympic Federation and treats over 170 athletes. He stated many interesting facts, but that at the end of the day, it is up to every athlete to do what they are supposed to be doing. He broke the interview into four parts: Visualization, Routine,

Auto-Conversation

and

Personal

Goals. or to the subconscious in a positive way. In this way unconsciously, one has a positive The irst part was visualization. Athletes have feedback which makes one more conident to go into a meditative state before every and happy, producing endorphins, which in training session and every competition, which the long run provides more energy and mofalls into the second category, the routine. The tivation for one’s training. It also helps to idea of the visualization exercise is to close relax and to go over things in one’s mind, the eyes, put some soft music on and visualize technique, position, speed, power, and to go the things that must be done. So, for example over training. Finally, personal goals come. if this is a race driver, he must visualize the Jose Visconti said: “Not goals of winning the track, every corner, every turn, every shift, gold medal, but personal goals like to beat and walk his mind through everything he will your personal record, or to get every track be doing in that track that day, so when you time run under 1.054 minutes, personal goals he goes out there, the actions are imprinted that will help you to get motivated as an athin his subconscious. The athlete is not think- lete. It applies for training and competition”. ing about it. “If I tell you show how you eat soup and how you carry the soup from the These are four key exploration areas for indplate to your mouth and I say DON’T SPILL, ing the next area of attack: Where will the because you have never thought about this, biggest issues are and how to approach them you might actually spill, but when your sub- and to ind a design solution or product soluconscious takes over, it does it perfect” says tion to improve this issue in the athlete’s life.

Jose Visconti. Athletes performing works the same way. If they think about it, they will spoil it up; it is when their subconscious takes over that they can take it to the next level.

“The routine is extremely important…. Doing the same routine everyday means your subconscious will kick in in competition day and control your body without the athlete thinking about what he/she is doing and basically driving in autopilot”, Jose Visconti says.

Auto-conversation means talking to oneself RESEARCH / 33

34

Delina Cuglievan

Aliaksei Zharnasek

World Water Ski Champion - Slalom / Jump

World Water Ski Champion Trick Ski Coach

Ivanna Cuglievan

Rafaela Camet

Water Ski Champion - Slalom

Volley Ball Player Peruvian Team

Natalia Cuglievan

Carlos Mario Zapata

World Water Ski Champion - Trick Ski

Pan-American Suring Champion

Javier Julio

Arturo Nelson

World Water Ski Champion 3 Events Coach

Water Ski Coach

Hannah Rudin

Jose Visconti

Frees-bee Elite Competition

Argentinian Olympic Psychologist

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

Alexia Cohen

Mario Mustafa

SVA POD MFA Products of Design BFDA - Smart Clothes

Latin American Water Ski 3 Event Skier

Gustav Ole Dyrhauge

Carmen Quinteros

SVA POD MFA Products of Design Half Iron Man - Triathlon

Peruvian Olympian Team Nutritionist

Matias Sanchez

Ryan Dodd

Boat Racing and Rally Driver

World Champion and record holder In Water Ski Long Jump - 302 ft.

Delina Wiese

Juan Carlos Cuglievan

Senior Slalom Water Ski Champion Cyclist

Senior Slalom Water Ski Champion

Keeth

Jerry Lizardi

Olympic Athlete - Fencing

Body Builder

RESEARCH / 35

Delina Cuglievan World Water Ski Champion - Slalom / Jump

Interesting Facts •

•

Competition never ends (team qualifying,

•

Nutrition challenge (always it)

competition, elite competitions).

•

Constant pressure by sponsors, team captain

Training before and after seasons, (Macrocycles and Micro-cycles) always in shape.

and coach.

•

Fatigue - You start getting injured.

“Water skiing was my life and it taught me to rise every time I fell” 36

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

Aliaksei Zharnasek

Interesting Facts

World Water Ski Champion Trick Ski Coach

•

•

The battle never ends. You win the world

•

My students also expect the best from me.

title once and you are expected to do it again.

•

Every student is different in many ways (tal-

Sports psychologist is fundamental for the elite athlete (too much pressure).

ent, dedication, thing the pressure).

•

It is hard to know your level of tiredness.

“Once you are at the top, everyone wants to take you down” RESEARCH / 37

Rafaela Camet

Interesting Facts

Volley Ball Player Peruvian Team

•

Pre-season is just physical training every

•

are out.

morning at 5am. It’s exhausting.

•

All your team counts on you - afraid to let them down. (Psychology / Pressure).

You either compete injured and risk it or you

•

Every tournament adds pressure, sometimes it is too much.

“The hardest thing for me is to stay motivated throughout the season” 38

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

Jose Visconti

Interesting Facts

Argentinian Olympic Psychologist

•

Visualization - An elite athlete has to be able

•

lete, not to win but to be better than YOU.

to see everything before the competition.

•

Auto conversation - All athletes should speak with themselves in a positive way.

Personal Goals - Align with you as an ath-

•

Routine - Your body works better when you let your unconscious take over.

“The only person you compete with, is yourself” RESEARCH / 39

Mario Mustafa

Interesting Facts

Latin American Water Ski 3 Event Skier

•

•

Nutrition is fundamental for me. I depend on

side their sport.

it. I ski better, sleep better, recover better and

•

Rest is the ESSENTIAL KEY to progress.

think better when I eat right.

•

Repetition and hard training is to only way to

Priorities, every elite athlete has a life out-

come on top.

“If you don’t love it quit, if you do, die trying” 40

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

Carmen Quinteros

Interesting Facts

Peruvian Olympian Team Nutritionist

•

•

Every phase an athlete goes through has a

•

Each sport requires a different diet.

different focalized nutrition plan.

•

Energy use and fat burn changes per sport.

Extreme diets will change your body

•

Hydration levels are currently affected in

anatomy.

extreme athletes.

“80% of your performance is affected by what and how you eat” RESEARCH / 41

The Mental State of a High-Performance Athlete Imagine an important presentation throughout one’s career. It could be a thesis, a big business meeting or a special client; we have all felt that pressure of something coming up as well as feeling and hoping that everything is going to work out ine. If the case is a thesis, then one’s aim is a good grade and recognition; if it is a big business meeting one would like to hear the company

is going well, and if the feeling is a special guy or they are out. This pressure is someclient one is hoping to close that contract. times treated by a specialized psychologist, but most of the time it is not and plenty of With elite athletes, this is the feeling every the athletes do not know what to do or who time they compete, and adding to the pres- to go to. Some of them get hit so hard by sure they have, the competitive part where the mental pressure that their performance they not only have to if they take the prior starts to decline. Therefore, the big questions suggestion they can delete this by perform- is, how can we help to improve this issue. ing their best but actually beating the other

The Training of a High-Performance Athlete even get to compete at an international level. 100% if he/she does not rest. When someone sleeps, the body gets rid of the lactic acid in Others, who do compete, still have to re- the muscles, which is what makes us to tense main in shape. But the exercise and training up and that induces protein in order to ix the sessions are made for the whole team, not broken muscle tissue from the training. All this speciically designed for one athlete. In ef- can only happen while sleeping (R.E.M. sleep fect, some athletes have been worn out so cycle). Therefore, rest is extremely important. badly by such an intensive training that it is impossible for them to perform at a 100% capacity on competition day. But this is not all; it begins affecting their private lives When competing for a position on a team, too, to such a point that they have to stop. athletes show everything they have got on the training ield, but even when they make Finally, when talking about rest, some of these it to the team, they still keep training and athletes are so worn out that they do not have a competing with the girl/guy next to them. chance of recovering fast enough for the next This means that many people are still get- training sessions. Rest is the most important ting constantly injured throughout train- requirement for an athlete. He/she will not ing, some of them so hard that they do not recover and will not be able to perform at a Every sport in the world, every team, every individual has their own way of training.

