Neurocognitive skills combine visual skills and perceptual-cognitive skills. These differentiate good athletes from great because they directly impact on-field performance. While neurocognitive skills are trainable, not all training is created equal. Coaches and athletes want to know, “What actually transfers to the court, field, or ice?”

Why I Learned How to Juggle

In Little League, I was no Aaron Judge. I struggled at the plate. One day my dad handed me a set of juggling balls he had picked up and said figure it out. He told me juggling would make me a better hitter.

I was skeptical, but also desperate. I really wanted to put more balls in play.

Was juggling really going to make me a better hitter? Let’s take a look at the literature.

How to Increase Transfer of Neurocognitive Training to Competition

With advances in neuroscience and technology, there are more innovative ways to train visual and perceptual-cognitive skills than ever before. But which methods or devices truly work? And by work I mean – transfer to real athletic skills and situations. For more information on what neurocognitive skills are check out this article.

Let’s look at what Hadlow and colleagues (2018) referred to as modified perceptual training, which “collectively describes on- or off-field sports training tasks that are specifically designed to develop visual and perceptual-cognitive skill” (i.e., neurocognitive skills).

Part 1: What to Train

Does the Skill Matter?

There are 3 questions you should ask before training a neurocognitive skill:

1. Does the skill differentiate athletes of different skill levels?

• If average athletes are just as good at the skill as elite athletes, then it probably isn’t a contributing factor to improving in that sport.

2. Can the skill be improved through training?

• Review existing research.

3. Does improvement in the skill transfer to improvement on the competition surface?

• Review existing research.

I can’t tell you how many organizations I’ve talked to (at a variety of levels) that didn’t answer these 3 questions first. If the answer to any of these is “No,” then training the designated skill is wasting time.

Visual acuity in baseball is a great example of a neurocognitive skill that doesn’t check all the boxes. This is the eye chart test at the optometrist’s office. While visual acuity is a valid and meaningful measure of basic vision, it isn’t as relevant in baseball where the action is fast moving and dynamic. Consequently, research has demonstrated that while visual acuity can be improved (Yes to Question 2), that improvement doesn’t make a difference on the field (No to Question 3).

Answering these questions can be tough. And knowing how to train these skills can be even tougher. I help teams, facilities, and organizations do just that. And I would love to help you too. Contact me.

Part 2: How to Train

3 Factors to Improve Transfer of Neurocognitive Training

In order to help athletes, teams, and organizations make better decisions about HOW to train these neurocognitive skills, researchers developed the modified perceptual training framework (MPTF).

The MPTF outlines 3 key factors which interact with one another to help us determine the likelihood of a training task to transfer to actual performance in competition. Each factor is represented on a continuum from less to more effective.

1. The skill is being trained – Is it a lower order skill visual skill or a higher order perceptual-cognitive skill?
2. Similarity of the stimuli (i.e., target, ball, etc.) to what an athlete encounters in competition – both visually and how the object moves.
3. Similarity of an athlete’s response in the task to how he responds in competition (i.e., visual tracking, catching, swinging a bat).

First, the target skill needs to score a Yes on the 3 questions in Part 1. Second, the neurocognitive training should be congruent with the sport context to increase the likelihood of skill transfer to competition.

The military units I’ve worked with had a phrase that sums all this up rather well – “Train how we fight.”

An Example.

Let’s look at training information processing speed for soccer goalies defending shots on goal.

Part 1: WHAT

Does the skill differentiate athletes of different skill levels?

• Yes, expert soccer players have a much greater information processing speed than novices.

Can the skill be improved through training?

• The research says yes.

Does improvement in the skill transfer to improvement on the competition surface?

• The research says yes.

Part 2: HOW

A goalie will wear stroboscopic eyewear (i.e., strobe glasses) while defending shots on goal.

1. Which skill is being trained? Is it a lower order skill visual skill or a higher order perceptual-cognitive skill?

Information processing speed is a higher order perceptual-cognitive skill which we are training in a highly sport-specific context. Strobe training forces the athlete’s brain to work harder to process the visual information she uses to identify, track and react to a shot, which speeds up her processing speed once the glasses are removed.

2. How similar is the stimuli in training to what an athlete encounters in competition?

In our training task, the stimuli (a player kicking a soccer ball toward the goal) is almost identical to what the goalie sees in competition. Note: From a training perspective, you may not start the goalie taking full-speed shots on goal. However, a goalie could work up to this level of speed and intensity.

3. How similar is the athlete’s response in the training task to what she would execute in competition?

In our training task, the goalie’s desired response is to make the stop and defend the goal. Therefore, her movements to deflect or secure the ball would be the same as in a competition.

Conclusion: Based on this analysis, having a goalie use strobe glasses to improve information processing speed while practicing shots on goal has a high likelihood of improving goalie performance in competition.

What about my juggling experiment?

The key here is in the skill being trained. If the skill my dad wanted me to train was eye tracking (following a single object as it moves), then we shouldn’t expect a high degree of transfer. The balls were not baseballs, they weren’t coming at me as in a pitch trajectory, and I was catching and throwing them in a coordinated rhythm, not hitting them with a bat. However, the real intent was to improve my concentration and ability to focus on a single task. And for that, juggling was indeed helpful.

Increase the Transfer of Your Neurocognitive Training to Improve Athlete Performance

By designing exercises and using technologies that closely resemble the natural stimuli and responses within a given sport, we can expect a drill to more likely transfer to the real world performance. Remember, train how you fight. Use the above questions and the MPTF from Hadlow et. al (2018) guides when making important decisions about practice drills, training exercises, and technologies. And if you need a little help, let us know. It’s what we do.

