Memory plays a big role in sports performance. At a surface level, athletes must remember everything from an offensive play to an immediate command from a coach. Muscle memory helps the body react quickly under stress and execute well-practiced actions to rise above the competition. Although it’s clear that physical training and practice improve this type of memory, what role does cognitive visual training play in improving memory capabilities, and as a result, athletic performance?
According to an article published in the International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology in September 2010, working memory must be taken into account in studying motor learning, performing under pressure, and imagery within sports performance. Working memory is the cognitive function that’s required to hold a small amount of information so it can be used for ongoing activity.
Research shows that motor skills, as related to sports, must rely on memory a great deal in the early cognitive stage. As athletic skills develop, individuals can associate particular sporting scenarios with expected responses. In the most elite athletes, autonomous reactions tend to take over, often referred to as muscle memory.
Memory also plays a role in improving athletic performance under pressure. According to several studies, pressure can cause anxiety, which can then interrupt the working memory system. This interruption can play a role in situations where athletes “choke under pressure.”
Finally, there may be a connection between memory and the imagery and self-talk techniques taught by sports psychologists. Imagery and perception are somewhat similar and occur in the same areas of the brain. Refining these areas can also play a role in improving athletic performance.
Sports performance training must encompass not only physical and nutritional aspects but also heighten cognitive function and improve brain health. In recent years, many companies have introduced innovative technology solutions to help athletes do just that. Some technological training programs include cognitive visual training, computerized memory-boosting programs, stroboscopic visual tools, and others.
Cognitive visual training in particular can help enhance sports performance, helping hard-working athletes reach their potential, as well as provide a method to address sports-related head injuries and brain health.
A paper published in iResearchNet.com reported that many different studies of a variety of sports including volleyball, golf, soccer, and others illustrated that memory is functionally related to motor performance. Embracing tools that promote memory training, then, is an important facet of sports performance training for today’s athletes.
Sports and competition. They go hand-in-hand as an intricate part of today’s society. Whether kids learn cooperation in little league, teens battle it out on a soccer field, college students flock to the final four, or pro players vie for starting positions, most people find athletics somewhere in their life. This obsession with sports drives players of all ages to get better, faster, smarter, and stronger so that they can beat the competition.
Today, using technology in sports training is the next frontier of gaining that competitive edge. According to The Sports Journal, elite athletes improved their performance using perceptual-cognitive training technology. One study cited that these athletes not only got better but also learned faster as a result of using technology in athletics.
Athletes can now complement their exercise, nutrition, and strength training regiments with cognitive and vision training efforts. Using sports technology advancements, athletes can boost their reaction time, sharpen their peripheral vision, and improve their depth perception.
What does this mean on the playing field? It means that these athletes can think faster on their feet and process information more quickly than the competition, making smarter decisions that will result in better performance.
“Vision dominates about 80 percent of the vast amount of sensory information we take in every second,” explained Michael Clegg, a long-time personal trainer and coach. “Mastering how to use vision is a skill which separates the good from the best in team sports.”
As athletes search for ways to improve their game, multiple innovation performance technologies will grow in popularity. For years, coaches have encouraged players to “get their head in the game.” Today, more than ever, sports technology advancements allow athletes at all levels to do just that.
Early April is, without a doubt, the most exciting stretch of the college basketball calendar. Brackets are destroyed by the millions, future NBA stars put together Top 10 Plays-worthy feats every weekend, and the excitement of March Madness peaks as the four remaining teams gear up for the home stretch.
The ever-growing influence of improving technology on the tournament and players, however, is often overlooked. Here are four examples of game-changing sports tech affecting the college hoops scene this year.
Whistle-synced Game Clock System
The NCAA adopted the Precision Time system in 2015. The system automatically stops the game clock on the referee’s whistle. The system saves an estimated 90 seconds of game time that would have been lost between the official’s whistle and the reaction of a manual timekeeper.
The Washington Post recently reported that the system also recognizes each referee’s whistle. This feature allows it to create a detailed report of game stoppages complete with the referee that made each call. To restart the clock, officials press a button on a beltpack.
