Whether it is timing a 95-mph fastball or reaching for a coffee mug, movement requires extraordinary computation that many take for granted--until now. The Performance Cortex ushers in a new way of thinking about the athletic gifts we strain to see in our cavernous arenas. It's not about the million-dollar arm anymore. It's about the million-dollar brain.
Praise for The Performance Cortex
“A must-read for the cerebral sports fan…like Moneyball except nerdier. Much nerdier.”
—Sports Illustrated
“One of the most intriguing aspects of elite sports is that the athletes themselves have no idea how they do much of what they do, because it occurs beneath their conscious awareness. Schonbrun’s deep dive into the cutting-edge science of human movement gives the reader X-ray vision (or, really, fMRI vision) into the brains of the world’s greatest performers. It will enthrall anyone who has watched a sporting event and asked: How do they do that?”
- David Epstein, author of the New York Times bestseller The Sports Gene
“To use a voguish sports catchphrase, The Performance Cortex is ‘next level.’ We’ve heard a lot about ‘mental toughness’ and ‘hard-wiring for success,’ but now Zach Schonbrun reveals the latest science on how elite athletic feats are actually accomplished. Fans will understand the genius behind all sports more clearly after reading this book. And they can, with pleasure. Schonbrun has mastered the art of writing gracefully about dense—and potential groundbreaking—material.”
- Jon Wertheim, executive editor Sports Illustrated, and co-author of This is Your Brain on Sports and Scorecasting
“The brain is the last untapped resource for athletes, the final frontier for sports analytics. Zach Schonbrun's riveting look inside of how players' minds truly work and how that knowledge is being used to reimagine the games we play fires with the efficiency and efficacy of a synapse.”
- Jeff Passan, national baseball columnist, Yahoo! Sports, and author of The New York Times bestseller The Arm
“Zach Schonbrun’s The Performance Cortex is full of insight into the next wave of athletic training, the relationship between the mind and the body, and the cutting edge neuroscience that seeks to explore and exploit this interaction to create better athletes. This accessible account will leave every reader wishing they had known all this before.”
- Glenn Stout, author and Series Editor of The Best American Sports Writing