Chat By:  Julien Blin, April 7, 2022

Chat Notes:

At minute 32:40 this podcast with Alexi Pianosi, strength and conditioning coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL), Karam Al-Hamdani, Head Athletic Therapist at CF Montreal (MLS), and Marco Nunez, former head athletic trainer for the LA Lakers (NBA) turns to the use of biofeedback in sport.  

A decade ago, AC Milan, Chelsea, and Real Madrid started using biofeedback in what they called “Mind Rooms”.  The athletes had to learn how to control their physiological reactions to watching themselves make different plays, such as missed penalty kicks. 
Alexi speaks to biofeedback’s promise is its use for recovery elements such as lowering heart rate.  Teaching players to calm down and use the power of breathing provides an incredible advantage that is often underutilized.  Devices that aid in improving parasympathetic tone in recovery post training or games are very useful to players performance.  Marco’s affinity for biofeedback use is in the rehabilitation process where he, with the use of EMG sensors, can watch specific muscle activation patterns and identify things like maximal load and fatigue.  Karim noted his club has historically utilized biofeedback in recovery from concussion and are more recently starting to integrate it with muscle rehabilitation.