AI-Powered Spatial Analytics
STATS, a sports data and technology company, is using artificial intelligence to provide more detailed analyses of player stats and performance. The company’s use of Carnegie Mellon’s OpenPose system allows it to statistically measure player performance directly from a broadcast feed. The system projects “skeletal poses” onto players through the video stream, which allows it to track their movement. It tracks player speed, can identify the play the team is conducting, and analyzes court spacing.
This function creates an overall spatial report on the effectiveness of the player’s on-court movement. It even projects “ghost defenders” onto the broadcast, allowing players and coaches to re-imagine plays or correct decisions, according to the Arizona Daily Star.
“Using this technology, we can actually digitize the video, query it, do analysis and compare players over a long period of time,” Patrick Lucey, vice president of AI at STATS, told the Star. “People talk about Jordan and LeBron (James) — now that’s possible.”
Shot Arc Analysis
Alabama-based company Noah Basketball’s shooting system measures shots from any position on the court, and provides immediate auditory feedback to the shooter. This feedback, which comments on shot arc, length and lateral position, then allows the player to correct their shot and develop a consistent shooting form.
The Associated Press recently reportedthat 45 NBA and college customers have purchased the newest version of its analytic system. It also stores and archives each player’s data, allowing users to track their progress.
Footwear
One of the most memorable moments of this year’s college season was Duke star Zion Williamson’s shoe blowout against UNC. 33 seconds into the game, Williamson’s left custom Nike PG 2.5 sneaker ripped apart when he pivoted at the top of the arc. The incident left Williamson injured, created a storm of questions surrounding Nike’s quality and production values, and created speculation regarding the value of constantly changing shoe models.
Athletic apparel companies like Nike and Adidas have long touted their products, especially their shoes, as items on the cutting edge of the sports-tech relationship. Much of their best-known technology focuses on making shoes as light as possible. Nike’s Flyknit material, for example, is “made up of strong yet lightweight strands of yarn that have been woven into a one-piece upper, securing an athlete’s foot to the shoe platform.” The lightweight material is often marketed as a lightweight but strong mesh.
Nike appears committed to its image as a technology-focused brand. A 2012 video featuring Lebron James details the extensive technology and thought process behind creating a shoe that is both protective and functional.
The University of Virginia and Auburn will take the court Saturday, April 6 to kick off the Final Four matchups at 6:09 p.m. before Texas Tech and Michigan State face off at 8:45. The winners of each game will play for the championship title Monday.
Shortly following the conclusion of last summer’s World Cup in Russia, revered soccer journalist Grant Wahl noted that many of the tournament’s most exciting moments began “from a standstill.”
He was referring to goals scored from set pieces, any situation, such as a penalty kick, corner kick, or free kick, in which the player manipulates an unmoving ball.
Wahl was right about the importance of set pieces in the tournament. What fan could forget Yerry Mina’s last-minute equalizer against England, or Samuel Umtiti’s goal from a corner kick to send France to the final?
Both of these goals were scored with the player’s head, with the sort of finishing touch that most soccer fans think of when reminded of the importance of set pieces. The soccer world has always glorified the solid, “thumping” header. It’s seen as one of the sport’s gritty, tough techniques, the equivalent of forcing a besieged running back over the line and into the end zone on 4th-and-1. Defenders are applauded for launching themselves into the air to head away crosses, and a cushioned headed pass in the box, known as a knockdown, can be devastating if used effectively.
But the header now faces scrutiny in light of new research that suggests it may be damaging to players’ brains. Youth league associations in the United States, including US Soccerand US Club Soccer, have banned the sports youngest players from heading the ball and have limited older players’ exposure to heading in practice through the US Soccer Concussion Initiative 2016.
The Ringer’s Noah Davis suggests that if soccer’s century-and-a-half-old rules were re-written today, heading would be banned completely. Davis concedes that it would be near impossible to completely eradicate heading from a massively popular sport that has remained relatively unchanged since its inception. But the data is there. Last June, the New York Times cited a study conducted in Puerto Rico that found that heading a ball subjected children’s brains to concussion-causing levels of force. Another study indicated that women’s brains suffer more damagewhen exposed to forces caused by heading than those of men.
2.3 million American childrenbetween the ages of six and twelve play soccer, and CBS News reports that between 2000 and 2014, over 200,000 youth soccer players in the country were treated for concussion symptoms. These concussions, it must be noted, were not exclusively caused by heading the ball, but do indicate that soccer players suffer a significant amount of head injuries.
