As a coach, wouldn't it be great to be able to see right inside your athletes brain, to ‘know' exactly what they are thinking and how they will react to any given situation - planned or otherwise?

Think about what it would mean to you if you knew how they process technical and cognitive information; why they choose one action over another; how they learn and retain information; and just what motivates them to achieve?

Knowing these personal behavioural traits will change the way you approach their ongoing development and enable you to devise a specific and targeted program; one that will not only be optimally effective but also far more efficient for you and the athlete.

This will speed up the developmental process and will reduce the likelihood of physical and mental fatigue or injury. It will also highlight how you react to situations as an educator, coach and even parent, how you choose your next step and what stimulates your personal growth and development, broadening your options. We spend a great deal of our time, effort and money on imparting information to our students: we show them, tell them and even get them to experience a multitude of techniques, skills, emotions and actions time after time to embed it into their neurology. So instead of peppering them with random information and hope some of it lands on them, we could deliver a precise message with pinpoint accuracy, like a sniper hits the target with no room for error. One of the more effective tools in the ever-increasing field of performance psychology is Behavioural Profiling. This scientific based technique gives those working with any athlete the advantage of pre-emptive coaching and response. Knowing how they will train, perform, react to specific stimuli such as stress, pressure and to possible injury, can enable you to avoid undesirable situations and plan your program. This foresight is invaluable in any effective education. If you know how they will perform before they do then you can manage and guide the most effecient way possible. This gives the student an advantage and the coach the peace of mind.

Behavioural Profiling gives you a manual to the mind and can guide the way you structure your system, your long-term program and even your team. Other effective tools include smart learning, effective language patterns, motivation strategies, peripheral learning and cognitive patterning.

As leaders in the study of ‘Hemisphere Training' we are changing the way we understand and manage learning processes and performance. This relatively new area of science delves into the neurological stimulation of both the left and right hemispheres of our brain.

By training one side of the brain at specific times, results have shown major improvement in learning potential, such as increase in information absorption and retention, increase in speed of reaction, and memory recall. Every aspect of your structure, both internally and externally, impacts on the success of your programme and thus your results.