Every summer, ambitious parents invest in tutoring, academic enrichment, leadership programs, and elite sports camps to help their children gain an advantage before the new school year begins. Many aspiring student-athletes dream of training at elite institutes like IMG Academy in Florida, where future collegiate and professional athletes sharpen their skills during summer camps—or, for some, year-round.
But one of the most important performance tools at IMG Academy isn’t a weight room or practice field—it’s the Mind Gym.
Opened in 2016, the Mind Gym is dedicated to “cognitive-perceptual and vision training”, helping athletes strengthen ‘reaction time, decision-making, anticipation’, and visual processing. It’s part of a growing movement recognizing that physical training alone isn’t enough—the brain is the foundation of high performance.
IMG isn’t alone. In October 2024, Nike announced a partnership with Evolve1 to launch an online mental training curriculum for youth athletes ages 13–18, helping them develop confidence, focus, emotional and mental resilience, and visualization skills.
Founded in 2021, Mastermind Cognitive Training was created to improve brain performance through eye exercises and interactive cognitive challenges. At the core of its philosophy is the belief that the brain doesn’t distinguish between athletic and academic performance. The same neural pathways that help an athlete process information faster, anticipate movement, and make split-second decisions also help students focus, manage stress, learn new subject matter efficiently, retain information, solve complex problems, and perform in the classroom. Attention, processing speed, executive function, visual tracking, memory, and emotional regulation aren’t just athletic skills—they’re life skills.
This philosophy is increasingly reflected at the highest levels of competition. As of early 2026, more than 78% of franchises across the four major North American professional sports leagues employed at least one full-time professional in sports psychology, mental performance, or neurological training, up from approximately 52% in 2019, with 100% adoption across MLB teams as highlighted by Market Intelo in their “Sports Psychology Services Market Research Report”. As the science of human performance continues to evolve, more organizations are recognizing that elite performance begins with the brain.
At Better Brain & Body, Dr. Alicia Brown has been applying this philosophy for 16 years, right here in Charlotte. Her work has attracted Fortune 500 CEOs, professional athletes such as Christian McCaffrey, and families who recognize that peak performance begins with the brain. Today, the clinic combines comprehensive neurological assessments with personalized care and technologies like the new Spryson Neuro AI DX-200 to better understand the brain systems that influence executive function, learning, attention, athletic performance, processing speed, reaction time, visual performance, and lifelong cognitive health.
As the science of human performance continues to evolve, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the greatest advantage may not be training harder, but developing the brain that makes every movement, every decision, and every achievement possible. As families prepare for another school year, remember that backpacks and school supplies support learning—but the brain makes it possible.
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