There are methods of enhancing the safety of heading. United Soccer Coaches encourages coachesto instruct their teams on the differences between attacking and defensive headers, conduct neck strengthening exercises, and practice proper heading techniques with their players. These efforts, in conjunction with increased awareness of concussions and new technology like the Reflexion Edge, are positive steps toward enhanced athlete protection. The Edge, a six-by-two-foot portable LED touchscreen board, works on preventative, assessment-based, and rehabilitative fronts by collecting data on the user’s cognitive ability through short tests and storing it in an individualized user profile in an accompanying software system. Users improve their visual and cognitive abilities while simultaneously building a baseline of cognitive data to which future tests can be compared. If a user’s scores decline significantly, an administrator is automatically notified. Professionals may also use the Edge to administer objective, trackable therapy to patients suffering from symptoms of traumatic brain injury.
Heading is an integral aspect of the beautiful game, but an aspect that must be recognized as potentially dangerous and ultimately improvable.
Technology and sports have intersected, arguably, since humans began to participate in the latter–when the first specialized gear and wooden goalposts were laced up and stuck in the ground on ancient playing fields.
Modern fans, players and analysts are becoming familiar with the latest wave of technology to enter their stadiums–devices ranging from goal-line sensors in soccer to under-jersey vests that track biometrics to virtual reality devices that allow fans the visual experience of being in the stadium from their couch at home.
But 2019 promises to be, as many have already dubbed it, the year of Artificial Intelligence. Here are several promising sports-related applications of the oft-covered technology.
Stadium Digital Assistants
Shortly before Clemson defeated Alabama in the 2019 College Football championship, SportTechie reported that the digital assistant AI bot already installed at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara would “guide fans around the stadium and feed them information about the game.” The system will be accessible through College Football’s fan app.
According to the SportTechie post, the system, created by Statisfi Labs, was created for the primary patrons of the stadium–the San Francisco 49ers, and runs on game days during the fall season. Therefore it has already developed a “deep understanding of the stadium, parking, concessions, shopping, and the game of football itself.”
Statisfi is currently partnered with dozens of other stadiums and professional franchises across the country, including Mercedes Benz Stadium in New Orleans and the Philadelphia Phillies. Its assistants provide everything from concession stand recommendations to immediate polling, trivia games and contests for fans.
Automated Player Scouting
NBC News recently described how AI and algorithmic analysis are used by professional teams to analyze potential transfer targets.
Baseball, America’s most number-heavy sport, is reportedly integrating AI into its scouting system to analyze the effectiveness of player mechanics such as a swing form and movement on the field. Basketball scouts use AI to understand interaction between players and their effectiveness in running certain plays.
NBC reports that another key feature of the AI systems created by companies such as Brooklyn Dynamics and Sportlogiq is the ability to analyze a large number of players, evaluate specific mechanics and skills, and place them into a database with an overall ranking for scouts to access.
Training Analysis and Player Feedback
A 2013 study from the journal of Sports Science and Medicine used AI to evaluate athletes’ form as they performed weight training exercises. Force-sensing cables were applied to the equipment, and athletes were instructed to complete leg presses using the cable-outfitted machine.
The study reported that the AI system provided “good performance and prediction outcomes” based on the data collected by the cables, and provided prompt feedback to the athletes as to how to improve their scores and form with regard to the specific exercise. The system was reportedly able to gather this information and make its suggestion through pattern recognition as well as data analysis.
Other studies focused on mechanical analyses such as gait analysis using AI. As more data becomes available and reveals further player capabilities through devices such as the Reflexion Edge, AI systems may soon have more to analyze. The Edge is a six-by-two-foot portable LED touchscreen board. It works on preventative, assessment-based, and rehabilitative fronts by collecting data on the user’s cognitive ability through short tests and storing it in an individualized user profile in an accompanying software system. Users improve their visual and cognitive abilities while simultaneously building a baseline of cognitive data to which future tests can be compared. If a user’s scores decline significantly, an administrator is automatically notified. Professionals may also use the Edge to administer objective, trackable therapy to patients suffering from symptoms of traumatic brain injury. Detailed cognitive data, therefore, may soon factor in AI evaluations of players, and AI may eventually be involved in the assessment of injuries based on Edge scores.