Question: What have you seen work or not work when it comes to neurocognitive training? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Additional Info:

• Post: 9 Neurocognitive Skills that Improve Athlete Performance
• Post: 3 Ways to Integrate Neurocognitive Skills Into Strength Training
• Post: The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training

The post How to Increase Transfer of Neurocognitive Training to Competition first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

There is more to sports vision than meets the eye. We know that sports performance relies on interconnected systems of sensory input, processing information, and motor skills. We also know that the central nervous system relies heavily on visual information. However, when it comes to performance on the court, field, or ice, how important is vision in sports?

I Wasn’t a Slugger

I loved playing little league baseball! My days on those scaled-down diamonds were filled with joys and disappointments, highlights and letdowns.

While I was a decent player, picked up by a few All-Star teams, I wasn’t great. One reason is that I had a hard time seeing the ball at the plate. On defense, no problem. But I struggled in the batter’s box. My coaches tried everything to help me out – and I appreciated their coaching.

A couple of years later I realized I had some minor vision issues. I got glasses, moved where I sat in class, and made adjustments.

Ultimately, my battle to make solid contact at the plate had more to do with my eyes than it did my mechanics or mindset.

Vision in Sports

When it comes to vision in sports, there is a lot we know. Some we covered in our series on Athlete Cognition.

Here are a few stats:

• 70% of the body’s sensory receptors are in the eyes.
• 80% of the information athletes use to make decisions is visual.
• 90% of the brain is involved in vision-related tasks.
• Athletes have better visual abilities than non-athletes.
• Some performance vision skills are easier to train than others.

Do Elite Athletes Have Better Vision?

Yes – well, sort of. Some performance vision skills matter more than others. These findings are surprising!

Do elite athletes have better than 20/20 vision?

Not necessarily. First of all, the measure for 20/20 vision is based on static visual acuity (static meaning non-moving). Sports involve movement – and often fast movements of players and objects. Therefore, a non-moving test is a poor judge of the visual skills athletes require.

Secondly, there is a difference between visual hardware (the biomechanics of seeing) and visual software (the tracking, processing, and interpretation of visual information). For example, researchers found that 15% of NFL players, 20% of NBA players and 13% of Olympic athletes had worse than 20/20 (static) visual acuity.

While elite athlete do not necessarily have better “vision” as defined by the misleading 20/20 standard, elite athletes do have superior visual skills (i.e., visual software).

Eye Movement

Research across multiple sports has demonstrated that eye movements separate top athletes from the rest.

Joan Vickers and colleagues repeatedly found that elite athletes have a longer “Quiet Eye” period just before initiating a reaction or movement. This means they have a longer gaze fixation (e.g., looking at the basket before shooting a jump shot) than lesser skilled athletes.

Investigations in baseball revealed that better eye tracking skills (following a moving object) were linked to plate discipline, on-base percentages, and the highest level attained by players.

Visual Search

We also know that elite athletes have a more refined visual search strategy. This means that better athletes tend to use fewer gaze fixations while lesser skilled athletes tend to use more fixations in an attempt to determine which information is most important. Better athletes also tend to follow a consistent pattern (or routine) to identify the most relevant information in their sport.

An example would be a hitter using more precision to look at a pitcher’s shoulder rotation, arm angle, and release point, whereas lesser skilled hitters focus on general areas and don’t follow a predictable visual search pattern.

Cue Recognition and Utilization

Lastly, top athletes are better at using advance cues to anticipate and make decisions in sports. Advance cues simply refers to any aspect of opponent’s behavior or movement that can be used to anticipate their actions. An example in tennis would be using the server’s shoulder turn, toss location, and racquet swing to anticipate where the serve will go before it is hit.

Research from Bruce Abernethy and colleagues has documented that lower level athletes tend to use information that is only available later, such as judging the spin or trajectory of a ball to determine where it is headed, which causes them to be slower to make decisions and react.

Free Consultation

Need help training the right visual skills for your athletes? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that works for you or your organization.

How Important is Sports Vision to Athletic Performance?

Overall, an athlete’s visual skills are extremely important to their ability to perform on the court, course, field, and ice. While an athlete’s visual hardware matters, it is their ability to visually focus on the right information at the right time and process it efficiently that separates the best from the rest. And the most exciting part is that these critical visual skills can be trained at any level to improve performance when it counts.

Additional Info:

• Post: Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field
• Post: The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training
• Post: 9 Neurocognitive Skills that Improve Athlete Performance
• Post: 3 Ways to Integrate Neurocognitive Skills Into Strength Training

The post How Important is Sports Vision to Athletic Performance? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

There is more to mental performance than visualization, productive thinking, and pre-performance routines. Although those are important, training an athlete’s cognition cycle is the next frontier. Collectively, the components of how athletes see, decide, and execute are referred to as neurocognitive skills. Advances in neuroscience and technology enable us to now train these skills to unleash athlete potential.

What are Neurocognitive Skills?

Simply put, neurocognitive skills are the underlying mechanisms that facilitate how athletes see, decide, and execute (or perform their sport skills under pressure). I’ve discussed athlete cognition in a series of previous posts. Here we’ll dive into the these supporting skills that can give athletes a significant competitive edge.

Neurocognitive skills come from two overlapping skill areas: visual skills and perceptual-cognitive skills.

Visual skills refer to the ability of an athlete to see and process information to inform their movements and reactions in sport.

Perceptual-cognitive skills refer to an athlete’s ability to locate, identify, and process environmental information in order to integrate it with current knowledge and motor abilities to select and execute appropriate actions (Marteniuk, 1976).

Together, these skill areas comprise 9 neurocognitive skills athletes should train to unleash their potential.

Dynamic Visual Acuity – the ability to track objects while either the object itself (e.g., a ball or puck) or the individual is moving (i.e, tracking the goal).

Depth Perception – the ability to determine the location and proximity of an object (i.e., ball or person) in 3-dimensional space.

Visual Search – the ability to discriminate relevant from irrelevant information.