When someone reaches an elite performance level, as known this from personal experience and from elite athlete’s friends, he/she is the best of the best, meaning that he probably knows HIMSELF better than any coach that comes along the way, but, he/she does need to keep on training and competing with others if he/she wants to stay on the team.

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

Nutrition for a High-Performance Athlete Athletes eat and eat plenty and constantly because an athlete is burning so many calories throughout the day, his metabolism is incredibly fast. The reason for this is that they are used to training so hard that their body is still recovering from the workout 24 hours later.

This means that their body is still burning calories even if they are not working out. That is why their metabolism accelerates by itself because their body is asking for more proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, etcetera to recover itself throughout the entire day, which ex-

plains why they do not gain weight, even with poor eating habits. The argument here is that if they would eat healthy, then their performance and recovery would deinitely improve.

Smart Clothes for High-Performance Athletes during Training Smart clothes for elite athletes is already out there in the market. As a result of personal investigation and testing, it should be concluded that Athos is probably the best one out there. Using smart clothing for training can improve an athlete’s performance to 110%.

The technology is already being used, but it has not been applied in a speciic way to a

speciic sport. The Athos smart shirt and pants detect the entire body movements, basically if the arms are lift, it maps it out in the application; it can detect the heartbeat, breath, and it separates which body parts are being worked out and which ones are not, which is an amazing and great advancement in technology.

This technology could be possibly modiied

to adapt it to any desired sports. Here in this thesis it is believed that it can help athletes to improve their posture, ix their body position when running, swimming, shooting, skiing, etcetera, by keeping track of muscle tension, and helping athletes to prevent injuries.

Rehabilitation with Smart Clothing There is so much technology out there that it is probably impossible to keep track of every single thing that comes out every day. There is technology using smart sensors and Arduino coding that is very simple to use, yet with the right programming amazing things can be achieved. Much of the technology in the market is fairly simple, but when coded it becomes amazing. Through bending sensors (short lex sensors) it can be told how much anything is bent, which is a great op-

portunity to explore rehabilitation methods. This technology can help to improve this!

If a smart knee brace is created, then the When athletes go to rehabilitation, they usu- person in rehabilitation would be able ally end up wearing a piece of clothing or ar- to see how much he can really bend that mor to protect the area that was injured. For knee. Better yet, the doctor will see it on example, a knee cab or a wristband or shoul- the computer, and with a vibration sensor ders mount, etcetera. All these pieces help the it could warn the athlete to stop bending, athlete to get better faster by releasing tension stop stretching or stop walking. It would from the affected area on their daily routine. help to improve their recovery to a 110%.

Yet sometimes, athletes fail to follow the doctor’s orders, or simply push a little bit too far.

RESEARCH / 43

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

RESEARCH / 45

alize is how important the mental part is, and how 90% of the success in sports is due to the mind power we have over our body and to our As it was mentioned in a few chapters be- decision-making abilities. Mind itness will be hind, this thesis is about improving the ath- explained in detail in further chapters describlete’s performance. To understand this user, it ing how to perform it and the beneits of it. should be known what type of athlete is being referred to. This athlete is a person who has a It is essential to keep in mind that these athhigh level of performance and maybe, he/she letes spend plenty of time training. Whether even compete in a speciic sport although it they are paid athletes, or live in the city and is not a requirement to it this proile. When have a job, their mind is always thinking signing up for a gym, there is a certain amount about training and achieving improvement. of people who go on a regular basis, which To get a better idea, a high-performance trainis usually about 10%-15% of the subscribed ing survey was carry out for this thesis in people at the gym. They are one of many which the athletes were categorized in three people who take their game very seriously parts: First, the elite athlete or competitive and who train for self-improvement. Some of athlete who trains 12 or more hours a week, them might be paid athletes and others might depending on the sport and intensity. Sechave a regular day job and do workout both ond, the high-performance athlete who trains in the mornings and afternoons, some might more than eight hours a week and who might be coaches who found a career in their sport. still be at a competitive level but who does This thesis is directed to all those athletes who not necessarily compete. Finally, the standard want to take their training one step further. athlete who does ive or more hours of exercise per week and always takes it pretty seriAs a user myself, I have been in contact with ously, but who has other obligations and so he a group of athletes from different disciplines, cannot train for as long as he would like to. and I found some common needs among us.

The irst and most important one is that we Now, once the users were inally set up, comes are always looking to improve, even when we the need to know how to reach them. Social think we have already reached our 100% we media and commercials in sports TV is always still believe that we can do better. Usually, a direct way to contact them when introducing athletes are very concerned about their well- a new product to the market that is good for being, always trying to get itter both physi- athletes. But athletes usually have such busy cally and mentally. What most of us do not re- lives that they might not be watching that

Understanding the User

46

much television, and if they are famous, their social media is probably set on private; therefore, all publicity directed to them will not be seen. Hence, another way to approach them is through their doctors, coaches, gym, trainers, supermarkets, pharmacies, smoothie’s posts, and reaching directly to star athletes to recommend and talk about the product. Of course, no one will be willing to do this unless they believe in the product and know that it works. But, if this is a product worthy of the athletes in the World to use, then the word will spread out and everyone will want to try it.

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

Personal Challenges

RESEARCH / 47

48

ELITE ATHLETE

HIGH-PERFORMANCE ATHLETE

EVERYDAY ATHLETE

Competition

Takes exercise very siriously Doesn’t compete.

Sirious Hobbies

12 + hours/week

08 + hours/week

04 + hours/week

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

PERFORMANCE

Bill Pearis Editor at Brooklyn Vegan

RESEARCH / 49

The Mind of the Athlete is a company that focuses on improving athletes’ performance by understanding the mind and is led by Jarrod Spenser, also writer of the book The Mind of the Athlete. This is how he describes it: “Sports are emotional. Mind of the Athlete® exists to improve the emotional health of athletes. We believe there is so much more potential within athletes. The problem is this potential is often blocked by limitations of the mind. We unlock that potential by equipping athletes with cutting edge sports psychology content, resources and skills. Our mission is to help athletes thrive. We do this by providing the highest quality one-on-one coaching, team consulting, and speeches.

