Michel Bruyninckx Trains Soccer Brains

Michel Bruyninckx

When describing what’s wrong with today’s youth soccer coaching, Michel Bruyninckx points to his head. “We need to stop thinking football is only a matter of the body,” the 59-year old Belgian Uefa A license coach and Standard Liège academy director recently told the BBC. “Skillfulness will only grow if we better understand the mental part of developing a player. Cognitive readiness, improved perception, better mastering of time and space in combination with perfect motor functioning.”

We’re not talking about dribbling around orange cones here.  Bruyninckx’s approach, which he dubs “brain centered learning” borrows heavily from the constructivist theory of education that involves a total immersion of the student in the learning activity.

In fact, there are three components to the related concept of “brain based” teaching:

• Orchestra immersion – the idea that the student must be thrown into the pool of the learning experience so that they are fully immersed in the experience.
• Relaxed alertness – a way of providing a challenging environment for the student but not have them stressed out by the chance of error.
• Active processing – the means by which a student can constantly process information in different ways so that it is ingrained in his neural pathways, allowing them to consolidate and internalize the new material.

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"Quiet Eye" Can Help A Surgeon's Patients And Golf Game

Surgeons now have a really good excuse to be out on the golf course.  Researchers have shown that the same training technique that will improve their putting can also improve their operating skills.  Dr Samuel Vine and Dr Mark Wilson, from Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter, tested both elite golfers and surgical residents in two separate experiments using the gaze control technique known as the “Quiet Eye.”


First, they divided 22 elite golfers, (handicaps less than 6), into two groups after their baseline putting performance was measured.  The control group received no additional training while the experimental group participated in Quiet Eye (QE) training, a method first developed by Dr. Joan Vickers of the University of Calgary.  They were instructed to follow these steps:

1. Assume your stance and align the club so your gaze is on the back of the ball.
2. After setting up over the ball, fix your gaze on the hole. Fixations toward the hole should be made no more than 3 times.
3. The final fixation should be a QE on the back of the ball. The onset of the QE should occur before the stroke begins and last for 2 to 3 seconds.
4. No gaze should be directed to the clubhead during the backswing or foreswing.
5. The QE should remain on the green for 200 to 300 ms after the club contacts the ball.

While several earlier studies have shown the effectiveness of using QE in lab-based putting experiments, Vine and Wilson wanted to add two additional tests.  Would the golfers not only putt better in the lab, but also retain that performance under induced stress and in real world, golf course conditions?

The stress was added by telling the golfers that they were playing for a $50 prize as well as having their final scores posted at their home golf courses.  Even though the two groups showed no difference at the pre-training baseline testing, the QE group had significantly better putting scores than the control group in all three scenarios, including a decrease of two putts per round.

So, QE will help a surgeon on the green but what about in the operating room?  Knowing the positive results that athletes have seen, Vine and Wilson wondered if gaze control could help other professions, especially medicine.  Working in collaboration with the University of Hong Kong, the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust and the Horizon training centre Torbay, the University of Exeter team brought thirty medical students together to find out....
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Is This How Barcelona's Xavi Makes Decisions?

When Xavi Hernandez receives the soccer ball in his offensive half of the field, the Barcelona maestro has a world of decisions waiting for him.  Hold the ball while his teammates arrive, make the quick through pass to a slicing Lionel Messi or move into position for a shot.

The question that decision researchers want to know is whether Xavi’s brain makes a choice based on the desired outcome (wait, pass or shoot) or the action necessary to achieve that goal.  Then, could his attitude towards improvement actually change his decision making ability?

Traditionally, the decision process was seen as consecutive steps; first choose what it is you want then choose an action to get you there.  However, a recent study from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University tells us that the brain uses two separate regions for these choices and that they are independent of each other.

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Aaron Rodgers, Working Memory and 10,000 Hours Of Practice

After a great Aaron Rodgers performance, you will usually hear at least one of two phrases uttered by post-game football analysts, “he has a great ability to see the field,” or “the game has really slowed down for him.”

Assuming the Packers’ quarterback does not have super-human vision or a time machine, these comments must refer to his ability to recognize opposing defensive formations, adjust quickly to their movements and pick out an open receiver.  It is a skill that all young players would like to have and their coaches would like to teach.

Of course, the ongoing debate in the sports world is if great perceptual awareness and quick decision making are gifts you’re born with or ones you can develop with practice.  The extreme ends of that continuum seem illogical, that a player can excel with no practice or that anyone who practices enough can be a superstar.  Instead, the discussion has turned to the gray area in between looking for the right combination and the direction of causation between the two.

At the center of the debate for the last 20 years, Florida State psychology professor K. Anders Ericsson has held to a theory that enough deliberate practice, described as a focused activity meant to improve a specific skill, can make up for or even circumvent the lack of general, innate abilities.  His research has shown that about 10,000 hours of practice is the minimum required to rise to an expert level of most knowledge domains, including sports.

