ABSTRACT

The brain is the main locus of control for our behaviour and psychological states. Superior sport performance occurs when both the physical and mental dimension of an athlete converge in an adaptive manner to meet the challenges of the task. This chapter provides an overview of how the brain works for athletes at different levels of expertise and discusses how brain activity can be controlled to achieve superior sports performance. The multi-action plan model provides an alternative perspective for understanding the relationship between performance effectiveness and the utilization of resources in sports performance. The chapter discusses several limitations arising from the current literature and makes suggestions for future research in the hope of establishing a consensus on protocols to be followed in future studies. It provides an overview of neurofeedback training (NFT) studies used to investigate sports performance and proposes various criteria that might be used to assess the effects of NFT in sports domains.