The ability to improve your reflexes is integral, whether it’s intense sports, intense games, or navigating the aisles of the supermarket. So whether you’re a ninja, an aspiring MMA fighter, or a gamer, learning how to improve your reflexes is vital; so read on for my article on how to get faster reflexes.
Even if you could hit as hard as Tyson or throw as well as Joe Montana, they’d still beat you if you didn’t have their reflex speed. Fortunately, this ability to gain faster reflexes isn’t just genetic, it’s a skill that can be learned and mastered.
When we think about the process involved in getting faster reflexes, we have to break it down into its parts to understand it. The complete reflective action is made up of 3 separate parts: Recognition, Evaluation and Movement. Recognition is the time interval between when you first perceive a threat and when you begin your response. Evaluation is the time it takes you to decide what you’re going to do, whether it’s ducking a shot or passing the ball. Movement is simply how fast you can make your body move.
There are a variety of ways to improve your reflexes. Some of these ways to get faster reflexes are exercises meant to speed up your evaluation time, while others are simply everyday activities that can make your recognition of stimuli faster. The best reflexive actions are those trained in “muscle memory”.
Muscle memory is the act of repeatedly training a specific movement for a specific situation. The term “muscle memory” can be a bit misleading because in addition to training your muscles to react along a predetermined path, you’re also training your brain to do the same thing. Think of something you do every day and while it might be awkward for a beginner, now it’s quick and easy for you. An example that comes to mind at the moment is writing. Uncomfortable when I first learned it, my fingers now flow easily across the keyboard. This happened because in the last 15 years I have written a lot.
While muscle memory might be an ideal answer to improving your reflexes in a specific situation, we’re more interested in how to get faster reflexes in general. The best way to improve your reflexes is to do a variety of reflex exercises, mixing them up so that your body and mind don’t get used to the same routine.
A great exercise to improve all three parts at once is to try running through the woods or some other unknown terrain. This is a great exercise because you have to constantly assess your surroundings at a fast pace. The faster you run, the more difficult the exercise becomes. Train with a reaction ball A reaction ball is a six-sided ball that allows you to bounce and jump unpredictably in different directions. Throw the ball at a wall and try to catch or dodge it as it bounces. As you get better, try to increase your speed and/or get closer to the wall.
Playing video games helps the brain quickly switch between thought and action. While there are some video games that are specifically designed to exercise the brain, just about any type of fast-paced video game will engage the mind on a variety of levels. This is what is necessary to improve reflexes.
Strengthen your peripheral vision Improving your range of vision can greatly improve your reflexes. Focus on a distant object and don’t let your eyes stray from it. Take everything you can see out of the corner of your eye. See how far to the left and right you can see before the end of your line of sight. Practice a little each day, thus broadening your vision. Another way is to have a partner start in front of you and walk slowly in a circle behind you, while he faces forward. Note when the person disappears from sight.
While the suggestion of using a hypnosis technique might sound a little weird, there is a technique called Neuro-Linguistic Programming that allows you to hypnotize yourself to slow down your perception of time. When a baseball player is having a good day, he describes the ball as appearing larger or moving more slowly. It’s not bigger or slower, but it looks that way to them. They have been put into a trance, which allows them to speed up their inner world and effectively slow down the outer world.
If you’ve tried the exercises for a few weeks and haven’t gotten better, you need to consider lifestyle factors that may be holding you back. These factors include nutrition, sleep, and supplementation. Often times, people looking to improve their reflexes are high-performance athletes, such as MMA fighters. They may be following a strict diet to stay in a weight division. This caloric restriction can be counterproductive. If your body doesn’t get enough fuel, it will begin to ration how fuel is used by slowing down metabolism. This will make your brain feel sluggish and slow to react.
Lack of quality sleep is another factor that can slow response time. Your body requires seven to eight hours of quality sleep to recover and heal. Especially for high performance athletes who train their body vigorously. Resting better at night, or even taking a nap during the day, can be extremely beneficial. Consider taking a Neural Acceleration supplement. The best on the market is designed to aid in cellular communication and increase oxygen delivery and uptake.
