Login | November 09, 2026
Brain endurance training
PETE GLADDEN
Published: November 9, 2026
Ever heard the adage, “Endurance is 80% mental?”
Well, there’s definitely a some meat on the bone with respect to this proclamation because over the last few years we’ve accumulated some interesting research that tends to indicate how critical mental fortitude is to one’s success in sports.
Several of these studies include: “The role of mental toughness, sport imagery and anxiety in athletic performance: structural equation modeling analysis,” published in the August 5, 2025 edition of “BMC Psychology” and “Mental toughness as a mediator between sports psychological skills and athlete burnout: a buffering model,” published in the May 1, 2025 issue of the “International Journal of Exercise Science.”
Which bring us to the concept of Brain Endurance Training (BET), a process by which athletes combine both physical endurance exercise with a series of demanding mental/cognitive tasks, the goal of which is to build up a resistance to mental fatigue.
Now this cognitive-physical exercise technique was conceived by Samuele Marcora, a PhD in Exercise Physiology who currently teaches at the University of Bologna in Italy.
Marcora’s techniques are based on his psychobiological model of endurance, a thesis which states, “Exhaustion and the choice to stop exercising are driven by the brain's perception of effort and motivation rather than pure muscular failure.”
Subsequently, as Marcora’s concept has caught on, the list of high end elite athletes who have been subscribing to this brain-brawn training philosophy is growing larger and larger.
So with this trend in utilizing BET techniques growing, one might wonder if it’s the kind of stuff that the everyday recreational athlete might want to embrace, such that the chances of performing better in local 5K foot races, triathlons, masters swim meets and maybe even a first-time marathons is enhanced?
Well, according to the professionals who subscribe to BET training, talking about doing this kind of work and then actually putting your nose the grindstone and performing this type of training are two completely different animals.
Word has it that true BET work is much tougher than many recreational athletes can imagine, for the only way to partake in a true BET routine is to work yourself into states of both physical and mental exhaustion.
A BET session entails round about 15 to 20 minutes of cognitive exercises before and/or after a long, hard endurance sports session, and this has to be performed a few times per week.
What’s more, these BET sessions are usually done using an app on a phone or tablet.
Two of the more popular BET apps include the Soma NTP app developed by Staiano, and an app from a company in Switzerland called Sswitch, both of which charge about $20/month as a subscription fee, thereby entitling the user to 45 cognitive-training tasks in addition to what’s termed a “sophisticated analytics” to guide the user’s progress.
There’s also a company called Rewire Fitness whose BET-type app connects with standard bluetooth heart rate monitors, standard bluetooth power meters, Whoop, Garmin, Apple Health, Strava, and the Oura ring.
So these programs usually present the user with a series of stimuli (numbers, letters, shapes) which appear onscreen such that the user must answer quick-fire questions.
What’s being tested are things like reaction time, decision making and memory, and these mental skills tests are repeated ad infinitum for 10 to 20 minutes - to the point of utter mental exhaustion.
Such mental training techniques, claim the experts, is necessary such that you can train the brain to develop a much higher capacity for fatigue, which in theory can provide for a higher and longer quality of performance amidst high-stakes environments.
Now according to the authors of a quite recent paper, “Brain endurance training as a strategy for reducing mental fatigue,” published in the June 18, 2025 edition of “Frontiers in Psychology,” their research has determined that individuals who undergo BET are less affected by mentally demanding tasks when compared to the controls.
But, they emphasize, “Research on BET and MF [mental fatigue] is still in its early stages, and there are no established standards for structuring BET to maximize its benefits. Future research should focus on developing and validating scientific guidelines for conducting BET, distinguishing it from other cognitive-motor training and elucidating the mechanisms that mediate it. Brain imaging could be helpful to examine the brain mechanisms mediating the increase in resistance to MF.”
So is BET recreational athlete friendly?
Well, if you’ve the fortitude to push both your mind and body to exhaustive levels, it just might be worth checking out.