Pattern Recognition – the ability to recognize patterns of movements or play as they emerge.

Cue Utilization – the ability to notice and adjust to early cues emanating from an opponent’s physical movements (such as footwork or shoulder rotation).

Information Processing Speed – the speed at which an athlete is able to process and interpret visual information in order to make predictions (e.g., situational probabilities) and motor responses on the court, field, or ice.

Anticipation Timing – the ability to predict where an object (or person) will be at a future point in time (such as where a player will be to receive a pass).

Situational Probabilities – the ability to utilize sensory information (including patterns and cues mentioned above), along with current knowledge and working memory, to generate accurate predictions about what others are likely to do in a given situation.

Eye-Hand Coordination – the ability to coordinate visual and motor abilities to interact effectively within the sport context (i.e., throw, kick, catch, hit, intercept, etc.).

Collectively, these skills support an athlete’s perception and decision making on the competition surface. Training these neurocognitive skills also accounts for a large portion of improvements in both reaction time and accurate and efficient skill execution in competition (Dudman & Krakauer, 2016).

Note that this list is not exhaustive. There are additional underlying elements and numerous cognitive skills involved in skilled athlete performance.

Why Should Athletes Train these 9 Neurocognitive Skills?

Research has shown that training neurocognitive skills results in a number of benefits that give athletes a clear competitive edge. This is why I refer to neurocognitive training as the next frontier in mental performance.

Neurocognitive skills training improves:

• Eye-hand coordination, catching, balance, and sport-specific dribbling
• Quality of contact, visual reaction & recognition times
• Anticipation and decision-making
• Reaction time and skill execution

Free Consultation

Need help training neurocognitive skills (or targeting the right ones)? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that will work for you.

Introduce Your Athletes to Neurocognitive Training

Athletes who train the underlying mechanisms to cognition (see, decide, execute) have a clear advantage over those who don’t. Introduce your athletes to neurocognitive training by targeting these 9 fundamental skills that improve athlete performance.

Question: Which neurocognitive skills would make the biggest difference in your sport?I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Additional Links:

• The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training
• Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field
• Training Athlete Cognition: 4 Ways to Improve Athlete Decision Making
• Training Athlete Cognition: How to Help Athletes Execute On Demand
• 3 Ways Training the Mind and Body Together Improves Athlete Performance
• 3 Ways to Integrate Neurocognitive Skills Into Strength Training

The post 9 Neurocognitive Skills that Improve Athlete Performance first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Athletes at every level know the importance of warming up before practice, competitions, and even workouts. Warm-ups are designed to increase heart rate, activate muscles, and prepare athletes for the demands of competition. However, given the importance of visual processing in many competitive sports, it is surprising that warming up the visual-motor system isn’t part of every pre-competition warm-up.

Why Athletes Should Warm Up Their Eyes

Eighty percent of the sensory information athletes use to make decisions and respond in competition is visual. If we break down these visual skills and the processes involved, it becomes clear that activating these systems prior to competition simply makes sense – just like warming up the body.

Here are a few sports vision skills:

• Eye Teaming: The ability of the eyes to work together to shift from one focal point to another, adjust to depth, and track objects in motion. This refers specifically to ocular-motor coordination – using muscles that move the eyes.
• Dynamic Visual Acuity: The visual system’s ability to pursue and track moving objects such as teammates, opponents, and objects (e.g., ball, puck).
• Anticipatory Timing: The neurocognitive process of judging where a moving object will be (i.e., predicting) in space at a certain point in time. This refers to being able to cut off a defender, make ball contact, or catch a pass.

Emerging evidence demonstrates that using strobe glasses to warm up the visual-motor system before competition may give athletes a competitive edge. Strobe eyewear is one of my favorite tools for warming up the visual system because they are extremely versatile, easy to use, and effective.

• Smith and Mitroff (2012) demonstrated that brief Strobe training (5-7 minutes) improved anticipatory timing (a key skill in hitting, catching, and intercepting skills) after training.
• Hülsdünker et al. (2020) found that faster visuomotor reactions after strobe training were accompanied by accelerated visual perception and processing.

A Visual Warm-Up Should Target These Skills

Here are a few visual skills athletes should include in their pre-competition warm-up. We’ll dive deeper in a future post.

Saccades (shifting your gaze from one point to another)

• To loosen and prime the six ocular-muscles that are involved in eye movement and eye teaming.

Near-Far Shift (shifting your visual focus from a near target to a far target and back)

• To quicken the eyes’ ability to shift an athlete’s gaze to different distances.

Dynamic Visual Acuity (tracking moving objects or while you are moving)

• To activate eye teaming to help the eyes smoothly track moving objects.

Eye-Hand or Eye-Foot Coordination

• To transition the above skills into a more performance-focused exercise of tracking objects, anticipatory timing (judging the future location for hitting, kicking, catching, intercepting), and visual-motor coordination.

Using stobe eyewear during your pre-competition warm-up is another great way to activate the visual system. You can wear them during plyometrics, agility drills, or even on-field drills.

For help designing a pre-competition visual warm-up, contact us for a free consultation.

Integrate a Visual Warm-up for a Competitive Edge

Whether on-field or in the locker room, athletes should include their visual system in their pre-competition warm-ups. Warming up the eyes and visual-motor system prepares the athlete’s integrated visual and cognitive processes for the demands of sport performance. This primes the most important sensory system athletes rely on to be their best on the field, court, or ice, so they can see, decide, and react faster than the competition.

Question: What are other reasons a visual warm-up is important for athletes?I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Additional Links:

• Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field
• 3 Ways to Integrate Neurocognitive Skills Into Strength Training
• Save on Senaptec Strobe Eyewear

The post Why a Visual Warm-Up Is Important for Sports Performance first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Almost everyone has experienced it. Many athletes call it “being in the zone.” Others refer to it as “clicking on all cylinders.” I’m talking about flow. Some say flow is elusive. But the reality is that we all crave flow – for good reason. Let me introduce you to the flow cycle and why each phase is crucial for high performance.

