Introducing Halo Sport: Neurotechnology for Athletes

From running shoes to sports drinks, activity trackers to cryotherapy, technology has enabled athletes to get more out of their bodies. But, while science has focused on the cardiovascular and muscular systems, the brain’s role in performance has largely been ignored. At Halo Neuroscience, we want to change that.

Halo Sport is the first neurotechnology of its kind designed for athletes. Similar to how a pre-workout meal fuels muscles, Halo Sport primes the brain to power athletes’ most effective workouts. Now everyone can train like an Olympian.

How it Works

At Halo Neuroscience, we help athletes get more from their training through a unique technology called “Neuropriming.” Neuropriming involves using pulses of energy to signal the motor cortex, improving the brain’s response to training.

At the beginning of a workout, athletes put on Halo Sport just like a pair of headphones and start a Neuropriming session using our app. Soft foam Primers deliver gentle pulses of energy to produce a state of hyperplasticity, increasing the ability of neurons in the motor cortex to work together — creating functional connections.

Hyperplasticity benefits athletes in two ways: increased strength and skill acquisition.

Strength

Halo Sport significantly increases neural drive, or the strength and coordination of signals sent from the brain to the muscles. When the brain sends more robust signals, motor unit recruitment — or the number of muscle fibers activated — increases. As motor unit recruitment increases, gains in strength and explosiveness — or the rate at which athletes can activate force — increase as well.

Skill Acquisition

Recruiting muscle fiber is only part of the equation. Neuropriming also improves the brain’s natural processes for learning and retaining information, helping athletes acquire motor skills at an accelerated rate. From perfecting a golf swing to completing heavy deadlifts, Halo Sport facilitates improvements in form and technique.

A Familiar Design

You’ve got your workout down to a science. Technology shouldn’t disrupt that. With its familiar headphone design, Halo Sport is easy to integrate into your training routine. The headphones are acoustically transparent, allowing you to you to hear sounds from your environment while playing your favorite workout playlist. Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone yours includes “Firework” by Katy Perry.

Our companion app helps you unlock your potential with a tap. Available on iOS (Android coming soon), the Halo Sport app allows athletes to target certain areas of the body, depending on their workout.

Measurable Gains

From Olympians to CrossFit fanatics, preliminary tests have shown that Halo Sport can give athletes a winning edge (PS: we’re always looking for more partners). The United States Ski & Snowboard Association (USSA) measured notable improvements after completing a Halo Sport program aimed at increasing agility and power of ski jumps, which are determining factors in competition. Compared with a control group, ski jumpers that used Halo Sport improved their propulsion force by 1.7x over the control group, and increased the smoothness of their jumps by 1.8x over control.

“Our interest in Halo Sport is driven by the potential of Neuropriming to increase the rate of skill acquisition, allowing for greater gains during valuable on-snow sessions and perhaps even allowing fewer total sessions, reducing our exposure to injury. We’re already seeing enhanced learning ability and enhanced power output,” says USSA Executive VP of Athletics Luke Bodensteiner.

We’ve also partnered with Invictus — one of the nation’s most well-regarded CrossFit training programs — to help prepare their athletes for the 2016 Crossfit Open. The athletes paired their existing training routines with a 20-minute Neuropriming session at the beginning of each workout, focusing on lower-body explosiveness. Within two weeks of using Halo Sport, these athletes were able to lift five percent more weight across their lower body sets, leading to better competition performances.

“We pride ourselves on utilizing the best training methodologies to help our athletes achieve their highest potential in training and competition. Halo Sport is a natural extension of that. Our athletes have seen incredible results,” says CrossFit Invictus Founder & Coach CJ Martin.

In a research study conducted in partnership with Michael Johnson Performance (MJP) — one of the world’s leading athletic training organizations founded by four-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson — Halo Sport drove 12% percent gains in athlete explosiveness.

“We know the brain is an untapped resource. With Halo Sport, it’s going to rewrite the way we think about training the body by focusing on what we can do above the neck,” says MJP Global Director of Performance Lance Walker.

The Halo Sports Research Lab has tested our technology on more than 1,200 participants in double-blind, sham-controlled studies. We’ve shown significant results in improving motor learning, strength, and explosiveness. You can read the research here.

Where it Began

Halo Neuroscience was founded with a mission of helping anyone unlock their brain’s full potential. Our CEO Dr. Daniel Chao and CTO Dr. Brett Wingeier previously spent more than a decade together at NeuroPace, where they developed the world’s first implanted, responsive neurostimulator for epilepsy treatment. After nearly 15 years of work, this device was unanimously approved by the FDA in 2013. A patient may have hundreds of seizures a day, but the implant senses the onset of an epileptic episode and applies a counteracting stimulus automatically. Adding to decades of progress in treatment of neurological disorders, NeuroPace demonstrated the great potential of these devices to improve human health and physical performance.

But Chao and Wingeier wondered why the industry wasn’t bigger. After talking to doctors and patients, they most products in this category required surgery and implantation to be effective. Chao and Wingeier realized that similar effects could be achieved with non-invasive technology.

Developing technology for medical applications takes years, and many rounds of clinical trials. That work is in progress. But our technology can also be used to activate parts of the brain in healthy populations and to trigger optimal physical performance for athletic training.

Safety First

Safety is our top priority. Our founding team spent the majority of their careers developing FDA-approved technology to treat epilepsy patients, and they’ve brought the same medical-grade approach and uncompromising safety standards to Halo Neuroscience.

Over the last two years, our technology has been tested on professional athletes and more than 1,200 volunteer participants under IRB protocol. No one has reported unexpected effects from the product. Halo Sport is intended for users age 18 and over.

Looking to the Future

Athletics is just the beginning. Each year almost 800,000 Americans suffer a stroke, making it the top cause of long-term disability. Working with some of the nation’s top hospitals, we’re researching the potential for our technology to accelerate the rate of recovery in stroke patients. Trials are up and running with The Medical University of South Carolina.

The Halo Champions Program: Train like the Pros

To date, we’ve worked exclusively with elite teams, trainers, and organizations. If you’re not a pro, but want to train like one, you can reserve your spot in the Halo Champions Program. This limited consumer release will ship in the Fall of 2016.

It’s been an exciting journey so far, but we’re just getting started. It’s time for athletes everywhere to unlock their potential.

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We’d love to hear from you! Shoot us a note at [email protected], and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. We’re also thrilled to be featured on Product Hunt.