Neuroathletic training with children and adolescents

What is neuroathletics or neurocentric training?

The approach of neuroathletic training is to improve and optimize the connection between brain and body.

Athletic training is about preparing an athlete's physical components for the demands of competition. Neuroathletics deals with the neural demands that a movement in sports places on the athlete's central nervous system. It is therefore about the demands that each movement task places on the movement-controlling systems in our brain. What do the most important sensory systems, such as the visual system, the balance system (vestibular system), or our sense of position and position (proprioceptive system), actually have to do in order to best perform the task at hand? Our brain guides our body through the interpretation of sensory information. If there are deficits in the reception, transmission, or processing (afferent and efferent pathways) of this information, the respective movement task cannot be mastered adequately. Neuroathletics therefore deals with the background processes before the visible and measurable movement appears.

Is neuroathletics suitable for children and adolescents?

This question can be answered clearly with YES.

Complex content such as that of the neurocentric approach cannot, understandably, be fully grasped by children. Accordingly, it is the trainer's job to present the content in an age-appropriate manner, integrating it into the training in a playful way, while, of course, maintaining its accuracy. The clear advantage of this group is their high level of receptivity.

Neuroathletics offers very interesting approaches to changing the training framework. However, for effective implementation, the coach must undergo training and engage intensively with the topic.

Rupert Graf, Youth Representative ÖBSV