Head In The Game

The Mental Engineering of the World's Greatest Athletes

By: Brandon Sneed

Narrated by: Nicholas Tecosky

An intriguing blend of science and sports that explores how some of the worlds greatest athletes are utilizing the last frontier of performance-enhancing technology—the mental mapping and engineering of their own brains—for peak performance, and what it means for the future of athleticism, sports, and the rest of us.

Moneyball showed how statistics were revolutionizing baseball. The Sports Gene revealed the role genetics play in sports. Now, Head in the Game examines the next evolution: how mental engineering—the manipulation of the cognitive processes of the brain—can make gifted athletes even better.

For years, technology—from EEG (electroencephalogram) to fMRI (Functional magnetic resonance imaging) to video games, tablets, and personal data collection devices—have been used with soldiers to understand their physical and mental functioning. Touching on brain functionality vital to sports—both the ""hard"" (coordination, stimuli processing, functional memory, decision-making, load-processing) and the ""soft"" (emotion regulation, visualization, psychology, mindfulness)—this tech is now being adopted by scores of championship franchises and top athletes—including scrappy underdogs forced to innovate and elite players looking for an advantage.

Star NFL quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Tom Brady, the NBA’s Kyle Korver, and Olympic volleyball champion Kerri Walsh are using mental engineering to up their game. It’s not luck that has transformed the San Antonio Spurs into a formidable force—it’s science, Sneed demonstrates. As mental engineering becomes widespread—taking athletes who are already freaks of nature and making them better—the impact on the multi-billion dollar sports industry will be dramatic on players, managers, trainers, owners, and even fans. Interviewing athletes and coaches, visiting training camps and sports science firms, Brandon Sneed offers a firsthand, on-the-ground look at this exciting breakthrough that has the potential to transform to transform the game—and all our lives.

Head in the Game

This is an amazing book with a lot of interesting anecdotes. I enjoyed listening to the narrator. He has an excellent voice.

Head in the Game puts your head in the game!

Excellent survey of what is going on in the heads of athletes, coaches, and trainers with the gear, tech, science that is quickly developing. With the backdrop of Brandon's story and his full immersion into the research it makes the survey richer and a more interesting read.

Great Book!!!

As an athlete myself and a game designer I found this book absolutely fascinating and it absorbed me from page 1!

Boring. Nothing to do with Athletes

Boring book. More science than talking about mentality in sports. Basically, use expensive labs and technology to get an edge.

Infomercial

Felt like he was just selling the idea of this brain testing like it was something to buy in a store. Did not learn anything that would help me in a sport playing or coaching. Nothing motivational even though I didn't look for it to be totally motivating. When I finish books, I usually have a certain drive to want to do something and use the info I've gained. Nothing here.