What Girls Aren’t Always Taught: Your Nervous System Is Part of Training
A conversation with Yuka Sugiura on neuro-performance, vision/vestibular drills, and knowing when to slow down
TL;DW - here's a succinct summary of our conversation with Yuka Sugiura!
Girls are taught to work hard. In sports like gymnastics, they’re often taught that pain and fatigue are “just part of it.” But Yuka Sugiura — a former gymnast turned neuro-performance coach — offers a different lens: if your nervous system is overwhelmed, your body won’t move the way you think it will.
Her work blends applied neuroscience with performance and recovery, helping athletes build power, balance, flexibility, and confidence without always needing more hours of training.
What Girls Aren’t Being Taught. Many athletes learn to track skills, routines, and numbers — but don’t learn to track how they’re doing internally.
Yuka’s first “self-check” is simple, realistic, and surprisingly effective: Create a daily check-in. A quick note, a few emojis, a short pattern you log each day:
• How’s my body?
• How’s my mood/irritability?
• How did I sleep?
• What feels sore?
The goal isn’t perfection — it’s awareness. If a trend starts shifting, that’s information you can act on before things break down. She also notes that this kind of self-report check can be nearly as useful as fancy lab metrics — especially when you don’t have access to high-performance testing.
The Core Skill: Assess and Reassess
One of Yuka’s most empowering ideas is teaching athletes to ask: Does this drill make me feel better or worse?
She recommends a simple process:
1. assess a movement (split, bridge, balance, etc.)
2. do a short drill
3. reassess the same movement
If it improves, you’ve found a useful tool. If it makes you feel worse (headache, tension, “I hate this”), that’s also valuable information — because what helps one athlete might not help another. This is a practical way for girls to build body-trust and self-advocacy. Simple Drills Girls Can Actually Do
Yuka focuses heavily on vision and vestibular systems — because they shape balance, spatial awareness, and threat response. And her drills are accessible:
1) Pencil Pushups (Convergence)
Hold a thumb or pen at arm’s length, focus, and slowly bring it toward your eyes, then back out.
This supports comfort with something moving toward your face — which can reduce “threat” signals and help spatial confidence.
2) Distance Focus (Divergence / De-stress)
Look as far away as possible (out a window, down a street) to relax the system after lots of near-focus (phones/schoolwork).
3) Peripheral Vision Scan
Soft focus forward and notice what you can see to the sides without turning your head.
This builds awareness of surroundings and can feel calming, especially when athletes get “stuck” in hyper-focus.
4) Palming for Calm
Cup your hands gently over closed eyes (no pressure), block out light, and breathe slowly for a few breaths.
This relaxes eye muscles and can downshift the nervous system.
5) VOR Drill (Vestibulo-ocular reflex)
Keep eyes on one point while turning the head side-to-side (short sets).
A simple way to support gaze stability and coordination.
A Daily Habit That Builds Long-Term Consistency.
Yuka suggests two categories of micro-habits that pay off over a season:
• 90 seconds–3 minutes of vision/vestibular work
• circular joint movement to build a “movement vocabulary” beyond linear strength drills (exploring how joints move in more directions)
Her point: sports can be highly repetitive and prescribed — and sometimes the best way to stay healthy is to remind the body it has more options than one groove.Her Message to Girls Chasing Big Dreams
Yuka’s closing message is about awareness and environment:
• Learn what “good” and “not good” feels like in your body
• Don’t ignore signals just because you’re tough
• Choose environments that support listening — not just pushing
• Pulling back sometimes is what allows a longer career
She also adds something deeply aligned with HERcovery’s education mission: Stay curious. Some of the most powerful performance and recovery tools are the ones you weren’t originally taught.