Sport Psychology Tactics - How NASCAR & Formula 1 Drivers Use Biofeedback To Enhance Mental Energy And Focus
About the Author
Ben Foodman is a licensed psychotherapist & performance specialist. He owns his private practice located in Charlotte North Carolina where he specializes in working with athletes to help them overcome mental blocks (the yips), PTSD, ADD / ADHD and achieve flow states through the techniques of Brainspotting & Neurofeedback. If you are interested in services, use the link here! Enjoy the article below!
Table Of Contents
Introduction: How Sport Psychologists Use Biofeedback To Help Racecar Drivers With Performance
Part I. What Is Biofeedback & How Do Sport Psychologists Use It With Athletes
Part II. What Happens In The Athlete’s Body During Biofeedback Sessions
Part III. How Does Biofeedback Help NASCAR & Formula 1 Drivers With Energy Management
Introduction: How Sport Psychologists Use Biofeedback To Help Racecar Drivers With Performance
When racecar drivers like NASCAR & Formula One athletes go to work with sport psychologists, they are trying to either work through a mental block or enhance mental performance. One common strategy that sport psychologists will use with athletes is trying to work on deep breath work in order to help the performer stay relaxed during competition. Some of the more cutting edge sport psychologists will utilize the tool of Biofeedback in order to sharpen the process of helping athletes enhance this deep breath work.
But I have found that sport psychologists and athletes are really only looking at a very small portion of how effective deep breath work can be, and are missing out on larger opportunities to really impact performance. Specifically, I believe biofeedback can have a significant impact on enhancing athlete energy management. Because I believe this is such an important topic on a often misused tool, I wanted to take a deep dive into biofeedback. For Part I. I will review what biofeedback is and how sport psychologists traditionally use it. For Part II. I will review what happens in an athlete’s body during biofeedback, and for Part III. I will talk about how biofeedback helps NASCAR and F1 drivers with energy management.
Part I. What Is Biofeedback & How Do Sport Psychologists Use It With Athletes
Biofeedback is a technique by which sport psychologists monitor and display what is happening in the athlete’s mind and their body’s physiological reactions. There are several different traits that sport psychologists and mental performance consultants can focus on in order to help the athlete with this technology. In the book Biofeedback & Neurofeedback Applications In Sport Psychology edited by Benjamin Strack, PhD, Michael Linden, PhD & Vietta Wilson, PhD, the authors give examples of where Biofeedback technology is used.
Heart Rate: Elevated heart rate may increase reaction time, while stabilization of heart rate may increase endurance, and cardiovascular efficiency.
Respiration - Improper respiration may lead to performance inefficiency or ‘choking’ and hyperventilation.
Muscular Tension - Excess muscle tension can inhibit movement speed, rhythm, timing & flexibility.
Sweaty Palms - An indirect measure of emotional reactivity and anxiety
Brainwave Activity - Athletes who learn to control brainwaves can enhance their ability to pay attention, control their emotions, and minimize a busy brain.
Peripheral Body Temperature - Measures blood flow or blood-vessel constriction in the hands and feet. Stress can cause the constriction or shutting down of blood flow, which inhibits recovery from strenuous workouts or minor and major injuries.
Usually when an athlete works with a sport psychologist during an actual biofeedback session, the athlete will have various sensors attached to different areas of the body. These sensors can range from clips attached to their ears, electrodes attached to their head, or patches attached to their skin (there are no needles, there is no invasive aspect to the procedure). These sensors will relay the information that they are detecting from the body to a computer, the computer will analyze the information (e.g. heart rate, body temperature, etc.) and then display what is actually happening in the athlete’s body during this feedback, while also providing information about when optimal body changes are occurring, which can come in the form of some type of reward (e.g. bell ringing, movie playing, etc.). Now that we have reviewed what biofeedback is, let’s focus on the type of biofeedback I use (HRV) and what happens in the athlete’s body during these sessions.
Part II. What Happens In The Athlete’s Body During Biofeedback Sessions
When I am working with racecar drivers from NASCAR or other motorsport promotions, I have used Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Biofeedback to enhance these athlete’s performance outcomes. This intervention utilizes electrocardiography (ECG) to record the electrical activity of the heart. ECG sensors are placed on the athlete's chest, forearms, and sometimes earlobes. While commonly used with long-distance runners, this intervention can be beneficial for various athlete populations. Since heart rate variability (HRV) reflects the time between heartbeats, it directly relates to the electrical activity stimulating the heart, specifically the sinoatrial node (the heart's natural pacemaker).
Low HRV is associated with mortality, myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease, and congestive heart failure. When sport psychologists help enhance HRV, HRV in this case is associated with improved autonomic nervous system balance. Research on athlete populations shows that following these benefits their sport performance outcomes improve while also reducing the risk of complex motor skills from being compromised. This biofeedback HRV sessions accomplish this through various forms of deep breath work. But as I mentioned earlier, I believe there is a far more important way this application can and should be used to help athletes with performance outcomes.
Part III. How Does Biofeedback Help NASCAR & Formula 1 Drivers With Energy Management
When people talk about the mind-body connection, they are oftentimes referring to how synchronized our bodies are with our brains during performance outcomes. The heart-brain connection is one of the most significant connections athletes can train. There are several reasons for this. First, the heart is what drives our autonomic nervous system (sympathetic nervous system is the gas, i.e. fight or flight, where the parasympathetic is the brakes, i.e. more calms states). During sports we are exposed to high pressure situations which place an incredible amount of stress on our bodies and minds. This stress can oftentimes increase our sympathetic nervous system activity, which can actually be a good thing for sports performances. Sympathetic nervous system activity can sharpen our focus and speed up decision making…but not without a cost.
On average, the human brain makes up about 2% of our total body weight. But amazingly, it consumes almost 25% of all of our energy reserves just to ‘keep the lights on’. So as you can imagine, if you are in a high stress situation like a NASCAR or Formula One driver, your brain will be burning through even more calories during these sympathetic nervous system states. And even though these states can enhance focus, the longer you are in them, the more calories you burn. By regularly engaging in Biofeedback training, you can train your brain and body to enhance your endurance, which in turn will reduce your calorie burn, and by extension allow you to make better decisions the deeper into the race you get. The more calories you burn, the worse your decision making gets as time goes on. The calmer you can stay, the better your decisions will be as you get closer to the finish line!
Note To Reader:
If you are an athlete reading this segment of the TRAINING REPORT, hopefully this content was helpful! I put the Training Report together because I felt like many of the discussions on issues such as the Yips/mental blocks, strength training & other subject matter on athlete performance concepts were really missing the mark on these ideas (e.g. how trauma is the direct cause of the Yips). If you are interested in learning more, make sure to subscribe below for when I put out new content on issues related to sport psychology & athlete performance! Also, if you are looking to work with a mental performance specialist, you are in the right place! USE THIS LINK to reach out to me to see if my services are the right fit for your goals!
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