A Flow Breakthrough

I remember the situation vividly. We were playing one of the top teams in the country. I was overmatched. My opponent was simply better than me. And we were competing on his home court.

It was under those circumstances that I probably played the best tennis of my college career. I locked in. I brought my best stuff. I didn’t allow myself to get rattled.

While I didn’t win on the court that day in Virginia, it was a victory for me. I was learning to access flow and to linger in it for longer periods of time in competition.

What is Flow?

For decades researchers have investigated flow. Some referred to it as peak experience, while others used the phrase, “in the zone.” One study by Krane and Williams (2006) asked elite athletes to describe what it was like.

Here are the most common characteristics those athletes shared:

• Confident
• Expect Success
• Feel in Control
• Total Concentration
• Focused on the Present Moment
• Positive Attitude
• Productive Thinking
• Determined
• Highly Committed

How do these match your experience of flow?

I hear these same descriptors every time I ask athletes or military operators about flow.

Mihaly Csikszentmilhalyi (the godfather of flow research) defined flow this way: A mental state of being completely absorbed, focused, and involved in your activities at a certain point in time, as well as deriving enjoyment from being engaged in that activity.

The key aspects of his definition of flow:

• All in (absorbed in the moment)
• Task-focused (thinking of only what you’re doing)
• Enjoying the moment

If you know, you know how great flow is; how fun it is; and how it elevates your performance – regardless of your arena.

So, how do you access it? How does it work? Let the fun begin!

4 Phases of the Flow Cycle

As you may have heard, success leaves clues. And so does flow. By expanding on the original work of Csikszentmilhalyi and modern advances in neuroscience, flow is now understood to have a predictable cycle. Read Steven Kotler’s The Rise of Superman for a deep dive.

The flow cycle has 4 phases. Each serves a clear purpose. When athletes understand the 4 phases, they can:

• Know where they are within the 4 phases.
• Take action to move from one phase to the next.
• Maximize their opportunities to reap the benefits of flow.

Phase 1: Struggle

When we experience struggle, our brains trigger the release of stress hormones (e.g., norepinephrine and cortisol). These put us on high alert. This is the good kind of stress – eustress, which prepares our minds and bodies for the challenge.

This phase is about recruiting the neurological and physiological resources we need to meet the demands of the struggle.  Attention and awareness are heightened to help us bring our best to the challenge ahead.

When we back down from struggle we rob ourselves of flow. Without struggle or challenge we cannot access flow.

Push outside your comfort zone.

Phase 2: Release

In order to move into flow we first must hit the release valve on the stress chemicals triggered in phase 1. We do this by letting go out the outcome. Athletes refer to this as trusting the process. Holding on to the tension of success vs failure keeps us in the struggle phase and prevents us from getting to flow.

Letting go of the outcome and committing to the task or activity itself triggers the release of the brain’s top shelf cocktail of feel good neurochemicals of dopamine and endorphins.

Hit the release button through a combination of self-talk, task focusing, and diaphragmatic breathing.

Phase 3: Flow

Welcome to the main event! Once we’ve ridden the wave of struggle and hit the release button we can better access flow. Flow occurs when we’re present in the process. The brain changes its neurochemistry and neurofunctionality (a deeper dive for another post) for more automated sensory processing and instinctive responses.

In flow athletes have a heightened awareness (overflow from phase 1) and more automated actions (seemingly effortless). Ultimately, they perform better.

Phase 4: Recovery

Flow is an expensive and taxing set of neuroprocesses – like your brain burning jet fuel instead of unleaded.  Therefore, high quality recovery is essential. This is when we learn and grow.

In the recovery phase there is a release of the neurochemicals acetylcholine, oxytocin and serotonin which aid relaxation and rejuvenation by activating the body’s parasympathetic response.

The recovery phase also increases neuroplasticity and accelerates learning, helping to solidify coaching, feedback, and lessons learned for an even better performance next time.

Hard core performance (e.g., flow) requires hard core recovery. A few keys to maximizing the recovery phase are diaphragmatic breathing, mindfulness, sleep, and nutrition.

Take Advantage of Flow

Flow is the brain state of high performance. While athletes may not get there in every performance, understanding how it works gives them a chance to access it more and more. When they embrace struggle (phase 1) and let go of the outcomes of winning or losing (phase 2), they can then move into flow and perform at their best. Then they need to engage in quality recovery to recharge the systems so they can do it again and again. 

Question: Which phase of flow is keeping you from accessing flow more consistently?I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Additional Links:

• Book: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Book: The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler
• Why Should Every Athlete Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing?
• How to Master Your Thinking: Think on Purpose
• How to Convince Your Athletes to Get More Sleep
• 3 Strategies to Help Athletes Focus on the Process

The post 4 Phases of Flow and Why They Matter first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Time is every athlete’s greatest constraint. When I consult with organizations about neurocognitive training, I often hear that time is a primary concern. They often cite time as the #1 reason athletes don’t invest in training the critical neurocognitive skills that could give them a real competitive edge. However, there is a solution: integrate neurocognitive skills into physical training sessions.

Addressing Concerns When Integrating Neurocognitive Training

In an article on why athletes should train the mind and body together I shared how I helped one organization tackle this very problem. Here we’ll dig deeper into the nuts and bolts of integrating neurocognitive and physical training together.

First, let’s address a couple of common concerns:

1. Time

Integrating neurocognitive training into a strength training period doesn’t require adding time to the training period. However, you can tack on a few additional minutes if you want to or if it is beneficial for hitting your training outcomes.

2. Confusion

As with any other training, familiarizing athletes with the training program and equipment is a key to efficient training and overall success.

