COGNITIVE & VISUAL SKILLS TRAINING

See – Think – Do

We've all heard the commentators who say that a player has the ability to ‘slow the game down', to play it at their own pace. We've also seen the players who can pick passes, who have lightning reflexes and can read the game better than their teammates. Is that luck? Is it something you are born with? Like everything, visual skill can be developed over time to help athletes increase their performance. Vision is the primary sense used by athletes and may account for 85% to 90% of the sensory processing demands during sports activity – so surely it makes sense to work on developing this skill to help you reach your full potential? Cognitive-perceptual training is focused on your brain, eyes and body – effectively improving your ability to read a game, process the information, and make effective decisions.

Brain Eye Body

Developing Key Skills

> Dynamic Visual Acuity The ability to see objects in motion clearly. > Eye Tracking The ability to ‘keep our eyes on the ball', > Focusing The ability to change focus quickly and clearly from one object to another. > Peripheral Awareness The ability to see things out of the corner of our eye. > Depth Perception The ability to quickly and accurately judge the distance and speed of objects. > Eye-Hand/Eye-Body Co-ordination The ability to use our eyes to direct the movements of our hands/body. > Reaction Time How quickly we perceive an anticipated visual event and how quickly we react to that stimulus. > Balance The ability to stay upright or stay in control of our body movement. Vision and balance are directly related. > Contrast Sensitivity The ability of our visual system to distinguish between an object and its background.

Cognitive Skills

EYE-TRACKING TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE

Here at MG1 Elite Performance, we are one of the very few places in the UK to be using eye-tracking technology to improve athlete performance. By understanding exactly what information an athlete processes to inform their decisions, we can tailor training programs to maximise the opportunity for athletes to gather the right information at the right times to make better decisions more frequently during performance. Using this technology, we can also identify and correct technical issues in performance by understanding exactly what an athlete sees when they both succeed and fail in certain scenarios.

Reflex or Reaction?

We often hear the term ‘reflex save' when we're talking about goalkeepers in football, hockey, ice hockey etc. In fact, reflexes are involuntary or unintentional (and not subject to conscious control in most cases). Generally, saves are not ‘reflex', they are reaction saves. Reactions are a voluntary response to stimuli that our brain makes and, because they are a voluntary action, they can be trained. Reaction time is the amount of time required for an individual to perceive and respond to a sensory stimulus, so in the goalkeeping scenario, the time from seeing the shot to making the save. Cognitive Skills training can help improve reaction speed, along with the key visual skills and cognitive processes to allow us to see, process and then apply the correct action. Reflex = Involuntary movement that cannot be trained Reaction = Voluntary movement that can be trained

PERCEPTUAL

Improvements in reading what is happening, processing the information and making effective decisions.

TECHNOLOGICAL

Cutting-edge vision based technology is used to help our athletes develop their cognitive skills to elite levels.

PROCESSABLE

Vision, processing speed and reaction time for our athletes chosen sports/position are greatly improved here at MG1.

TRACKABLE

Performance data analysis using world-leading VizualEdge allows us to adapt individual training plans effectively.

Why you should be adding Cognitive Skills development to your training

We train athletes to process greater amounts of visual information faster and more accurately so that they make better decisions, and their physical reactions are faster and more accurate, especially when under stress. By using state of the art technology, we can test an athletes existing level and produce a bespoke training plan focussed on developing key areas of weakness. In summary, if you want to take your game to the next level then Cognitive Skills training is a key component in allowing you to improve your reaction time, processing skills and decision making. If you are looking for the extra 1%, or one of those all important ‘Marginal Gains', get in touch and see how MG1 Elite Performance can help take your game to the next level. Process more visual information Process it faster Process it more accurately

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