We know that athletes have limited time too.

So we created the revolutionary Mind of the Athlete® Program, a 10+ hour audio/video/ worksheet curriculum, designed to work off of an athlete’s computer and/or smartphone. We are also passionate about getting sports psychology content to athletes through our extensive social media presence”.

under water. Jarrod refers to the top 10% as the conscious mind. It is the part of the mind that is aware and focuses on speciic things but can only focus on one or two things at a time. This is the part of the mind that analyses, thinks, plans and has the short-term memory; this refers to the things and emotions one is aware of in one’s own present.

The bottom part of the iceberg, the other 90% is the subconscious mind. This part of the brain has the long-term memory that stores every experience and emotions that oneself has been through in one’s entire life. This is where habits and beliefs are stored. That is why this is the part of the brain that creates dreams, speciically related to moments in one’s life that have impacted in a positive or negative way. The subconscious mind absorbs everything the conscious mind is going through. That is why athletes that have been through much have a big emotional charge even if they are not aware of it. Dealing with these emotions is very important to release that emotional charge that is preventing oneself to improve as an athlete. The more relaxed and positive the subconscious mind is, the smoother the conscious mind will run.

After reading this book it was clear the way the mind works in an athlete’s point of view.

Here the mind is being like an iceberg. The part that is seen on the surface is usually only 10% of the entire iceberg. The other 90% is

It is proven that many athletes have achieved amazing itness levels. So, if they are equally it, why is it that someone is better at a sport than the other? The answer is because he/she is brain itted. When asked if there are any ath-

The Mind of the Athlete

50

letes like him out in the World, Michael Phelps said in an interview that there are athletes out there that are as it as he is, but none of them have the mental preparation that he has. 99% of the competition is mental once the athlete has already achieved the physical itness level needed to perform at a high-performance level.

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

“Sports are emotional.

Mind of the Athlete® exists to improve the emotional health of athletes. We believe there is so much more potential within athletes. The problem is this potential is often blocked by limitations of the mind”.

RESEARCH / 51

“This isn’t just about sports, this is about the good of humanity.

I mean, we are getting into some next level shit here.”

52

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

“The next frontier of sports training doesn’t rest with the body, but with the mind.” “…that mental engineering — training the cognitive process of the brain — presents yet a new level of sports performance, and that athletes, despite already being at the top of the genetic pool, can actually become better.”

RESEARCH / 53

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a “physiological method of choice to record all of the electrical activity generated by the brain from electrodes placed on the scalp surface�

Imotions

54

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

ments, indicating that there is an intri1. Delta (1 – 4 Hz) – in sleep labs, delta cate “mirror neuron system” in our brain waves are examined to assess the depth of which is coordinated by beta frequencies. sleep. The stronger the delta rhythm, the deeper the sleep. Interestingly, delta waves are only present in non-REM phases – 5. Gamma (>30 Hz, typically 40 Hz) – at the moment, gamma frequencies when we’re not dreaming, for example. are the black holes of EEG research.

Some researchers argue that gamma re2. Theta (4 – 7 Hz) – theta is associated lects attentive focusing and serves as with a wide range of cognitive processcarrier frequency to facilitate data exing such as memory encoding and rechange between brain regions. Others trieval as well as cognitive workload. associate gamma with rapid eye moveWhenever we’re confronted with difments, so-called micro-saccades, which icult tasks (counting backwards from are considered integral parts for sen100 in steps of 7, or when recalling the sory processing and information uptake. way home from work, for example), theta waves become more prominent.

3. Alpha (7 – 12 Hz) –whenever we close our eyes and bring ourselves into a relaxed, wakeful state, alpha waves take over. Alpha is reduced with open eyes and drowsiness. Therefore, alpha coordinates multi-sensory processing, attention, and concentration. Biofeedback training often uses alpha waves to monitor relaxation.

4. Beta (12 – 30 Hz)- over motor regions, beta frequencies become stronger as we plan or execute movements of any body part. Interestingly, this increase in beta is also noticeable as we observe bodily movements of other people. Our brain seemingly mimics their limb move-

RESEARCH / 55

1. The Brain Stem is the lower and oldest part of the brain, comprising the midbrain, pons and medulla.

2. The Limbic System is often referred to as the emotional brain. It is buried deep within the brain and constitutes an evolutionarily very old structure. lack Friday shopping trips or dates with your future husband or wife.

3. he Cerebellum or “little brain� has two hemispheres which have highly folded surfaces. The cerebellum is responsible for regulation and control of ine movements, posture and balance.

4. The Cerebrum or cortex is the forward-most portion and largest part of the human brain. It is generally associated with higher brain functions such as conscious thought, action selection and control.

Imotions

56

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

5. The Brain Stem Occipital lobe is the visual processing center of our brain, including low-level visuo-spatial processing (orientation, spatial frequency), color diferentiation and motion perception.

6. Temporal lobe is associated with processing sensory input to derived, or higher, meanings using visual memories, language and emotional association.

7. Parietal lobe is all about integrating information stemming from external sources as well as internal sensory feedback from skeletal muscles, limbs, head, eyes, otoliths etc.

8. Frontal lobe is the region where most of your conscious thoughts and decisions are made.

Imotions

RESEARCH / 57

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110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

RESEARCH / 59

Second Interview with Jose Visconti The irst time I did a visualization exercise was the day I met Jose Visconti. He came to Peru in 2005 to compete in the Latino Americano Championship/Tournament of Water Skiing as a senior specialist slalom skier. He was also the Argentinian Team’s sports psychologist. Jose was a friend to my uncle and he immediately introduced me while having lunch at home. He said to Jose while looking at me: “This kid is an amazing skier, but, if we could only ix his head”, and then he laughed.

I have ADHD since I can remember, always hyper active and really hard to focus on speciic things, but I know that I am more of a designer, so it is actually a good thing. Anyways, Jose said to my uncle: “Don’t worry about it, I will “ix” him”, and then laughed.

As the teams from all over Latin America arrived, we all trained and had a good time until the day when the competition started. I was competing on a Saturday afternoon and I was about to get ready to start my warm-up and stretches before competing when Jose came to me and pulled me aside. He was very brief but he said: “Seb, I want you to try something, I want you to put on your headphones, go over to the grass area with the trees, ind a place where there is no one, put your towel on the ground, sit, put some nice, soft, relaxing music on and picture this in your head: picture your competition from start to end, 60

you are at the deck putting your gloves on, your vest, your ski, you jump into the water and you signal the pilot everything is ok and you are good to go, you come out of the water and go around the island (small circular island at the end of water ski lakes for the boat to go round) and strait in the slalom course.

