If mental fatigue limits physical performance, then athletes can be trained to become resilient to it:
“The idea is to put yourself into a state that’s both physically and mentally exhausting, by combining cognitive and physical training,” Ring said. In practice, this means 15 to 20 minutes of cognitive exercises before or after a long sports session, a few times per week.
BET is usually done using an app. A series of stimuli — numbers, letters, shapes — appear on the screen and the athlete must answer rapid-fire questions about each one. It tests things like reaction time and decision making, and also memory, by asking whether the current stimuli are the same as a few exercises ago. Repeat for 10 to 20 minutes, to the point of mental exhaustion.
Interest in BET has grown sharply in recent years, driven by a broader cultural push of optimization, a rising focus on mental health in sport, and the post-Covid boom in endurance events such as marathons and triathlons. “Most of the elite athletes train pretty similarly, fuel similarly, rest similarly,” Ring said. “There aren’t many things you can do to get a true advantage over your competition.”
However, he warns that BET is far from a miracle solution. “The interest is growing, but very few actually stick to it,” Ring added. “BET is hard. We’ve had pro-athletes throw their phones at a wall.”