What's In Your Head: The Cognitive Demands of Elite Athletes
When you think of elite athletes, you picture muscles, quick reflexes, and endurance, right? But there's more happening in their brains. Research shows brain activity is as crucial as physical skills. From quick decisions to pain endurance, the mental side of sports is vital. We'll dive into how brainpower impacts performance, workout perception, and winning. Strap on your thinking cap (and maybe sneakers) as we explore the mind-bending science of elite athletes. The next sports revolution might be all in your head.
The Role of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex in Athletic Performance
The Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) in the prefrontal cortex controls attention, inhibition, working memory, and emotional regulation. ACC activity relates to effort perception in exercise. Based on the psychobiological model of fatigue, mental tasks and fatigue can limit tolerance to exercise or physical activity independent of physical strain. Mentally exhausting tasks impair decision-making and increase perception of physical effort, leading to faster fatigue even with proper energy and conditioning. This gives literal meaning to Mind over Matter.
"It will test your head and your mind and your brain too"- Jack Black, School of Rock
Let's examine research on how mental fatigue affects physical performance.
Mental Fatigue and Physical Performance
Psychobiological fatigue comes from long periods of demanding cognitive activity, affecting decision-making and other cognitive functions. Dr. Samuele Marcora from the University of Bologna studied its physical impact. In his study, he divided pro footballers into two groups: one did a 30-minute cognitive task before a workout, the other did not. The study measured shuttle run distance and technical errors in a small-sided game. The mentally fatigued group felt more effort running, despite similar heart rates, covered less distance, and made more errors like passing mistakes and shot inaccuracies.
The Importance of Mental Training for Athletes
Some may wonder what to do with this info. If the psychological model can undermine the physical model, why bother training? This tells us that fatigue isn't just limited muscle capacity. For optimal performance, we must feed both wolves. Studies in Spain and the U.S. replicated the same findings and found self-talk could improve endurance. An athlete's motivation will also be considered, think Jordan's flu game.
Brain Endurance Training: A New Frontier
Using results from Marcora’s Brain Endurance testing study, which involved training and cognitive tasks, he used VO2 and time to exhaustion cycling tests as baselines. After three weeks of training, both groups improved VO2 max relatively the same. However, in time to exhaustion, the control improved by 43% and cognitively tasked group improved by 100%.
Practical Applications: Incorporating Cognitive Tasks in Training
Adding small bouts of mental stress to your training can improve tolerance and reduce fatigue perception during games and practices. However, the tasks must challenge specific aspects of the ACC: Inhibition Control and Attention. Inhibitory Control is the ability to regulate or stop a strong or automatic response.
The Stroop test is an inhibitory challenge. It proves challenging to ACC because we must fight and overcome the natural response to read the word. Since we can read faster than we can distinguish colors, saying the color of the word instead of what it reads is difficult.
Say the ink color, not the text color.
Attention refers to working memory. In our sessions, we wrote a series of numbers or shapes on a whiteboard. Then, we proceeded into a small-sided game. Once a team scored, they had to write the series out again for the score to count. This pairs the psychological model with the physical model.
Mind Games: The Future of Elite Athletic Performance
What's going on in an athlete's head? More than we thought. From the ACC juggling attention and emotions, to the brain fighting fatigue before the muscles do, elite performance is as much a mental game as a physical one. By adding brain-bending tasks into their training, athletes can level up their mental toughness and push their limits. The next world record might be broken by someone training their brain as hard as their biceps. As Jack Black might say, it's time to rock both the body and the mind in elite sports.
Jeremiah Flood is a former Division 1 football player and professional rugby athlete with degrees in Exercise Science. Now, he trains youth athletes at his gym, Floodsports, in Pasadena, California. Jeremiah's holistic approach combines physical training with cognitive development, aiming to equip young athletes with the comprehensive skills they need to excel both on and off the field.