Picture your body when you move out to the pre-gates: What are your knees doing? Your hips? Your hands? Shoulders? Head? Where are they located? How does the wind ill? Is there any noise? Can you hear the boat or the wind? Or can you just hear your breathing?” He also added: “I want you to picture everything as detailed as possible, your entire competition pass, every last turn and breath you are going to take and then I want that to be your movie, that movie you will play it over and over again”. So, I did as I was told and igured, he must know what he is saying since he is the expert, and boy was he right.

in my brain and not in my physical strength.

In this second interview we talked about preparing the mind to what is coming. He explained how anyone can train his mind for anything; it is just a matter of sitting down, closing the eyes and doing it. For example, anyone falls every time while trying a new trick, if one visualizes his own body doing the trick and not falling, eventually his subconscious will understand it and one day, he will no longer fall doing that trick, because his subconscious knows how to do it. The same thing can be applied if anyone has anger every time a taxi cuts him off. Anyone can visualize himself driving, a taxi cutting him off and instead of getting angry, just talking to oneself to let it go. Once the subconscious absorbs it, it will react in the way he taught it to and not in the way he does not want it to. This is how anyone can train his brain to be itter, by teaching it where he When I was out there, everything came back wants to go and how is he going to get there. like the movie, so I inished my run and at night, while having dinner, I asked him if Jose always says: “Everybody wants to win, he could explain to me what is it that I did, but not everybody has the will to train for and he said: “That is a simple exercise of vi- it”. Meaning the competition is not won in sualization. All the pressure is in your con- the competition but it is won in training, getscious mind, but all the visualization gets ting up every day and going to train with a absorbed by your subconscious mind, to the positive attitude and motivation to get betpoint where your body will be skiing out ter. That is mental power and discipline. Mithere without you thinking about it”. From chael Phelps said in an interview that there this moment forward, I knew everything, the are many athletes as it as him out there, but strength I needed to do anything was actually none of them has the mind he has and that

110%: Improving Athletes’ Performance through Brain Fitness

is why he is the best. Being mentally prepared means that oneself controls the situation instead of letting the situation to control him. He has thought out every possible scenario: what if I get hurt, tired, winded, and nervous? The brain is trained for those moments, how to react if that happens, what to do if things do not go exactly as planned.

Jose then explained that the emotional part is a whole other problem. If the athlete is a person with emotional issues, then a sports psychologist will only get him so far, but he needs to see a specialist to deal with those emotions. When he is competing, if the emotional part gets to him and on top of that he is nervous, he will get mixed up inside his own head and mess up the competition. Athletes in these circumstances feel anger, hate, fear, disgust, anxiety and sometimes even just freeze.

An athlete’s mind should be trained to react, when he hears the lions roar his brain should process two things, either attack or run; but fear can make him freeze and then the lion eats him so smoothly, Jose explained. These extreme scenarios, athletes know what they are, should be visualized, then talk to one´s brain, teach it how to react under what circumstances and do not let the lion eat him.

“Everybody wants to win, but not everybody has the will to train for it”

These are a few tools I was taught as a kid in order for me to reach my top performance level. But, it requires dedication, discipline and passion to keep it going.

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Interview - Maria Jose Bellen Maria Jose is a Peruvian psychologist who is also an athlete. She has competed in many different sports like water skiing, running, itness contests and she helped many athletes to improve their lives as well as to improve in their sport. Here are some of the insights she shared with me: Every athlete has a different proile, history, sport and past. Each of these athletes has been through a different life that leads to different problems. When she meets with a new athlete she always asks them: What are you looking for in your sport? Where do you want to go? What are your goals for the next month, year and ten years from now? The type of treatment each athlete gets depends on how serious he/she is about the sport that he/she is doing. Is he competing? Is he doing it for fun? Does his life depend on the sport he is doing? Does his money come from the sport?

And all of these questions bring different objectives that each athlete has to understand on their own. She claimed that only 10% of the athletes actually go through with the mental preparation and usually it is the most outstanding ones that reach this level of mind itness.

Once this is settled she enters into a second stage that is about dealing with pressure. The irst factor is to understand how they deal 62

with the pressure and if the pressure is affecting their end game. Since it usually does affect their performance, they need to identify where is the pressure coming from: Is it from their parents, coach, teammates, or themselves? Are they playing for the love of the game or what the game represents in their lives and how are they seen by other people because they play this game? Here is where visualization comes in. As explained before, visualization is a way to train the mind to deal with possible scenarios, teaching the subconscious to react and to do things unintentionally, while the conscious mind is focusing on other things. This brings their self-esteem up, helping them to feel more secure about themselves. While doing a routine on a daily basis in training and visualization and meditation, when they get to competition day, the body and mind is familiar with what is going on, allowing a better performance to be done by their body reacting to their subconscious.

The athlete goes to the competition to repeat what he has been doing during training, not a miracle play that will allow him to win.

Even though those miracle plays do happen, the athlete trains and the competition is a way to show his abilities learned during training.

Each sport has a different mindset, different mind training, and a different personality. A gymnast is going out there to show a routine, a “dance” in a more “artistic” way while a hockey or football player is going out there with an aggressive mindset because they are

going to be crushing on the other players.

Finally, she explained how she helps the athlete to control the negative energy. If there is negative energy, how to focus on his attention: Where is it? What is he/she thinking about? How is it different from how he/ she is seen than to how does he/she feels?

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“By controlling this, the athlete can control his motivation, which controls his energy, turning the negative energy into positive, and helping him to perform better.”

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Interview - Megan Canon After the Mind of the Athlete reading was inished, an email was send to them asking if one of their sports psychologists could be interviewed to get some insights and to understand better what they were trying to say. Megan Canon, the sports psychologist, started by pointing out that anxiety is one of the most common symptoms due to pressure.

This is because it is turning more and more competitive out there and this is one of the biggest reasons why some athletes fall into drugs, alcohol and loneliness, forcing them to inish their sports career early. She also said that athletes are getting younger every time, and this is a problem because they do not have the mental maturity to deal with the pressure and sometimes loneliness that highperformance athlete’s life brings. Because of their lack of experience, she explained, some of these athletes are actually afraid of competing. Some of them even crash before competitions. They get sweaty hands, elevated heart rate, lose focus and sometimes feel sick. That is why it is their job as Mind of the Athlete to help the athlete understand where this anxiety is coming from. Once the source is located, they can start working around it in order to ind out if it is still present, but they can control it now, and with experience, it will start disappearing little by little.

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The other signiicant thing she mentioned in this brief interview was that they teach their athletes to channel their energy. They teach them healthy outlets to release emotional charge in order to lighten the pressure on their subconscious. Sometimes it is even through a hobby or meditation. Here is where visualization comes in and it seems to be the common factor between all sports psychologists. Some athletes do two hours of visualization before each game. It helps them to build up their strength, focus on the muscles they will be using in the competition and to build up their conidence. It works even better when this becomes a routine for training days. The athlete will learn how to control and understand his mind and body, allowing him to change his heart rate and focus even in moments of high pressure.

