20/12/2022
BIOFEEDBACK for Sport and Performance Enhancement
The technology of biofeedback has great promise for sport psychology and specifically for psychological skills training. Psychological skills learned through biofeedback training can be applied in practice and competition and can lead to improved athletic performance.
Biofeedback training is a popular technique used by sport psychologists to assist elite athletes in achieving performance success.
Today, owing to modern technology, it is possible to measure physiological indices—such as heart rate, muscular activity, brain wave activity, respiration, blood pressure, skin temperature and sweat gland activity—during real-time events. These physiological changes are presented to the athlete on a PC screen in a graphic or multimedia form and help regulate the mind and body according to the psychophysiological principle.
Biofeedback training is a technique of gaining control of self-regulation, based on information or feedback received from the athletes’ body and mind. Following intensive BFB training, psychological skills become automatic reflexes.
(Credits: Boris Blumenstein, Iris Orbach - Oxford)