Today’s episode brings back Christian Thibaudeau, speaking further into neuro-typing, particularly on the impact of brain chemistry on athlete training individualization and coaching. Sport psychology is generally under-appreciated, as coaching of the highest order fully appreciates and understands the impact of an athlete’s mental state on competition and important training sessions. When one knows brain chemistry’s influence, there is less guessing, and the ability to more precisely prepare an athlete for their optimal performance.
Coaching is also impacted by neurology, and in today’s episode, coach Thibaudeau goes into how each neuro-type is gifted with particular abilities to coach athletes. Some athletes are immensely attracted to, or frustrated by, the styles of particular coaches, so knowing potential links or conflicts created by brain chemistry and neuro-typing is a must to get the most out of your own coaching and your athlete’s performance.
Finally, this podcast goes full circle, as the same things that create difficulty in responding to the highest competition for athletes also create difficulty in their ability to respond to workouts of a high neural intensity. Christian digs into the common brain chemistry behind these phenomena, and how our understanding can help us create better programming on the week to week basis, in addition to better competitive strategies.
Finally, I recommend listening to my first podcast with Christian, episode #77 if you have not done so already, to get an overview of the neurotypes, since Christian hits the ground running on them in today’s show.
If you are interested in becoming certified in Neurotyping, check out my review of Christian’s course.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
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Key Points:
- Neuro-types more likely to choke in performance and why
- Optimal training activation strategies by neuro-type
- Environmental factors in determining neuro-type
- How training changes under stress in terms of neuro-type response
- The most difficult neuro-type to peak for competition
- How neuro-type effects coach-athlete relationships
- Why some athletes are able to recover from heavy neural training better than others
“A Neurotype 3 in the 1960’s would not become a great golfer… nowadays technique is so deep that you can have someone who has less natural skills and more anxiety and compensate by becoming such a technical master”
“If I am overstimulated I have too much muscle tension, and my mobility is affected”
“That’s why people choke under pressure, it’s because high adrenaline situation speeds up the nervous system. You have two neurotransmitters responsible for exciting the nervous system… dopamine and adrenaline”
“Type 1A and type 1B have a higher level of serotonin… that’s why a type 1A or 1B that’s why often time, they often look lazy”
“Serotonin is a neural balancer, it keeps you in the optimal state for the task at hand. People with low serotonin have a really difficult time adjusting when they have daily activities that require either activation or relaxation”
“People with low serotonin get amped up just the same (as those with high) but they cannot prevent over-activation of their nervous system”
“If adrenaline becomes too high for 2A’s in competition then they will choke. 2A’s are their best in a minor competition or league game, but they will have a hard time at nationals”
“Neurotype will affect how you coach athletes in a high stress situation”
“The more sensitive to dopamine you are, the easier it is to get into that optimal (competition) zone…. Serotonin keeps you in that zone, so both are important”
“If you are type 3 a very small inflammation might feel like tendonitis”
“GABA and serotonin are the two neurotransmitters that calm your brain down”
“The less anxiety you have the more you want variation, the more you want to compete”
“You need carbs to convert tryptophan to serotonin”
“(On deloading at the end of a long training run and a peak) Do unplanned fun physical activities to unload for 1B, a type 1A doing low volume explosion work would work great, for 2B focusing more on technique and technical drills will work great, for 2A a small amount of bodybuilding work will be great, and a type 3 should rest a week”
“The 1B is more hit and miss in peaking than 1A”
“Type 3 what decreases their anxiety is becoming technique masters”
“Type 1B can have intellectual empathy”
“Acetylcholine plays a huge role in the efficiency of the motor neurons”
“If I have a lot of serotonin, I can calm my brain down”
About Christian Thibaudeau
Christian Thibaudeau has been involved in the business of training for over the last 16 years. During this period, he worked with athletes from 28 different sports. He has been “Head Strength Coach” for the Central Institute for Human Performance (official center of the St. Louis Blues).
His specialty: being a generalist. He assists his athletes to develop the necessary qualities to increase their performances (eg: muscle mass, power, explosiveness, coordination). His work method enabled him to lead several successful athletes in a multitude of different disciplines.
Christian is a prolific writer with three books published, each of which translated into three languages (The Black Book of Training Secrets, Theory and Application of Modern Strength and Power Methods, High Threshold Muscle Building). In addition, Christian is co-author with Paul Carter in a new book, which will soon be released. He is also the author of two DVDs (Cluster Training, Mechanical Drop Sets).
Christian is also a senior author and head writer for the E-Magazine T-Nation his articles are read by over 200,000 people every week.
He competed in weightlifting at the national level as well as bodybuilding, He was also a football coach for 8 years.
As a lecturer he has given conferences and seminars in both the United States and Europe, to audiences ranging from amateur athletes to health professionals and coaches of all types.
Christian Thibaudeau popularized the Neurotyping system. Neural optimization supersedes hormonal optimization because the neural response affects the hormonal response. This is essentially the founding principle and inspiration behind Christian Thibaudeau’s Neurotyping System. The bottom line is simple: you are more likely to train hard, be focused and stay motivated if you like the type of training you are doing, and training that goes against your nature causes a greater stress response that hinders optimal progression. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein
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