Now, in a new study published in Current Directions of Psychological Science, psychologists David Z. Hambrick of Michigan State University and Elizabeth J. Meinz of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville examined this interplay between basic abilities, like working memory capacity, and acquired knowledge learned through practice.  “We have been especially interested in the question of whether various forms of domain knowledge moderate the impact of basic cognitive abilities on performance,” the authors wrote.

Working memory is used in complex tasks that require holding information in the mind while also trying to reason or comprehend the environment.  Think of Rodgers remembering the pass routes of all of his receivers while processing the movements of eleven defenders around him.

Hambrick and Meinz wanted to find out if the working memory of domain experts, like Rodgers, has as much as an impact on their performance as their years of deliberate practice and learned knowledge of their specialized world.  Previous research has shown that a person’s working memory capacity is strongly correlated with abstract reasoning, problem solving, decision making, language comprehension, and complex learning.

Back in 2002, Professor Hambrick tested this relationship using a baseball domain....
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Apolo Ohno Trains His Legs And His Mind For The NYC Marathon

Of the roughly 45,000 brave souls who will line up for the start of the New York City Marathon in less than two weeks, there’s a good chance that at least a few will have doubts of crossing the finish line.  They have put in the training miles, eaten the right foods and picked out their playlist.

Yet, the biggest obstacle to a finisher’s medal is not their legs, but their brain.  Like an overprotective mother, the brain not only runs the show but also decides when enough is enough.  However, exercise science researchers now believe that it is possible to fool mother nature and tap into a reserve store of energy for better performance.

Somewhere in the New York masses on November 6th will be a short but determined first time marathoner who happens to have eight Olympic medals.  Apolo Ohno, world champion speed skater, will be racing not only in an upright position but for a little longer than his usual 1500 meters.  During his training, he has noticed the difference between the short thirty second repetitions on the ice and the long runs required for marathon endurance.

In a recent interview, he commented that after a 20 mile training run, “I was like a zombie. I couldn’t function. It was crazy.  I was like, ‘What is wrong with me?’”  One thing that all of his Olympic training has taught him is the power of the mind.  Last week, he tweeted, “The MIND is the most undertrained asset of any athlete. It is the biggest difference between separating those who r GREAT or inconsistent.”

Matt Fitzgerald, long-time running columnist and author, agrees with Ohno.  In his 2007 book Brain Training for Runners, he detailed the role of the brain in controlling our physical endurance.  Traditionally, fatigue used to be considered a breakdown of biochemical balances with the build-up of lactic acid or depletion of glycogen for fuel.  However, research in the 1980s showed that this breakdown did not always occur and that athletes were still able to push through at the end of a race even though they should have been physically exhausted.

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The Next Madden Game Frontier?

(Graphic courtesy of Oregon State University)

For all of you Madden 12 junkies out there, I've got a new post over at Axon Potential on some current artificial intelligence research being done at Oregon State University.  They are attempting to teach a computer system to watch an OSU football game and be able to identify, categorize and then suggest plays in a football simulation.

Certainly a tall order, even for some humans, but they've had some initial success with a small playbook of twenty passing plays.

According to the lead researcher, “This is one of the first attempts to put several systems together and let a computer see something in the visual world, study it and then learn how to control it,” said Alan Fern, an associate professor of computer science at OSU. “Football actually makes a pretty good test bed, because it’s much more complicated than you might think both visually and strategically, but also takes place in a structured setting. This makes it quite analogous to other potential applications.”

It seems the developers at EA Sports may have a head start on play selection AI, based on my poor record against the Madden gods.

Thanks for making the jump to Axon Potential to read the rest of the story.

College Football Scandals Stress Need For Coaching Character

Jim Tressel

Former Ohio State head football coach Jim Tressel seemed to be a role model for achieving on-field success with a high level of character.  Two-time National Coach of the Year, Larry Coker and former player Randy Shannon also were thought to provide moral leadership while winning national championships during their tenure as head coaches for the University of Miami.

Yet, both storied football programs now find themselves in the middle of NCAA investigations for major rule violations.  Reports of players trading memorabilia for cash or discounts, receiving cash and “entertainment” from boosters, and at least one of these coaches admitting to lying about their knowledge of these events has triggered a frenzy of discussion on what’s wrong with college athletics.

As head coaches often claim at their post-scandal press conferences, the buck stops with them as they have overall responsibility for the program and its players.  Being in the hot seat requires a coach that can provide the balance between ultra-competitive, “win now” demands of fans and boosters and long-term development of players’ skills and character. Several recent research initiatives have looked at this unique role and how to walk that fine line

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Lazy Person's Guide To Old Age

Stop eating all of that junk food.  Why?  So, you can live longer, of course.  Get off the La-Z-Boy and go run five miles.  Why?!  So, you can enjoy your old age.  No more drinking and smoking.  Why?!!  So, you can live to be 100 years old.

