The “F” word in sports is not that word you are thinking of. We keep it PG around here. The “F” word in sport is fatigue. There have literally been millions of dollars and hours dedicated to understanding this in athletes and how to better train them around it to improve performance and decrease injuries. There are countless supplements and sports drinks designed to help with it, from pre-work out tonics to recovery potions. Add in things like cryotherapy, massage, and ointments for the physical and you have a billion dollar a year industry all aimed at one word: fatigue. But none of these things get to the crux of the issue.

Most all these things focus on the physical body, muscles, and joints, but leave out the part of the system that controls those things. The brain and nervous system are what make everything run coordinated and on time, and when efficient, can help with fatigue. In fact, current research shows that the nervous system and brain are what fatigue first. Many studies have demonstrated that muscles can continue beyond what we previously thought. So, what this means is that we need to take a different approach to training with more information available to us. We need to train the brain and mental aspect of sport as much, if not more, than we train the body. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we bring back the “no pain, no gain” mantras of the 80’s and 90’s, actually quite the opposite.

We have the ability to know when the system is fatigued and tired by looking at ques from the nervous system to better tailor training. We can now train athletes better with less time and even less effort with individualized and focused training designed around their bodies and specifically their nervous systems. Knowing that “neuronal fatigue” (brain and nervous system fatigue) come before muscle fatigue is changing the landscape of how to train athletes and is allowing us to better design personalized sport specific programs.

Training the eyes can be key in improving the brains resilience and decreasing neuronal fatigue. You have heard that the eyes are the window are the soul, but did you know that they are also the best indicator to brain health and fatigue. Your visual system consumes 40% of the energy your body uses daily! That means that the eyes will get their energy first and then the body gets what is left over. If you are eyes are sluggish on the field or inefficient, then that leaves less energy for the body to use in sport. One way to set yourself and your training apart from your competition is to train the eyes. Sport specific training for the visual system is the next wave of training for athletes to take next step from good to great and get a leg up on the competition as well as to fend off the “F” word.

The “F” word is the cause of most non-contact injuries. Did you know that current research on non-contact injuries like ACL tears, meniscus tears and hamstring pulls is focused on the “F” word. Studies are starting to shed light on the fact that most of these types of injuries in sport occur when the athlete is tired. You see when you get tired your brain must spend more energy just to get things done. In doing this, it has to sacrifice things when your brain and nervous system are tired. The one big thing that is sacrificed is a word called proprioception. This is a fancy word to basically say, your brain’s ability to know where your body is in space. When fatigued, your proprioception decreases and puts your joints, ligaments, and muscles at higher risk for injury. Recently they have also been looking at the “F” word and concussions. And you guessed it, there are actually more concussion injuries at the end of games when athletes are tired. This is because, again the muscles can’t guard from the whiplash effects of hit as well, but also because of vision. When you get tired or fatigued your vision becomes more centric or you give up peripheral vision. When this happens, you decrease your ability to see a hit coming and to brace for it. The next wave of research and the “F” word will likely tie other contact injuries to fatigue as well. So, from improving your ability to train and recover, to sports performance and even now in to the realm of sports injury management and prevention, the “F” word is taking center stage.

What have you done lately to improve your brain and nervous systems resilience to the “F” word?