Head in the Game

An exploration of how the world’s greatest athletes have yet to utilize the last frontier of performance-enhancing technology—the mental mapping and engineering of their own brains—and what this means for the future of sports, athleticism, and the rest of us. For years, common wisdom has held that athletic performance is rooted in genetics and peak physical enhancement of the body. But journalist Brandon Sneed has another idea: that mental engineering — training the cognitive process of the brain — presents yet a new level of sports performance, and that athletes, despite already being at the top of the genetic pool, can actually become better. This is a watershed idea — the conscious alteration of our brains can have drastic effects, so much so that elite athletes around the world are already seeing incredible results: stars like Steph Curry, Kerri Walsh Jennings, Russell Wilson, and dozens others are