Elite shooters always need to adapt to their environment, since external factors can potentially have an impact on whether you hit your target or not. Surprisingly, researchers found that environmental temperature drops do not have an effect on shooting performance [3]. However, it has been suggested that a temperature shift in any direction can be detrimental to sensory perception, which can potentially worsen shooting performance [4]. Additionally, it is even important to consider how a change of layers in clothing affects the hold of the rifle [5]. Wind speed and direction is another important factor that needs to be considered as even little effects on bullets are enough to change their path slightly enough so that you miss your target. Reading the wind correctly takes lots of experience and is a skill that is necessary to become great at shooting [6].

”I think pressure is a privilege and I have earned the right to feel that pressure. That is the way I try to view it and not to overcomplicate it too much“– Ludvig Åberg [3]

During our training together, Ludvig captured the essence of an elite mindset under pressure. But why does pressure in golf intensify so quickly, often leading to the notorious “choking under pressure”? One reason lies in the extremely tight margins in professional golf, where many players may be tied in rankings, sharing prize money for a given position. When the tournament reaches its climax, it often comes down to the final putts. Since professionals excel in their long game, a single missed or made putt can determine the difference between winning a title or losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. That there is truth behind this saying in golf ”Drive for show, putt for dough“ proves a dataset from the 2022 PGA Tour, that putting is more important in earning money than driving off the tee [4]. The pressure professionals are feeling with so much money on the line for one single shot can be overwhelming and shows that even elite athletes can be susceptible to pressure. This showed a study using a dataset from the PGA Tour from 2004 to 2012, that on the last hole of a tournament, the likelihood of making a putt significantly reduced, the more money, making the putt, could be earned [5].

Most people, whether involved in sports or not, are familiar with the concept of choking under pressure, where heightened stress leads to underperformance [3]. However, another perspective on performance under pressure is called social facilitation [4]. This well-established social psychology theory suggests that performance in front of an audience can either improve, decline, or remain unaffected, depending on the task. Specifically, simple, well-rehearsed tasks tend to improve with an audience, while complex or less-practiced tasks may suffer. Although throwing darts requires finely tuned motor skills, the repetitive nature of nearly identical movements from the same distance creates a highly standardized, automatic action—making it closer to a “simple task” than, for example, putting a golf ball.

Research shows that professional darts players, on average, do not choke under pressure [5,6]. However, individual differences remain, with some players thriving under an audience’s gaze while others struggle, supporting the social facilitation theory in darts. This variability underlines the importance of self-awareness: Knowing the conditions under which you perform best. It’s why many professional players either engage with the crowd to build energy or signal for calm to maintain focus, adapting the environment to their own optimal performance style.

This technique aims to prolong and deepen both inhalation and exhalation, reducing the breathing frequency to less than 10 breaths per minute. Breathing at approximately six breaths per minute has been shown to be the most effective for stimulating the vagus nerve and activating the baroreflex, which regulates blood pressure [4]. The vagus nerve plays a crucial role in cardiac regulation, and its activity is reflected in increased heart rate variability (HRV) — the millisecond differences between successive heartbeats. Higher HRV indicates greater activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes a state of relaxation as mentioned before [4]. Elevated HRV is also associated with improved overall health, longevity [5], and potentially cognitive performance [6]. Given these effects, slow-paced breathing offers numerous psychophysiological benefits for athletes, including enhanced resilience [4], anti-inflammatory effects, greater aerobic endurance, improved lung capacity, better emotional well-being, and enhanced sleep quality [7]. But potentially also include higher arterial oxygenation, increased cardiac output and decreased blood pressure [8]. Research has shown that long interventions of slow-paced breathing significantly enhanced physical sports performance [4].

Although meditation was once primarily associated with spiritual or religious practices, there are more modern approaches making waves in neuroscience labs and mental health clinics alike. From the outside it might look like meditating people aim at relaxation or ‘shutting off the mind’. However, meditation resembles a workout for the brain and as it turns out a really tough one. For instance, Mohamed Salah says about his mental training: “It’s tricky, it’s really tricky, trust me. I’ve been doing it for a few years and I’m telling you, just you sit with yourself alone for 15 minutes before you sleep or when you wake up. It’s much more harder than you do the gym every day for 1.5 hours” [2]. Maybe this kind of training is so difficult, because the ‘muscles’ that are being exercised here are specific brain areas associated with emotional regulation, optimal behavioral control, as well as self-reflective processing [3].

Many people who start a meditation session, quickly realize how often their minds wander — lost in daydreams, past memories, or worries about future scenarios that may never occur. While these mental patterns are not inherently bad, they can interfere with performance in sports such as in moments that demand full attention or readiness to cues [4,5].  Meditation is proposed not only as a tool to recognize these mental patterns but also to reshape them and train the mind to gain more control. But what exactly is meditation? Let us look at some examples of common meditation techniques [6].

Neurons that are activated together in close proximity and are oftentimes even connected to each other can be considered as “firing together”. So what does it mean when neurons also “wire together”? For example: When we do a certain movement throughout our human development repeatedly, the connection of the neurons that fire together grows and their insulation is fortified, thus making this connection faster and more efficient [2].

From a brain development point of view, we have much more connections between neurons as infants than we do as adults [5]. However, a vast majority of them are inefficient. As we get older and certain neurons start firing together, their connections strengthen while we lose the unused connections that we had before maturing. Throughout this process, our brain develops as efficiently as possible. Research in mice has shown that even an hour after learning a new motor skill, new connections start building on neurons, permanently rewiring and stabilizing with continued training [6]. This adaptive capability persists well into adulthood, challenging the widespread belief that the brain’s plasticity is limited to youth [7].

Our bipedal locomotion allows for efficient long-distance movement, enabling feats like ultramarathons covering distances of 100 km or more [2]. A key factor why Laura Philipp became the women’s ironman champion of 2024 was identified by her coach as her ability to combat mental fatigue and hold good running posture during the final marathon stretch of her 8+ hour race [3]. Studies have shown that mental fatigue is a major limiting factor in endurance sports [4, 5]. Specifically, the authors state that maintaining speed in a race or stopping for a break is merely a mental decision. It likely occurs because mentally fatigued athletes perceive the effort as greater and feel they reach their physical limits earlier [6]. While physical training is essential to extend the body’s physical limits, the mentioned research highlights the importance of mental preparation and fatigue management to push athletes close to their true physical limits on race day [7].

Despite a growing awareness that half-time has shifted from confrontational talks toward a more supportive approach [4], elite players still describe this period as a “missed opportunity.”

Karl, elite football player*: “Half-time talks follow the same routine: too much information, boring, low quality”

James, another football player*: “During half-time talks, I zone out.”

These responses suggest that the routines and methods used by coaches may miss the mark, leaving players disengaged [5]. While previous studies suggest coaches consider themselves “very effective at coaching during intermissions”, players’ perspectives reveal a significant gap in communication effectiveness.

It is also assumed that a basketball player’s brain works more efficiently than the brain of non-athletes. In a brain scanner (MRI) study, it was found that some areas of the basketball player’s brain are less active in perceptual and cognitive tasks, despite still performing at their best [4]. Fewer resources and therefore less energy is used to perform such tasks. The brain works more efficiently, which frees up resources for other tasks that are urgently needed in such a highly dynamic and complex sport.