Finally, she talked about EEG headsets, games, heart rates and breathing. They are all controlled by the athlete’s mind and the more he uses them the easier it becomes. EEG headsets and mind games help him to achieve greater levels of focus. These levels of focus will help the athlete to set his mind to something and to perform it. When facing moments of high pressure, the heart rate will rise, and breathing will get faster. This wears down the body, compromising the athlete aimed at a competition.

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“When a high level of brain fitness is reached, the athlete can focus on his breathing and heart rate and actually slow them down even when doing high-intensity workouts or competitions of high importance such as the Olympics.”

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Continuums This continuum intent was a great way for analyzing different aspects of the ideas that were in mind. These thesis’ statements and the idea of how they would affect the World were spoken out with two of the partners, who took keywords from this conversation and put them in the “good” column or in the “not good” column, which was not necessarily bad; it was just a cynical approach to the thesis topic idea we had.

After doing the exercise, it was realized that there were three continuums to analyze. The irst one was the balance between mind itness and body itness. On the “good” side were: psychological, improving, performance, mental itness, and motivation. On the “bad” side were: only training, physical training, focus on discipline, 100% focus on a single thing and no motivation. From the analysis, it was determined that there has to be a balance between the physical and mental training. Too much of any of them is appalling. They need to be balanced for the athlete to reach an optimum performance. Depending on the athlete, some people might need more of one or of the other.

Explaining this in detail, this is why athletes should know how to balance their mental training with their physical training. For starters, there is a time for each one, but this does 66

not mean he should go irrational on one or the other or on both because it will just make him tired. For the physical training, every elite or high-performance athlete needs to reach a certain level of itness to be strong enough to reach his 100% physical state. This can be achieved in many different ways depending on the type of training he has. But, after an athlete has competed for a while, he/she has probably reached their 100% physical state, and if they have not, they are 90% and up. This means that the physical state for competitive athletes is not a problem, which means that they either lose or win because of their mental state.

Mind itness should continuously work with certain types of training exercises. Every mind is also different as well as is every sport, meaning this that they require different mental exercises to improve their focus.

When the US Olympic team did a test for better performance between psychological training and physical training, the group with further mental training performed the best.

Of course, all these athletes already had 90% - 100% of their physical state, so they were in excellent shape. Thus, when it comes to mind training, it is applied in different levels of intensity throughout the athletes training.

The second and last continuum was about establishing a balance between bonding and competition. In this continuum, in the “good” area healthier forms of social life which included spending time with their teammates

were found. In the “bad” area there was an unhealthy social life. Some athletes, due to high competition desire, do not relate to other teammates who might be playing for the same sport, they feel like athletes have to compete with everyone; therefore, they have a very unhealthy form of social life. They have to be competitive, but in order to have a “it brain” it is vital to keep a healthy social life and at the same time be a competitive person in the ield.

The third continuum reached was to create a balance between commitments to the sport with social life. Here in the “good” area were: meditation, brain itness training, EEG technology, focus, gamify. In the “bad” area there was: young minds, non-suficient rest, social life, parties. It is crucial to learn more towards the commitment to the sport, but it is imperative for that athlete to not give up on his/her social life. The reason for this is because it creates a balance in the personal life, making it easier for him/her to deal with pressure moments.

The reason for this is the mind’s subconscious.

The mind is like an iceberg. Jacob Spencer said in his book The Mind of the Athlete: “The subconscious is the bottom part of the iceberg and the conscious part is the top. When the Titanic crashed in the movie, from the top you could not see any major damage, but the bottom part of the iceberg did major damage to the bottom part of the boat”. When the subconscious is illed with negative emotions and

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experiences, moments of high pressure can activate those feelings in the conscious mind, creating a distraction and clouding the athlete’s ability to focus. Some athletes experience so much pressure that their heartbeat raises, they cannot breathe and sometimes they even feel sick. This drains the body energy. That is why athletes need a stable, healthy mind.

A good social life with good emotions and experiences provide the athlete a positive subconscious, which immediately relects on his performance. When the athlete tries to focus, because his subconscious is not illed with negative, it is much easier to focus on training and competition. Some athletes who have more signiicant emotional problems might need a specialist to treat speciic issues like any other person who goes to a psychologist to address their problems.

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CHAPTER 5

PROJECTS

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REHAB GLOVE Through the evolution of sports, athletes have pushed the boundaries in order to perform better making the sport to become their lives. They push themselves so hard that their bodies take a beat down every time that they train and compete. With the evolution of technology and knowledge about the sports, athletes are able to perform better because now they have tools to take better care of themselves. The three products presented here are drawn from this knowledge and technology to better serve athletes and to help them to reach their goals, to recover more eficiently from injury and to stay active.

Technology advancements have helped medicine to come a long way. In this case, the rehabilitation process has evolved throughout time. Many athletes take high risks when they get injured, some of them even continue playing despite of their injuries until they can no longer play the sport and consequently retire. The Rehab Glove is a piece of advanced technology that could be applied to the entire body for treating many different types of injuries and even possibly to prevent them.

The way it works is very simple: It has two types of sensors, a lex sensor and a vibration motor. These sensors are connected to a Bluetooth command center that sends all the information acquired by the sensors to the phone or computer application. The lex sensors can detect how much is a inger bending; if applied to another part of the body, like the knee, it could also detect how much is the knee bending. It is programmed to vibrate when the patient reaches the limit prescribed for

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the knee, ingers or any other body part that requires repetitive bending for therapy. This technology would provide a better and faster rehabilitation process and it can prevent injuries in the long run. It could also help to ix the posture and position when doing a speciic exercise or maneuver in a speciic sport.

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This prototype is an exploration for improving the elite athletes’ performance and for making sure that these athletes have a longlasting career without getting injured as much and for taking better care of their bodies.

These designs are inspired by the technology used out there in the market and applied in a speciic way to help to improve a speciic sce-

nario. Hopefully, this technology will change the statistics of athletes that are going through rough times and will help to improve their life quality and to improve as an athlete too.

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This product gives the athlete relief. They will stop worrying about their knees when exercising because they will be reacting to the sensor.

They start creating an association with the brain and teaching it how far to go.

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Screen Design The elite athlete application could be a revolution to all the other sports applications in the market. The main problem found in most exercise applications is that they are all the same. They focus on a person who just wants to stay it, and everyone does the same routine and exercises. Some applications even evolved a little bit more and have beginner, intermediate and expert stages, but that does not solve the issue.

These applications are designed for people who exercise, not for athletes. Athletes require speciic training with speciic exercises that are designed for the sport they do.

