I’ve been training daily on Lumosity for the past several weeks in attempt to improve memory, acuity, and other cognitive function.  It’s actually pretty fun but the one caveat for me is that in order to get a solid day of “training” in I need 100% of my attention span, and no outside distractions to stay focused, which surprisingly is hard to come by.

On top of that, I felt that a daily 10 to 15 minute session of mouse clicking could help with some decision making and cognitive function. I became curious what the training effects of incorporating new types of “physical activity” might be on brain function, coordination, and performance.

It turns out that the BRAIN is a primary component of your central nervous system. We talk quite often about central nervous system (CNS) efficiency and it’s role in your training. To keep it short and sweet, it’s the synergy between your muscle and CNS function that allows you to rip the bar off the ground, jump through the roof, or run through your opponent.

I reached out to Power Athlete’s resident professor of neuroscience, Steve Platek (@splatek on PAHQ.com), to get some details on what a solid set of BWODs could do for you. What came back was an amazing brain dump. Here’s what I learned. It turns out that spending a modest amount of time completing the BWODs below will activate two primary brain sites: the prefrontal cortex attentional system and the hippocampus. Why do you care about this? Because these two systems are primarily responsible for two important components of performance:

1) Short term attention span – Your ability to visualize a play,  pitch,  strike, combat scenario, shot or lift and then immediately reflect on and learn from sensory input
2) Ego-positioning – The system that calculates relative body position to your environment (field, opponent, platform, battle field, batter’s box, court, pitch, etc.) based of sensory input

So maybe you don’t want to cough up the $15.00 to train on Lumosity, or don’t have 20 minutes to sit down and train? Don’t worry! With Steve’s help I was able to come up with the below set of BWODS that anyone could do to improve brain function. The best part? They are slight modifications to your day, so there’s no significant time commitment!
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The BWOD

So here’s how this works people, for the next 30 days incorporate the following 8 activities into your daily routine to get Professor X like brain function. We’re going to leverage four styles of training: Off Hand Training, Eyes Closed, The Backwards Man\Woman, and Break the Routine

1) Brush your teeth with your off hand
Right handed? Use the left. Left handed? Use the right! You’ll notice that your dominant hand or arm may tense up. Be aware of that, and be in control and relax your dominant hand. Being independently proficient with both hands is an easy way to improve performance.

2) Purchase with your off hand
Put your wallet in the other pocket if you carry one. Use your off hand to reach for the wallet and pull it out of your pocket, purse or bag. Swipe your cards and count your cash with the off hand.

3) Unlock with your off hand
Unlock your house, phone, locker, bike lock, whatever you lock up with your off hand.

4) Get dressed and tie your shoes with your eyes closed
Suit up for work and let your digits wander to loop up and knot those Vans or chucks with those eyes closed! Still wearing Velcro shoes? Then you’re beyond saving… Forcing your brain to accomplish a familiar task without relying on the expected visual input will force you to re-think the task at hand and adapt to the new scenario.

5) Shower with your eyes closed
Before you hop in, be sure you give the knobs an ocular pat down to make sure the water is the correct temp. Then once it’s time to jump in and get to work, you need to lather, rinse, and repeat with eyes closed. DISCLAIMER – Open eyes immediately in the event of unexpected hands joining the party. What’s comes next is up to you.

6) Get there Backwards
Head to the bathroom, kitchen, fridge, or wherever, backwards! Assuming you have a work environment that would be tolerant of it, start taking the short trips to and from your desk or office backwards to change how your calculates visual stimuli to calculate where you are in space.

7) Take a different route home from work
Switch it up and vary the routine. Try to vary your route home daily throughout the work week. Don’t go to far out of your way though, you don’t want to cut into your training time. Looking for extra credit? Change how you get ANYWHERE! Grocery store, gym, etc.

8) Rearrange your home screen
Depending on your flavor, Google or Apple have likely glued a smartphone to your hand to collect daily info like weather, traffic, or workouts. Depending on what you do on that phone, have a trusted bud rearrange the icons on the home screen for the next 30 days.

Just like the training in the gym, consistency is king.  Be consistent and you might just notice that your single leg bounding is just a bit more coordinated! Give it a try and let us know on the Forums or in the comments how it went!
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