3. Distraction

Neurocognitive training is not a distraction from strength training (unless you choose to view it that way). Rather, it forces athletes to utilize cognitive processes that mimic real-world performance such as task-switching, refocusing, and decision making while fatigued.

3 Ways to Integrate Neurocognitive Skills into Physical Training Sessions

While there are a number of ways to integrate neurocognitive training into an athlete’s or team’s practice regimen, here are 3 simple strategies for training neurocognitive skills within a physical training session.

1. Visual Warm-up

The visual system is primarily responsible (80%) for the decisions and reactions athletes make on the field. It also plays an important role in proprioception and balance – key aspects of nearly every physical training program.

Following the RAMP framework, it is just as important for athletes to warm-up their visual systems as it is their bodies.

Examples of neurocognitive drills:

• Eye movement drills that activate the ocular muscles (e.g., saccades)
• Eye teaming drills that require athletes to shift their gaze from near to far and back again
• Eye-hand coordination drills incorporating movement along with simple tossing and catching/kicking

2. Utilize Active Rest Periods

Plugging neurocognitive skills into active rest periods is both efficient (no additional time required) and effective (mimics the real-world demands of competition).

Coordinating with your strength and conditioning staff helps to create a seamless training program that both flows well and maintains the integrity of your (now more holistic) training outcomes. This is a custom service we offer our clients.

Neurocognitive skills can easily supplement active rest within super-sets or HIIT training rotations.

Examples of neurocognitive drills:

• Incorporate simple vision training exercises using heart charts, brock stings, lifesaver cards.
• Include visual processing drills using flashing numbers, shapes, or sport-specific scenes.
• Add Strobe eyewear (link below) to eye-hand coordination drills.

3. Train Decision Making

One of the greatest contributors to poor decisions in late-game situations is a failure to train decision making while fatigued.

By adding choice reaction time, quick decision making, and response inhibition to training, athletes can significantly improve their late-game decision making [link to decision post] and responses. These exercises can be used during active rest periods or between conditioning reps.

Examples of neurocognitive drills:

• Go / No Go is a common yet simple choice reaction drill that forces athletes to make quick decisions with a clear right or wrong response.
• Occlusion training presents sports-specific images or video segments to an athlete, then stops at the critical decision point, forcing her to utilize the cues shown to anticipate the rest of the action (e.g., where a serve will land in tennis) or choose how to respond (e.g., pass to player X as she cuts to the basket).
• Use a simple Stroop, vigilance, or inhibition task where the athlete has to overcome natural tendencies in order to make the correct response.

Bonus Download

To help you integrate neurocognitive skills into your physical training sessions I created a 1-page infographic of the strategies in this post.

Integrate Neurocognitive Skills for Next Level Training

Training athlete cognition is the next frontier in mental performance training. It is important to train the mind and body together to best prepare athletes for the mental and physical demands of competition. Utilize the practical strategies in this post to integrate neurocognitive skills into your physical training sessions and give your athletes the competitive edge they deserve!

If you need additional support, reach out to us. That’s what we do – we build cognitive training programs that work!

Question: What are other ways you are integrating cognitive training?I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Additional Links:

• The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training
• 3 Ways Training the Mind and Body Together Improves Athlete Performance
• Training Athlete Cognition: How to Help Athletes Execute On Demand
• RAMP framework
• Strobe Eyewear (Use Code “UnleashStrobe20” to save $20 at checkout)

The post 3 Ways to Integrate Neurocognitive Skills Into Strength Training first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

In the heat of competition athletes face myriad demands. Dr. Vincent Walsh tells us, “If one considers the challenges that elite sport performance presents to the brain, it is difficult to think of any human activity that places more demands on the brain (with the possible exception of combat Soldier).” Competition requires athletes to meet extreme mental and physical demands simultaneously. Athletes need to train the mind and body together. Yet, too often, the mind and body are trained separately.

The Old Way to Train: Mind & Body Separately

Training athletes used to look like an assembly line of exercises. A practice outline looked like this:

• Film Study
• Warm-up
• Skill 1 Repetitions
• Skill 2 Repetitions
• Skill 3 Repetitions
• Scenario 1 Repetitions
• Scenario 2 Repetitions
• Scrimmage
• Strength Training
• Conditioning

The focus was on repetition of specific skills over and over again. For example, after completing 20 repetitions of throwing ground balls to first base, they did 20 repetitions of throwing to second base. This is a simplified example of course, but you get the point. While this approach developed sport skills more quickly, those skills did not transfer well to competition.

Practice was simple and repetitive. Competition was chaotic and variable. Notice the mismatch.

The New Way to Train: Mind & Body Together

I recently worked with a high performance organization in which training time was limited – as it is for almost every sports organization I know of. The mission was to improve physical strength, cardiovascular fitness, and cognitive performance under stress, and avoid injuries in the process.

I’m sure this sounds familiar.
To combat the constraints on time and still meet our objectives, our team employed a more modern approach to athlete training.

Building on previous articles on Athlete Cognition (How Athletes See, Decide, and Execute), I worked collaboratively with our strength staff to integrate neurocognitive performance training into physical training blocks (more on that in a future post).

We designed training sessions to elicit physical and cognitive adaptation to demands (stressors) that mimic the real-world performance environment.

In training we taxed physical and cognitive systems simultaneously. Competition also taxes both systems simultaneously. We created alignment in how athletes trained and competed.

The military has a mantra for this: “Train like we fight.”

Why The New Way is Better:

• We know that athlete decision-making suffers when athletes are fatigued. Many late game mistakes happen because athletes aren’t mentally conditioned for high cognitive demand when fatigued.
• We know that fatigue and endurance are significantly influenced by cognitive fatigue. When athletes are more mentally depleted, they slow down or quit sooner.
• We know that training the mind and body together increases transfer of skills and strategy to the competition surface.