The inspiration for this application came from a brand called Athos. Athos provides the athlete with smart sports clothes that tracks muscle tension and muscle use. At the beginning of the thesis these clothes were tested in order to see where they would lead to. When using the Athos clothes and looking at the screen while exercising, it was realized that the muscles been used in that exercise were getting lit up, some of which there was no idea they were being used. These clothes were then tested on a ran, a bike ride, some boxing, yoga, weight lifting, and it was seen all the different muscles and different ways of using the muscle in each different sport. That is when the idea appeared.

Elite Athlete is an application that works different for every individual. The application opens up for registration; once registered general information like age, weight, height has to be illed out like in any other sports application, but then it keeps going and it will ask the athlete to select a sport, his level of performance, and what does

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he/she wants to improve inside that sport. the muscles per sport and create speciic exercises around that sport to be stored inside As an example, suring is chosen; it will ask the application). So, once the athlete’s data the athlete his level of performance, which is in, the application will know exactly what would be advanced not pro. Then, the ap- muscles he is using for that sport and create plication, having been analyzed the sport by a speciic training routine just for him despecialists, will ask the user what he wants pending on the issues he wants to improve. to improve on. There he can select several of This application will develop training roudifferent modes within suring. For example, tines speciic to each athlete and to their perhe would select apnea, big waves, trick surf- formance level, helping them to reach the ing, agility and strength. Once that informa- elite level or continue to be in the elite level. tion is in the application, the application will know exactly what muscles he is using when Then, the athlete will be able to see all this suring. (A group of specialists will analyze data from his/her exercises and start creating

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patterns. He/she will be able to choose which muscles he/she wants to work on and the application will register everything, reps, weight, series, and heart rate. By creating an application that adapts to the athlete and not an athlete that adapts to the application, each individual will have their personal coach in their pockets!

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Services for Elite Athletes This service offered is called Elite Consultancy. The problem in this industry is that not all teams or individual athletes can afford to have a team of specialists to support them through their training. Therefore, it is extremely hard to reach the elite level without the appropriate consulting and training. This service includes personalized trainer, personalized nutritionist, personalized physiotherapist, sports psychologist, and personalized coach. This team will help the athlete to reach his/her top performance level.

This service will focus on making the elite athlete better, by analyzing the way of life this athlete has. In this “life style”, they will analyze his/her training routines, rest, nutrition, psychology and overall his/her performance. With this analysis, the team will gather and adjust the training and life routine in order to help the athlete get to his/her 110% potential.

The way this service works is very simple. Hiring an entire team to back up an athlete is extremely expensive. This team will not only see one athlete, therefore splitting the cost of an entire crew in many different athletes turns it ten times cheaper for each athlete. When the team sees potential in one speciic athlete, they will sponsor the athlete and guide him/her through her sports career. This sponsor would then be “paid” back by the number of athletes who want to register for this service after seeing the wonders they had made with certain elite athletes.

This becomes a sustainable business by introducing it to the market through team coaches. Once they perceive an improvement in the team or on speciic athletes, the

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business runs by itself. Not many teams can afford to have their own professional team of advisors with them. This product makes money by selling a service to teams, individual athletes, and people who just want to perform better but who cannot afford a support team.

customers will be advised by professionals in the sport on what to buy depending on the sport they choose to practice. This will be for any level of expertise, beginners, intermediate, expert and professional, it will recommend equipment for upgrading when improvement starts, and it will lease equipment too.

The vision here is to improve athlete’s performance by helping them to ind what is The way this business works is very simple. preventing them of becoming an elite athlete. Elite athletes will use this platform service to make sure that they are using the best equipAnother service that could help athletes is Per- ment that works for them and will recomfect Fit. The problem is that for many people mend equipment for other athletes that do not who practice sports, especially new sports, they have the experience they do. Once the inforgo online and see plenty of equipment needed mation is disclosed, athletes will be able to to practice a certain sport, but they do not al- rent out the equipment for testing. The othways know what to buy. Even elite athletes er way is through big data. All the data that sometimes are not sure what the best to get is. has been collected in these surveys that athletes are experiencing will be the main sales The service provides information about ev- point. Many sports brands will be interested ery existing single sport and all the equip- in what equipment people are testing, liking ment needed to practice such sport. When go- and not. The vision here is to improve elite ing online to see what is needed to get, this athlete’s performance by helping them to ind service will let know exactly what is needed the best available equipment for their sport. depending on the athlete’s level of expertise. It will make suggestions in order to help him save money in buying something that he might not need or that does not work for him. It will even rent equipment before he buys them to make sure it is his perfect it.

Perfect Fit will be created by a team of specialized people on sports and equipment. New

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Co Creation Workshop This workshop, which has been conducted once, focuses on creating design solutions for athletes in order for them to overcome their hardest challenges. The way this workshop works is by gathering a group of athletes, in which each one goes through his personal experience as an athlete and then writing down his hardest challenges. These challenges can be related to anything in their professional career. For example, it could be nutrition, that it is hard for them to eat correctly, it could be motivation, in getting up every morning to keep training, maybe they were not fast enough, or strong enough, or even maybe that there was too much competition, it could be anything that they had to overcome while they were training and competing.

The second part of the workshop was to pair up and share their challenges with that person and explain why it was so dificult to overcome. Once both participants understand what the other person was or is going through, they would switch roles and become each other’s coach. Here, they would have to ind a way to help the other athlete overcome these challenges. It could be a training routine, set up goals for motivation, change their diets, create an object that could help them, anything they had in their minds to beat this challenge.

Finally, once they have talked about these ways to overcome these challenges, the whole group would get together and start doing the same but as a group. Athletes would share their thoughts and as a group ind solutions. In this way, the

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bigger the group the more ways to over- Some great ideas came out of this workshop come their challenges can be inding out. and deinitely this workshop will be perused to run it again and hopefully manage to get a The purpose of this workshop was to ind as wider group of people. The fact of being an many different challenges as possible athletes athlete and having the experience of competare going through and then ind as many dif- ing for many years makes to feel what they ferent possible solutions provided by other feel: the frustration, the tiredness, the lack of athletes. In this way, the most common chal- motivation sometimes, staying ahead of the lenges people have can be found, with dif- game and just the feeling of waking up some ferent solutions provided by other athletes, days and say, let us keep going, you got this. and something around can be designed to help to improve or to solve the situation. One of the things that someone pointed out was that everyone sees the nice part, the The workshop worked amazingly. A comfort pictures of competitions, the podiums, but space was provided at the gym with no one no one sees all the hard work behind that to else around, it went through training routines get there. They are the only ones who unand different sort of workouts speciic to each derstand the feeling of waking up and saysport and then sat down to start the workshop. ing: “I don’t want to work out today, I’m exThe workshop was intended to last 30 minutes, hausted”, and then just keep pushing. Being but the athletes started to share some personal an athlete is about hard committed work, to challenges that they have been struggling for oneself and to the teammates and if somea really long time as athletes. They got so into body is competing for his country, then he it that the conversation lasted over an hour. has a commitment to his country as well.

