The S.F. Giants Are Zapping Their Brains With Electricity. Will It Help?

The San Francisco Giants, with the worst record in the National League, could probably use a shot of electricity about now.

Actually, they're already getting a shot of electricity—literally.

About a third of the major league roster, including “some big-name players,” are working out while using high-tech headgear that sends a weak electrical current to the brain in order to improve athletic performance, says Geoff Head, the team's official sports scientist.

So which players?

Head wouldn't name names, but said if the technology showed results by the end of the season, some players would probably go public saying they used it.

Tyler Beede, at least, is a believer. Watching a promotional video in which the Giants' headphone-wearing top pitching prospect hurls pitch after pitch, you'd think he was listening to tunes. But he's not — instead, he's getting the juice.

“It's a very unique feeling,” Beede explains in the video. “You put it on, and it does have that kind of tickling, zapping feeling on your brain, but that's kind of the reason you know its working.”

Beede, currently playing for the Giants' Sacramento AAA team, credits his improved pitching in 2016 at least in part to the technology — which is called transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS.

Tech Central

The headphones, from Halo Neuroscience, are just the latest health tech the team has sampled. Being in San Francisco, digital health startups frequently approach the club in hopes of getting a major league tryout, and Halo is located just blocks from the Giants' AT&T Park.

Head says his role as sports scientist is to “weed through” Read More ...

Source:: Future of You