Practical Recommendations

To help you incorporate a more modern approach to athletic performance training, here are a few recommendations:

1. Shrink the court, field, or ice.

Sometimes referred to as small-sided games, these competitive drills force athletes to operate in tighter spaces, make quicker decisions, and react faster than in a normal competition.

2. Include conditioning within practice drills.

Rather than running lines or using a separate conditioning block, build conditioning into skill-based or competitive drills.

3. Incorporate cognitive exercises into strength training sessions.

Cognitive performance exercises can be easily integrated into training blocks for added cognitive stress. Utilize exercises that focus on visual processing, decision making, and reaction time to mimic competition demands.

Free Consultation

Do you or your organization need help training mind and body together? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that works for you and your athletes. Schedule your call today so you can lead the pack and not get left behind by the competition.

Help Athletes Train Like They Compete

The word is out that variability in practice helps athletes be better prepared to execute in competition. However, what many training approaches still lack (even at elite levels) is the integration of neurocognitive training. Ultimately, athletic performance relies on an athlete’s ability to see, decide, and execute under pressure. If those are the demands of competition, then athletes need to train like they compete – mind and body together.

Question: What questions do you have about incorporating cognitive training into your on and off field drills? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Additional Links:

• The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training
• Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field
• Training Athlete Cognition: 4 Ways to Improve Athlete Decision Making
• Training Athlete Cognition: How to Help Athletes Execute On Demand
• Variability in Practice

The post 3 Ways Training the Mind and Body Together Improves Athlete Performance first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Why is training athlete cognition the next frontier of mental performance? Dr. Vincent Walsh, director of the Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group at University College London captured the value of training athlete cognition well. He shared, “If one considers the challenges that elite sport performance presents to the brain, it is difficult to think of any human activity that places more demands on the brain (with the possible exception of combat Soldier).” In Part 4 of this series, we explore how athletes execute on demand and how to train it.

How Athletes Execute On Demand

Performance is executing a skill on demand. In sport, as in other arenas, athletes have to be able to execute their skills when it counts – in competition. A 2010 study reviewed previous research on what separates expert athletes from beginners. Twenty studies were analyzed and revealed that reaction time (or more specifically brain processing speed) was the difference maker between the two groups. If reaction time is the biggest difference maker, then we should take a closer look at the neurocognitive processes underlying reaction time.

Reaction Time

It turns out that about 70% of reaction time is cognitive. We often think of reaction time (i.e., execution) as fast twitch muscle fibers firing on command. However, in reality, most of the neurophysiological processes of an athlete’s reaction to a stimulus are cognitive. An athlete’s reaction time is a byproduct of how well she sees, processes, and makes decisions about a given situation.

Dudman and Krakauer (2016) studied the brain structures involved in reactions and skill execution in competitive environments. They identified the 6 critical processes that an athlete’s brain completes before an athlete moves a muscle. These 6 processes are divided in three “What” and three “How” processes.

What:

• What does does my environment look like? – Situation awareness
• What is my target of interest? – Selective attention
• What is my task? – Goal identification

How:

• How will the goal be attained? – Decision making
• How will the movement look? – Visualization
• How will I make that movement happen? – Program the motor movement

As you can see, a lot happens in an athlete’s brain before any movement occurs. In reaction time, the sensory input (such as what an athlete sees) does not trigger a movement; it triggers a decision to move.

How to Train Athletes to Execute on Demand

How can athletes train their ability to execute complex motor skills on demand? What speeds up reaction time? If roughly 70% of reaction time is cognitive and 30% is physical, then it stands to reason that targeting improvement in the 70% would yield the greatest gains. This was the approach taken with a group of military operators I worked with. By training their neurocognitive skills (i.e., aspects of vision and decision making), they improved reaction time by approximately 10%.

In baseball, that equates to giving a hitter 43 more milliseconds to make a decision and react to a pitch, increasing cognitive efficiency and the likelihood that the hitter puts the ball in play. The difference between a foul ball or ball in play is only 7 milliseconds.

A Framework for Improving How Athletes Execute on Demand

Farrow, Damian, and Robertson, (2016) point to a well known framework used in physical conditioning that can serve as a framework for improving an athlete’s ability to execute skills on demand The framework is SPORT.

Specificity – make training as close to the performance environment as possible

• Example: Instead of dribbling around cones, create challenging drills or mini-games of dribbling against teammates as defenders.

Progressive – continue expanding athletes’ comfort zones to continuously find their challenge points.

• Example: Steph Curry only counts a swish as a make, not just the ball going in the basket. Place a target sheet over soccer goals to restrict scoring options.

Overload – overloading athletes’ attention and demanding multi-attending or dual-tasking in training transfers better to competition

• Example: Create small-sided games that force athletes to work in tight spaces, or place additional restrictions that limit options or passes. Double teaming a midfielder or point guard overloads attention and demands dual-tasking as they strive to maintain possession and locate open teammates. Practicing skills with strobe glasses is another great way to increase cognitive demand.

Reversibility – avoid the slight deterioration or backsliding of skill execution over time

• Example: A quarterback or volleyball player completing a series of skill challenges periodically throughout the year to monitor execution of critical performance skills and monitor signs of reversibility.

Tedium – avoid tedium by practicing sport skills in various contexts and conditions to facilitate greater transfer to the complexities of competition

• Example: A tennis player serving in various weather conditions, when fatigued, bright or dark conditions, into the sun, barefoot vs shoes, different types of serves on demand to continuing honing their skills.

BONUS Mental Performance Strategies

In addition to the more on- field, court, and course strategies outlined above, a number of mental performance tools also impact skill execution. Here are just three that have proven to positively impact athletes’ abilities to perform at a high level (i.e., execute skills when they count the most).