Finally, the athletes were invited upstairs for some refreshments hoping that they had a good time and just chat, but they were so impacted by the workshop that they asked for the clipboards with all the information back, so they could keep discussing the matters. The energy and passion were felt in the atmosphere, it could be seen how they related to each other in so many levels, not just as athletes but the life around what it means to be an athlete.

Many deep conversations were held, people sharing their experiences and the hard moments they went through. But, the glory moments and saying how much it was worth going through everything were also shared! The cold mornings, sore muscles, falling again and again and again until one gets it right, because once it is gotten right, there is no better feeling to know that hard work paid off and it is so worth it!

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Stealth Mind Stealth Mind is an experience where athletes signed up to try different types of mental exercises directed by me. Some of the simple ones are visualization and meditation techniques to focus on what they have to do as an athlete while competing. Other exercises include using an EGG headset to control a cube with the mind or a lying a drone with the mind. The idea of this experience is to teach the athlete to visualize. The stronger the visualization brain muscles are, the more precise the focus will be because the performance will be set on the subconscious.

Stealth Mind was created to be an experience, but at irst that experience was unknown. So, it also started out with some mood boards in order to know what was that it was trying to get across. Once it was deined to be a brain itness experience, creating the experience with storyboards was started, which led to journey maps with sketches. Once the experience was deined, a little of product speciication was done and the testing of the prototypes started separately to get them ready for the experience.

After the experience, one of the main problems that surged where focusing under distracting scenarios. When athlete’s go to competitions, or are about to start training, it’s hard for them a place to focus and quiet their mind. That’s why Stealth Mind is a headset that blocks your eyesight and your hearing. It’s got headphones incorporated so that the athlete can choose their music of preference. This way, they can seat anywhere they are, put the headset on and center their minds to increase focus in training or competition.

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Stealth Station Stealth Station is designed as another station in different places such as gyms, to encourage athletes to go into these mind itness cubicles as another workout to exercise their minds. Stealth Station is a service for the athlete that is located in gyms, yoga centers, meditation centers, sports facilities, and stadiums. We partner with teams with a history of using Sports Psychology that is sponsored by Mind Fitness brands, such as Inscape, Lululemon, and Emotiv. Sports psychologists design the exercises, and there are stations with different brain exercises to help the athlete reach his optimal performance potential. Examples of this include focus, relaxation, visualization, and breathing.

The sports psychologist at each station will adapt the exercise to each athlete depending on his/her needs. The irst users will be obtained by reaching sports psychologists that work for big teams. A subscription model will be available to access our services and application. We Also, product sales of EEG and Mind-Control Objects -Drones, Cars, Chairs, etcetera-, for customers who wish to repeat the experience at home will be available. Our vision is to help all athletes reach their 100% performance level while maintaining their full mental health.

The process for Stealth Station was a hard one at irst. On this one there was no idea on what product or service was sought. Therefore, it started out with the mood board and a little bit of storyboarding to understand what it was trying to get across.

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Once that was clear, creating a brain itness station at gyms, journey maps were made based on the requirements people have when they meditate. This helped much to deine what was to be designed. That is why the next step was sketching. Once the model was deined, the product speciications to make it were determined and a 3D prototype was created to explain the service to be provided.

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Zenith Zenith means “Peak, as in Peak Performance” which requires extreme focus to achieve. The irst product created is a headset wearable called Zenith. Using this technology, this wearable with EEG sensors inside is designed to read athletes brainwaves while they are training.

This way, it is possible to track the athlete’s state of mind when competing, training, relaxing, even resting and analyze the brain throughout those phases to see where he/she needs improvements by seen which parts of the brain are working better than others.

The process low was the following for the wearable. Mood boards where created to speculate what was sought to be achieved, which led to a million sketches and storyboarding each one. Once it was clear a wearable in form of a hat was made that went into product speciications because the wearable was meant to read the brainwaves at all times, even when exercising. Finally, some prototypes are currently being worked on in order to deine how the inal product is going to look like and begin user testing to make sure everything is working correctly.

Zenith is an application that links to the Zenith Wearable. Through this application brainwaves can be tracked down by oneself, and the application will recommend exercises to strengthen those brain muscles that need extra work. In order to make that exercise fun, the experience was gamiied. The idea about Zenith is to have fun when playing games in the phone or tablet while working those muscles in one’s brain. This will help the athlete to stay focused in those moments during competition or training.

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Once it is deined whether the athlete wants to use the headset or not, he/she will get to the main screen where he/she will see his daily activity, improvements, and accomplished workouts and trophies. Here he/she will be able to choose what type of exercise he wants to do to strengthen different parts of the mind. This is very important because every person is different. Therefore, our minds evolve and strengthen different parts. This application is like a gym for the brain.

To create Zenith App, some requirements were to be met: What was desired from the user to get from the application and in what way? Then, to lay it out, some low diagrams were developed and then arranged into a journey map. Here all the steps the user should go through from the beginning since he/she downloads the application up to using it on a daily basis were determined.

Then, some sketches were done which fell into a structural map to compare the application low and to make sure it will be running in the right order. Finally, the product speciication to understand how each part of the application was going to work and from there, the prototype and demo to try out was performed. This last step is still on work, trying to inish the prototype before the inal product is done.

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ZENITH

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Current Market

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Sketching

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Pattern

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Testing Renders

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ZENITH Dri-Fit Fabric

EEG Sensors

Command Center

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CHAPTER 6

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Books • •

Head in the game - Brandon Sneed The mind of the Athlete - Dr. Jarod Spencer

• • •

Brands • • •

Emotiv iMotion Versus - Sense Labs

Interviews • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Jose Visconti - Argentinian Olympic Sports Psychologist Megan Canon - Sports Pscyhologist at The Mind of the Athlete Denise Solis - Peruvian Psychologist and Marathon Runner Maria Jose Belen - - Peruvian Psychologist and Marathon Runner Delina Cuglievan - World Water Ski Champion Slalom / Jump Ivanna Cuglievan - Water Ski Champion Slalom / Trick Ski Natalia Cuglievan - World Water Ski Champion Trick Ski Javier Julio - World Water Ski Champion 3 Events Coach Hannah Rudin - Frees-bee Elite Competition Aliaksei Zharnasek - World Water SkiChampion Trick Ski Coach Rafaela Camet - Volley Ball Player Peruvian Team Carlos Mario Zapata - Pan-American Suring Champion Arturo Nelson - Water Ski Coach Keeth - Olympic Athlete - Fencing Gustav Ole Dyrhauge - Half Iron Man - Triathlon

• • • •

Matias Sanchez - Boat Racing and Rally Driver Delina Wiese - Senior Slalom Water Ski Champion - Cyclist Ryan Dodd - World Champion and record holder in Water Ski Long Jump - 302 ft.

