LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. — In the world of elite sports, mental training is often overlooked, despite its crucial role in achieving peak performance. However, thanks to Elisa Chapman and her neuro and biofeedback programs at The Mobilized Mind in Olympic Valley, Tahoe athletes now have access to a cutting-edge approach designed to enhance focus, resilience, and performance under pressure.

Chapman, a Certified Mental Performance Consultant® (CMPC) and Board Certified Biofeedback (BCB) specialist, brings over a decade of experience helping athletes sharpen their cognitive skills. As a former collegiate soccer player, snowboard coach, and PSIA Level 3 trainer, Chapman knows the mental challenges athletes face in high-level competition. Her approach incorporates both traditional mental performance coaching and groundbreaking technology to support athletes in new ways.

One of Chapman’s most exciting tools is the i-BrainTech neurofeedback system, which is already used by professional organizations such as Juventus FC, Benfica, and the NBA G League. This advanced platform allows athletes to control a video game using only their brain activity, helping them visualize success and improve motor skills.

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“You put this little guy on,” Chapman said, gesturing to the high-tech cap with embedded sensors. “Some of these are ground sensors, and others are actually monitoring brain activity. These two on the outsides are monitoring motor movement activity, and this is looking at the frontal lobe and occipital lobe.”

By tracking brainwave patterns and transmitting the data via Bluetooth, the system reveals how an athlete processes movement and decision-making. The ultimate goal is to help athletes refine their mental focus and make more accurate, split-second decisions.

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Chapman primarily works with soccer and basketball players, though the system has shown promise in injury rehabilitation as well. “There’s research around how combining physical therapy with imagery of your physical therapy exercises actually improves ankle strength and knee laxity in ACL patients,” she said.

Visualization, often recommended by coaches but seldom taught in detail, is a major focus of Chapman’s program. Many athletes struggle to grasp how to effectively visualize their success. “So many coaches say, ‘You should visualize!’ But a lot of athletes come in saying, ‘I don’t really know what to do,'” Chapman said. The neurofeedback system addresses this gap by showing athletes how their mental imagery should look and feel.

Users create an avatar and practice tasks like soccer free kicks, with the game only rewarding them if they visualize the action correctly. The system also reveals differences in brain activation between amateur and professional athletes, illustrating how experienced players use their brains to anticipate multiple steps ahead.

Chapman’s use of i-BrainTech’s neurofeedback platform is one example of how technology is shifting the mental performance landscape. Developed by neuroscientist Konstantin Sonkin, the platform helps athletes accelerate neuroplasticity to improve specific skills, focus, and neuromuscular training. Chapman is one of the few mental coaches using this technology to optimize learning and performance.

In addition to neurofeedback, Chapman is also a specialist in biofeedback, a technique that provides real-time data on heart rate, muscle tension, breathing, and nervous system activity. This valuable information allows athletes to optimize their physical and mental responses, particularly under pressure. 

One of Chapman’s key areas of expertise is capnography training, or capnotraining, which focuses on optimizing blood chemistry through controlled breathing techniques. Used by elite athletes and Special Forces units, capnotraining goes beyond conventional breathing exercises, which typically focus on mechanics. Instead, it ensures that an athlete’s breathing supports optimal oxygenation of tissues.

As Chapman explained, “Subtle hyperventilation (or overbreathing) can occur as simply as taking ‘too large’ a breath every 10 breaths. This can deplete CO2, leading to chronic dysregulation that affects performance.” This approach helps athletes regulate their physiological responses, enhancing endurance and recovery while minimizing the risk of performance-robbing imbalances.

Chapman also helps athletes improve their self-talk. While traditional “positive thinking” strategies can backfire, Chapman teaches athletes to use self-talk that is both believable and productive. “When you look at the cognitive behavioral therapy triangle of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, the underpinning factor is beliefs,” Chapman said. “So if I’m telling myself at the top of a race course, ‘I can win, I can win, I can win,’ but there’s a little voice in the back of my head going, ‘Can you? Can you?’ all of a sudden, the self-talk that’s meant to be good is bringing about this sort of questioning.”

She offers a more effective approach: “If you say, ‘I know I can get through those first 10 gates, and we’ll take it from there,’ that builds confidence. Those small shifts make a massive difference.”

Chapman’s expertise extends to improving breathing efficiency, an often-overlooked factor in endurance and recovery. She explained that the key to optimal oxygen uptake is maintaining the right balance of carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels. “Our oxygen basically just goes for a joyride through the bloodstream and then leaves without doing any work at all—unless you have enough carbon dioxide,” she said.

A reduction in CO₂ leads to decreased cerebral blood flow, and Chapman’s biofeedback tools allow her to track this in real-time. “I’d put all the sensors on you, and the software program has a built-in stress profile,” she said. “Basically, it takes you through different activities while monitoring how your autonomic nervous system responds.”

Each year, Chapman works with a diverse group of athletes, including ski racers, snowboarders, golfers, and equestrians. Though winter sports dominate the Tahoe Basin, her expertise spans over 30 different performance domains. 

Chapman’s practice stands out for its ability to combine cutting-edge biofeedback technology with traditional mental coaching. “These tools bring tangible evidence to the mind-body connection we all speak of, and most mental coaches and sport psychologists don’t have this vast knowledge or arsenal of psychophysiology modalities,” she said. This integration is rare in the field of sports psychology, which typically only touches on biofeedback as a peripheral concept. Chapman’s specialized approach enables athletes to train their mental and physiological systems in tandem, leading to real, measurable improvements in performance.

Through the integration of groundbreaking biofeedback technology, traditional mental performance coaching, and a science-backed approach to mental training, Chapman is redefining what it means to train smarter. For more information, visit Chapman’s website at The Mobilized Mind.

Zoe Meyer is a reporter for the Sierra Sun, a sister publication for Tahoe Daily Tribune. She can be reached at zmeyer@sierrasun.com.