• Visualization – improves emotion regulation, confidence, motor control and coordination.
• Diaphragmatic Breathing – improves motor control, processing speed, decision making and problem solving.
• Mindfulness – improves emotion regulation, attention, and increases the likelihood of flow.

Free Consultation

Do you or your organization need help training athlete cognition and skill execution? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that will work for you. Schedule your call today, so you start leading the pack and don’t get left behind by the competition.

Train Athlete Cognition and Help Them Execute on Demand

Are your athletes training the next level of mental performance? Research is clear that training athlete cognition gives athletes a significant competitive edge. Don’t let your athletes get left behind. In this 4-part series, we introduced athlete cognition, broke down the key concepts and gave athletes practical strategies to improve their sports vision, decision making, and execution.

Take these strategies for a test drive. Help your athletes train cognition, elevate their games and unleash their potential. Teach them how to see, decide and execute faster than their competition. If you need more guidance or want help developing a cognitive training program that works for your athletes, we’re here to help.

Question: What is your next step in training athlete cognition?I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Check Out the Whole Series:

• Part 1: The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training
• Part 2: Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field
• Part 3: Training Athlete Cognition: 4 Ways to Improve Athlete Decision Making

Additional Links:

• Do Your Athletes Know How to Make Visualization More Powerful?
• Why Should Every Athlete Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing?

The post Training Athlete Cognition: How to Help Athletes Execute On Demand first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Athlete cognition sets elite athletes apart from the rest. They see, decide, and execute faster and better than their competition. Training athlete cognition is the next frontier of mental performance. In Part 3 of the series, we break down athlete decision making and how to train it.

How Athletes Make Decisions

Athletes make hundreds (and in many cases thousands) of decisions in a single competition. Pass, dribble or shoot? Go left or right? Move in or stay back? Swing or not to swing? And these are some of the simpler decisions athletes make.

Athlete decision making relies heavily on their ability to process sensory information (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic). You may recall from Part 2 of the series that 80% of information athletes rely on to make decisions is visual. When athletes identify and process information well, that helps them anticipate better, which improves the quality of their decision making.

Decision making is defined as “the ability to plan, select, and execute an action based on the current situation and the knowledge possessed (Williams and Ford, 2013).” Research tells us that in order to make a decision, athletes process the raw data coming in at the present moment and synthesize it with their memory (past experiences) and prior knowledge (sport IQ and scouting reports).

A Model to Help Understand Athlete Decision Making

In practice it is important for athletes to learn how to make in-game decisions. By understanding how athletes make decisions under pressure you can create scenarios that teach your athletes how to make game changing decisions as the action unfolds.

Research psychologist Dr. Gary Klein has studied decision making in numerous high pressure environments. From his analysis of how high performers make decisions under pressure, he published the Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) model. In the graphic below you can see how it flows.

Here is how athletes make decision according to the RPD model:

1. Athlete’s brain perceives the situation (primarily visual) separating what’s relevant from what isn’t.
2. Athlete recognizes patterns of movement unfolding in the situation. These detected patterns trigger memories of past experiences.
3. Athlete’s brain simulates the success rate (i.e., visualization) of the first option that comes to mind.
4. If the chances of success are good, the athletes commits to the decision and executes. Otherwise, another option is simulated until a suitable decision is found.

Herbert Simon highlighted, “this method helps prevent analysis paralysis in a fast-moving situation.” This model also aids both the speed and accuracy of athlete decision making.

As noted previously, a study of elite youth soccer players revealed that elite players’s first option was the best option 74% of the time (Raab & Johnson). When pressed for time, players considered fewer options and made even better decisions. Too often, athletes overthink decisions rather than trusting their instincts. This tendency turns instructive with the phrase, “take-the-first” as athlete’s first instinct is often the best decision.

4 Ways to Improve Athlete Decision Making

We can clearly see that athlete decision making is a competitive advantage. It is also complex. Here are 4 powerful ways to improve athlete decision making that you can implement immediately.

1. Sleep

Sleep is its own competitive edge. When it comes to decision making, sleep affects an athlete’s alertness, visual abilities, cognitive functioning, and decisiveness. Sleep affects an athlete’s ability to recognize cues and patterns in a game, anticipate, and then react quickly in the moment. A lack of sleep increases mental mistakes – essentially a break down in decisions. Getting more sleep is a decision athletes need to make. Check out this article to convince athletes to get more sleep.

2. Decision Debrief

As a coach, avoid an all-too-common mistake – micromanaging player decisions (in practice or competition). Instead, give athletes freedom to make decisions. Then debrief their decision making using the Recognition-Primed Decision Model (above). The purpose is less about right or wrong and more about the thought process that led the athlete to make that decision.

Ask questions such as:

• What did you see that led to that decision?
• What was your intent in making that decision?
• What was your intended outcome?

These and other questions help you both assess and coach the athlete through finding the best options for the situation and influencing their future decision making process.

3. Strobe Training

By taxing athletes’ visual systems you cause their brains to adapt to less visual information. This stimulates the brain to process information faster, anticipate, and focus on the information that will most influence their decisions. You can use strobe eyewear in simple eye-hand coordination drills involving decision making or during on-field, court, or course skill-focused drills that require quick decisions.

4. Occlusion Training

Occlusion training is a bit more sophisticated, but an excellent way to train athlete decision making. The concept is to show an athlete an unfolding competitive situation (i.e., a play, pitch, serve, or shot) up to the point when a decision needs to be made. For example, a point guard dribbling up the floor and picks up his dribble as teammates and defenders vie for position. Stop the video and have your athlete make the decision as if they were the point guard on the tape.

Teams often pose these scenarios in quick succession to improve processing and decision making without having to be on the field. Bonus: To make occlusion training even more effective, have the athlete act out the decision by making the pass, swinging the bat, or otherwise reacting to the scenario with actual movement.