Mario Mustafa - Latin American Water Ski 3 Event Skier Carmen Quinteros - Peruvian Olympian Team Nutritionist Juan Carlos Cuglievan - Senior Slalom Water Ski Champion Jerry Lizardi - Body Builder

Articles • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

FIT Materials Booklet Mental-Health-and-Elite-Sport Seamful Spaces: Heterogeneous Infrastructures in Interaction A Look At Smart Clothing For 2015 Wearable Technologies Agre Toward a Critical Technical Practice Are Smart Clothes the Wearables of the Future Recode Best smart clothes Wearables to improve your life Pocket lint Chalmers MacColl and Bell EurowearableDraft8 DT10 The Future of Clothing Technology Digital Trends Forget Apple Watch Smart Clothing is the Next Big Thing Digital Trends How high tech clothes could be your next doctor CNN.com Medically Prescribed Wearable Wellness Program in Development Moving away from the wrist the best smart cloth

• • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • •

•

Neuro-leads with disc electrodes New iber nanogenerators could lead to electric clothing Berkeley News Next-Gen Monitoring Solution Enabled by Wearable Biosensors OMsignal Biometric Smartwear is here smart Cloth Market Analysis Smart Clothes Are The Future of Wearables Digital Trends Smart Clothing and Body Sensors Market Analysis and Forecasts Smart Printed Sensors Monitor Movement Sequences Tackling Tech Tom Brady Smart Clothes and the Pursuit of Peak Performance New England Patriots The Best Smart Clothing Connected Apparel The best smart clothing From biometric shirts to contactless payment jackets The Smart Fabric of Our Lives Top 5 Medical Applications for Smart Fabric Technology Wear we are going smart fabric tech that will change the world TechRadar Wearable Medical Device Market Reaches $13 Billion Wearable Medical Devices Market Trends Wearable technology Clothing designed to save your life BBC News Why Smart Clothing is the Next Frontier for Wearable Health Tech Future of You KQED Future of You KQED Science Woven Fabrics

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Books • •

Head in the game - Brandon Sneed The mind of the Athlete - Dr. Jarod Spencer

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Brands • • •

Emotiv iMotion Versus - Sense Labs

Interviews • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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Jose Visconti - Argentinian Olympic Sports Psychologist Megan Canon - Sports Pscyhologist at The Mind of the Athlete Denise Solis - Peruvian Psychologist and Marathon Runner Maria Jose Belen - - Peruvian Psychologist and Marathon Runner Delina Cuglievan - World Water Ski Champion Slalom / Jump Ivanna Cuglievan - Water Ski Champion Slalom / Trick Ski Natalia Cuglievan - World Water Ski Champion Trick Ski Javier Julio - World Water Ski Champion 3 Events Coach Hannah Rudin - Frees-bee Elite Competition Aliaksei Zharnasek - World Water SkiChampion Trick Ski Coach Rafaela Camet - Volley Ball Player Peruvian Team Carlos Mario Zapata - Pan-American Suring Champion Arturo Nelson - Water Ski Coach Keeth - Olympic Athlete - Fencing Gustav Ole Dyrhauge - Half Iron Man - Triathlon

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Matias Sanchez - Boat Racing and Rally Driver Delina Wiese - Senior Slalom Water Ski Champion - Cyclist Ryan Dodd - World Champion and record holder in Water Ski Long Jump - 302 ft.

Mario Mustafa - Latin American Water Ski 3 Event Skier Carmen Quinteros - Peruvian Olympian Team Nutritionist Juan Carlos Cuglievan - Senior Slalom Water Ski Champion Jerry Lizardi - Body Builder

Articles • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

FIT Materials Booklet Mental-Health-and-Elite-Sport Seamful Spaces: Heterogeneous Infrastructures in Interaction A Look At Smart Clothing For 2015 Wearable Technologies Agre Toward a Critical Technical Practice Are Smart Clothes the Wearables of the Future Recode Best smart clothes Wearables to improve your life Pocket lint Chalmers MacColl and Bell EurowearableDraft8 DT10 The Future of Clothing Technology Digital Trends Forget Apple Watch Smart Clothing is the Next Big Thing Digital Trends How high tech clothes could be your next doctor CNN.com Medically Prescribed Wearable Wellness Program in Development Moving away from the wrist the best smart cloth

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Neuro-leads with disc electrodes New iber nanogenerators could lead to electric clothing Berkeley News Next-Gen Monitoring Solution Enabled by Wearable Biosensors OMsignal Biometric Smartwear is here smart Cloth Market Analysis Smart Clothes Are The Future of Wearables Digital Trends Smart Clothing and Body Sensors Market Analysis and Forecasts Smart Printed Sensors Monitor Movement Sequences Tackling Tech Tom Brady Smart Clothes and the Pursuit of Peak Performance New England Patriots The Best Smart Clothing Connected Apparel The best smart clothing From biometric shirts to contactless payment jackets The Smart Fabric of Our Lives Top 5 Medical Applications for Smart Fabric Technology Wear we are going smart fabric tech that will change the world TechRadar Wearable Medical Device Market Reaches $13 Billion Wearable Medical Devices Market Trends Wearable technology Clothing designed to save your life BBC News Why Smart Clothing is the Next Frontier for Wearable Health Tech Future of You KQED Future of You KQED Science Woven Fabrics

ABOUT S. Since I can remember I have always been an athlete. I think the reason for it was that I never considered exercising as exercise. My cousins, friends and I have always played sports that we enjoy, so when we went surfing or water skiing it was more like let us go and have fun than let us go and do workout. Then, by the age of 12, we realized that we had enough performance level to compete and it was then that we started. For over 20 years I have committed in water skiing (slalom, long jump, trick skiing and wake boarding) and also played other sports for fun. When I start-

ed my undergraduate for Architecture, I really had to organize my time in order to keep up my performance level and water skiing practice while achieving good grades. Finally, I decided to play my sports as hobbies and focused on my professional career with the idea of picking up later when I would have more time.

Now, here at SVA I am trying to work out on gyms and out for runs and swims, just to do something. On weekends I try to go surfing to New Jersey or Rockaway Beach. Not being able to constantly do workout because I

am busy, or to stop doing one of the things I love the most because I have no time seems unacceptable to me, and this is how this thesis topic came up. The aim is to find a way to motivate athletes to keep going on and to improve, to find ways to help people start working out if they do not and to prevent those who do so from stopping. Exploring the athletes’ life has been amazing and now I think focusing on the athletes’ mind in all of its aspects will be a great way to synthesize my thesis and finally reach the thesis vv

MASTERS DEGREE THESIS

SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS - MFA PRODUCTS OF DESIGN