How Tom Brady Trains His Brain
Tom Brady was on this morning’s local Boston sports radio talk show “Dennis and Callahan” on WEEI, discussing the recent hit/concussion over the weekend that will now sideline former teammate Wes Walker again for the 3rd time in the last few seasons.
While keeping to the discussion about brain injuries Tom Brady also revealed how he routinely goes through a series of 26 brain exercises with his body coach, Alex Guerrero, to ensure his mind remains sharp.
“I got started a few years ago and noticed a huge difference,” Brady said. “It’s another tool kind of in the tool bag to use. If you’re going to play for a long time you’ve got to figure out all these different types of things in order to strengthen your body, strengthen your mind, and be proactive about it. Because you just can’t wait to get hurt. … I don’t want to be 50, 60 years old and not be able to walk, or not be able to think. I think there’s effort that goes into that, and you pay the price in advance so that you can exceed all expectations.”
[Personal Sidebar]: Att: Stroke Survivors-If you don’t want to listen to me, then listen to Tom. I’VE REPEATED THIS TIME AND TIME AGAIN, SUCCESSFUL STROKE RECOVERY TAKES HARD WORK and LOTS of EFFORT! To quote Tom Brady again, “….there’s effort that goes into that, and you pay the price in advance so that you can EXCEED all expectations.”
Similar to many stroke survivors who “should” receive regular assessments of their neurological recovery when working with a good physical therapist, Brady’s health coach gave him a baseline scan of neurological function to see areas where they could work to make Brady’s performance even better.
“Like everything with your body, you don’t want something to work too hard, and you don’t want something to work not enough,” Brady said on WEEI earlier today. “I think finding that balance in your brain or in your body is how you optimize your performance. You figure out where deficiencies are. Where you’re out of range, and you exercise to bring yourself back to range so you can continue to do the things you want to do as long as you want. Just because you get older, I’ve said this before, you can sustain peak performance as long as you can … Your memory or whatever the things that you need to do to work on, you can sustain those things a lot longer than you realize. I think that’s something that I’ve learned and that I’m going to continue to do as long as I’m here.”
As technology uncovers more and more information about the way the brain works, there will be more ways for both athletes and those recovering from stroke and other traumatic brain injuries to use those advances to benefit their own recovery as well as be more proactive about their long term brain performance. As for now, I am still researching those exact 26 brain exercise Tom goes through (as you may be interested in knowing too)! For starters, I do know of one great brain app I will be demonstrating on an upcoming webinar when we launch our new stroke recovery resource so go register here.
Post by David Dansereau,MSPT for Know-Stroke.org Blog
Resources:
Read more at: http://nesn.com/2014/08/tom-brady-wes-welkers-concussion-was-a-tough-thing-to-see-video/