The rationale often given for converting to healthy habits has been to give you a longer life.  Who better to know about long lives than those that are closing in on the big 100.  The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there were nearly 425,000 people aged 95 and older living in the U.S. in 2010 − still only a small percentage of the 40 million U.S. adults 65 and over.

What’s their secret?  Are they non-smoking, teetotaling, vegan marathon runners?  Not exactly, according to researchers at the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

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Why Are Great Soccer Players So Rare?

An athlete’s level of greatness is often measured by the opinions of his or her peers while they’re playing and especially when they retire.  Being recognized as one of the best by those who understand what it takes is rare.  This week, one of the world’s greatest soccer players of the last 30 years retired, yet he could walk down most streets in America without being recognized.

After 17 seasons, Paul Scholes of Manchester United played in his final tribute game last week and will become a coach at the club he’s been part of since his teens.

While not a household name in the U.S. like Messi or Ronaldo or Beckham, he has earned the respect of the greatest players of his time.

“My toughest opponent? Scholes of Manchester,” said Zinedine Zidane, French World Cup Winner and 3-time world player of the year. “He is the complete midfielder. He’s almost untouchable in what he does.You rarely come across the complete player, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get.”

“In the last 15 to 20 years the best central midfielder that I have seen — the most complete — is Scholes,” said Xavi Hernandez, Barcelona midfield maestro, arguably the best midfielder in the world at the moment.  “Scholes is a spectacular player who has everything. He can play the final pass, he can score, he is strong, he never gets knocked off the ball and he doesn’t give possession away.”

“He’s always one of those people others talk about,” said David Beckham, world soccer icon and a former teammate. “Even when playing at Real Madrid, the players always said to me ‘what’s he like’? They respect him as a footballer and see him as the ultimate.”

So, what makes him different?  What is the secret ingredient that makes a few soccer players better than the thousands that come and go?  Obviously, many clubs would pay huge sums of money to find out.  Recently, two teams of researchers from the University of Queensland tried to narrow down the options.

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Helmet Reveals Data About High School Football Player's Broken Neck

For the crowd watching an Illinois high school football game last fall, it was a sickening feeling watching one of their Unity Rockets' cornerbacks collapse to the ground after delivering a heads-down tackle on an opposing running back (see video here.) 

For Steven Broglio, an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Michigan, it was a mixed feeling of concern and curiosity as to the extent of the injury.  Since 2007, Broglio has been collecting data on the violent collisions that occur in high school football and their contribution to concussions and other head injuries.

Unity players use helmets with padded sensors called the Head Impact Telemetry System.
Using a sensor similar to what is used in car air bags, the HITS helmets record and transmit the magnitude of each impact and its location on the helmet to a computer located on the sideline within about 10-20 seconds.  Broglio is able to monitor these collisions and alert the coaching staff if an impact exceeds the threshold known to cause concussions, about 90-100 g-force. Listen to Broglio describe the HITS research.

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Little Old Ladies May Want Athletes To Help Them Cross The Road

Photo credit: Beckman Institute CAVE

Boy Scouts just got some competition.  Now, when little, old ladies need to cross a busy street, they should find a well-trained athlete to do the job, according to University of Illinois researchers. 


In a test of skill transfer, Laura Chaddock, a researcher at the Beckman Institute’s Human Perception and Performance lab, and her team pushed a bunch of college students out into busy traffic to see how well they could navigate the oncoming cars... well, sort of. 

With the help of a virtual 3D environment called the CAVE, volunteer pedestrians can step into a simulated city street scene, seeing traffic whiz by on three surrounding screens, while walking on a synchronized treadmill.  Failure here does not end up in a trip the hospital, just a system reset.


Of the 36 college student participants, half were student-athletes at Illinois, an NCAA Division 1 school, representing a wide variety of sports, including cross-country running, baseball, swimming, tennis, wrestling, soccer and gymnastics. The other half were just regular students matched for similar age, GPA and video game prowess.  

Chaddock hypothesized that the athletes would have the edge in street crossing given their training in busy, attention-demanding sport environments.  Previous studies have found that athletes outperform non-athletes on sport-specific tests of attention, memory, and speed.  

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Just Pretend Those Carrots Are Cheese Fries

The problem with your diet is not that you’ve been eating the wrong food, but rather you’ve been thinking about your food all wrong.  According to Alia Crum, a clinical psychology researcher at Yale University, our mind’s opinion of food labeled or thought of to be “diet” or “low fat” can actually affect our body’s physiological response after eating it, which changes our metabolism.  

Her sneaky research team told 46 volunteers that they were getting two milkshakes to drink.  In the first test, they were told they were sampling a “health” shake that had no fat, no added sugar and a skinny 140 calories.  At a separate test, the same group were told they were rewarded with an “indulgent” shake weighing in at a guilt-inducing 620 calories and full of fat.

The trick was that in each test, the milkshakes were actually identical with each having 360 calories.  Only the description and labelling of the shakes were different.

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