For the next 45 minutes, he sat in darkness as pulsating lights and sounds, frequencies set to prompt certain brain wave activities, coaxed him into a state more receptive to autosuggestion. I had 20 years of experience and could get away with what we were intending to try,'' recalls Twight, 39. Three days later, he'd achieved a record-breaking ascent, climbing in 60 nonstop hours a route done only twice before in no less than seven days. Already, athletes at the U.S. Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs, the Canadian National Olympic Sports Center in Toronto and several American universities are hooking up to neurofeedback machines to train to relax and focus. The idea behind both methods is the more the trip is made to a particular state, the more clear the neurological pathway becomes, the easier it is for the athlete to get there on his or her own.
Some skeptics say the emerging technology is too bulky and too expensive.
But believers predict controlling brain waves may someday be as crucial for athletes as eating right and training regularly. The next horizon is the mental edge,'' says psychologist Steve Stockdale, staff consultant for the Boulder Center for Performance and Sport Psychology. He recently teamed with Boulder psychiatrist Earle Shugerman and therapist Kerri Honaker to form the Boulder center. On an initial visit, a client sits in a chair for 30-45 minutes, while 19 sensors measure the surface electricity of his or her brain. This allows the trainer to identify brain wave readings chronically above or below the norm.