Free Consultation

Do you you or your organization need help training athlete cognition and decision making? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that will work for you. Schedule your call today, so you start leading the pack and don’t get left behind by the competition.

Elevate Athlete Decision Making to Give Them a Competitive Edge

Edward De Bono defined an expert as, “someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simply through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.” Athletes make thousands of decisions every game. Training athlete cognition enables athletes to trust their trained instincts, anticipate better, and make faster and more accurate decisions in the heat of competition. How are you training your athletes to see, decide, and execute faster than their competition?

Question: How are you training your athletes’ decision making under pressure? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Links:

• Book: The Playmaker’s Advantage
• Book: The Playmaker’s Decisions
• Part 1 in Series: The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training
• Part 2 in Series: Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field
• Post: Do Your Athletes Know How to Make Visualization More Powerful?
• Post: How to Convince Your Athletes to Get More Sleep

The post Training Athlete Cognition: 4 Ways to Improve Athlete Decision Making first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Training athlete cognition is the next frontier in mental performance. Cognition involves the way athletes see, decide, and execute on demand (Zaichkowsky & Peterson, 2018). In the second of a four-part series, this article will focus on the importance of sports vision and how athletes see the field, court, or course.

How Important is Vision in Sports?

Multiple studies revealed that elite athletes have better visual skills than the rest. Conventional wisdom tells that 20/20 vision is ideal, but that is far from the case when it comes to sport performance. Many sports put a tremendous amount of visual demands on athletes with fast moving objects, complex movements from teammates and opponents, and nearly impossible feats of timing and eye-hand coordination.

A few key stats for you:

• 70% of the body’s sensory receptors are in the eyes
• 80% of athletes’ sensory input (i.e., perception) is visual
• 90% of the brain is involved in vision-related tasks

Visual skills can be divided into two categories: visual hardware and visual software.

Visual Hardware

Visual hardware involves the more static functional aspects of vision such as visual acuity, color sensitivity, and depth perception. These are the visual skills we typically think of when it comes to vision. While visual hardware can generally be improved, it has limited impact on sport performance. Put simply, athletes can still excel in sport without 20/20 vision.

Visual Software

Visual software involves the more dynamic visual aspects of eye movement (also called eye tracking) such as visual search, pursuits, and anticipation time. Athletes’ eye movements allow them to detect and track both objects and movements of teammates and opponents – key skills in sport. These are the skills elite athletes excel in and are linked to achieving higher levels of sport. These more dynamic visual skills are more malleable and thus the focus of effective vision training exercises designed to give athletes a competitive edge.

Why Athletes Should Train Sports Vision

Early research on generalized vision training programs was inconclusive at best. However, recent advances in technology and methodology have shown significant benefit to athlete performance. Specifically, training eye movement (visual software) has shown to improve:

• Reaction time
• Hitting performance
• Putting performance
• Quality of ball contact
• Skill execution
• Reduced incidences of concussion
• Quicker return to play

3 Easy Ways Athletes Can Improve Sports Vision

There are myriad ways for athletes to train and improve their sports vision. These include basic exercises, on-field training, technology-infused training, exercises that can be done in the gym, sport lenses, and even supplements. As a starting point, here are 3 easy ways for athletes to improve their sports vision.

1. Reduce Near-Focus Tasks Pre-Competition

This is probably the simplest vision enhancing strategy, but athletes may struggle to follow through. Research (specifically in tennis) reveals that competitors who focus their eyes on near range tasks (i.e., computer or mobile screens) perform significantly worse on the court. Encourage athletes to refrain from being on mobile devices before competitions and limit time in the hours leading up to game time.

2. Train with Strobe Eyewear

Strobe Eyewear (called stroboscopic training) is a fun and easy way to train sports vision. It may be my favorite way to improve an athlete’s visual system. Athletes can wear them during almost any sport-related training – physical training, ball handling, skill work, etc. They are also great for off-the-field exercises. The best on the market are Senaptec’s Strobes. (More on Strobe training in a future article.) Contact me for more on Strobe training, custom programs, or to get a coupon code.

3. Warm-up the Vision System

High performers are deliberate about warming up their bodies, muscles, and movement patterns. They need to bring the same intentionality to warming up their visual system. A couple of simple ways to do this are:

• Quick eye-hand reaction drills. Toss tennis balls off a wall or with a partner. Do some quick stick handling. Focus on drills that require athletes to focus near-to-far, far-to-near, shift their gaze from one target to another, or track an object in motion. Even add in some agility to increase difficulty.
• Eye tracking exercises. Turning, identifying, and catching, touching, or deflecting the ball or puck. Take easy grounders. Turn and catch. One touch soccer passes. Look down at the ground, then look up to quickly identify the ball in flight to catch or dodge it. These are all great to get the eyes into the action.
• Add Strobe eyewear to pre-game activities. You can combine these with the suggestions above or just add them to your normal pre-competition warm-up. Strobe eyewear helps activate the visual system much like dynamic movements prepare muscles to fire during competition.

Free Consultation

Do you you or your organization need help training athlete cognition? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that will work for you. Schedule your call today, so you start leading the pack and don’t get left behind by the competition.

Train the Eyes to Lead the Body to Better Performance

An athlete’s vision plays the largest role in her perception – “the process of identifying, organizing and interpreting sensory cues in order to understand what is happening in our environment” (Sullivan, 2016). It is an athlete’s perception that enables them to process information faster, anticipate, make decisions, and ultimately execute in the moment. Therefore, training an athlete’s vision impacts the whole cognition cycle. Athletes who see, decide, and execute faster than their competition have a significant competitive advantage.

Question: How are your athletes training sports vision? Or, where could you start?I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Links:

• Tech: Senaptec Strobes (Use Code UNLEASHSTROBE20 to save $20)
• Book: The Playmaker’s Advantage
• Post: The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training

The post Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field first appeared on The Excelling Edge.