Betting Predictions
In an a post startlingly titled “AI Perfectly Predicted Last Year’s Super Bowl Score. What Happens to Betting?” Dyllan Furness of Digital Trends provided an overview of AI’s implications for the world of gambling, noting that a system produced by the startup Unanimous A.I had predicted the results of the 2017 Super Bowl correctly. The company also reportedly predicted the winners of the Kentucky Derby in their exact order.
Furness notes that cracking the traditional luck-centered basis of sports gambling is often difficult because of a lack of data in sports such as tennis. He also concedes that there are factors outside the range of current AI capabilities and traditional statistics, such as team coherence, a lucky bounce, or a windy stadium, that can effect predictions. AI-producing corporations, however, are reportedly trying to take these factors into account by adding elements of human analysis to their primarily data-driven systems.
Furness also mentions the effectiveness of using swarm intelligence, the combined knowledge or predictions of a large group of fans, for example, in his survey of AI’s venture into the betting world. He cites one study that found a twenty percent increase in accuracy when soccer fans predicted Barclay’s Premier League matches as a group to when they predicted alone.
Simplified Highlight Reel Creation
ESPN’s Top Ten Plays compilers could soon be assisted by AI programs that can analyze hours of game footage and clip highlights that match preset criteria.
“AI-powered algorithms are able to analyse every nook and cranny of every frame of video, making it possible for a sports production team to sift through a mountain of metadata and put together a montage of great plays in a few seconds,” Adrian Pennington reported for the International Broadcast Convention.
In short, these programs allow users to cut and compile crucial game highlights without the hassle of isolating and identifying each noteworthy play. Highlight app Reelyfollowed this model to create its own editing software. Users upload an uncut video to its app interface, and the program detects and isolates highlight-worthy moments using neural networks such as object tracking, audio analysis, scene recognition and analysis through time.
Reely’s platform is also Esports compatible, and reportedly enhances content producers’ ability to tag and track content, changing the way sports fans consume content and interact with their favorite teams.
Our Reflexion family would like to wish our friends, supporters and colleagues a happy and safe holiday season and an exciting start to the new year.
The past 12 months marked the most significant year of growth in our company’s short history. We added three full-time employees to our ever-expanding team, launched the first market-ready version of the Reflexion Edge, and officially sold the first units of our cognitive training and tracking system. We are excited to partner with premier athletic, academic and military institutions such as the United States Air Force Academy, Duke University, Duquesne University and Penn State University in our mission to protect athletes while improving their visual and cognitive skills.
Cognitive injuries such as concussions remain a serious, often overlooked issue, and visual training remains a relatively unexplored but highly effective asset. We remain committed to providing athletes, United States Military personnel, and other high-pressure decision makers with our unique system, allowing them to track their cognitive health while improving their reactive abilities.
We are excited to continue our efforts in the new year alongside our incredible network of supportive peers. What was once a basement startup dream has evolved into a difference-making team of innovators with a clear goal thanks to your contributions.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of the most dominant small forwards in the NBA. He is an undisputed franchise player for the Milwaukee Bucks, and averages almost 28 points per game according to ESPN. Affectionately dubbed the “Greek Freak” by his fans, Antetokounmpo is consistently identified as one of the best players in the league and a certain rising superstar.
But the star’s season seemed in jeopardy earlier this fall. He quickly fell to the floor in October after taking Aaron Gordon’s elbow to the head in a game against the Orlando Magic, but was soon back on his feet, and finished the game alongside his teammates.
Before the Bucks’ next game against Toronto, though, the team released a statement indicating that although its teams doctors had cleared him to return to play against the Magic, the group had reevaluated Antetokounmpo a day later and found his symptoms to be indicative of a concussion.
“Bucks team physicians followed league protocols and consulted the league’s neurologist during the evaluation periods… Antetokounmpo passed his neurological tests that created significant doubt that it was a concussion and he was allowed to return to play,” the statement read according to CBS.
“Antetokounmpo was evaluated again yesterday and reported new symptoms along with a lingering headache. For that reason, he was placed into the concussion protocol and will miss tonight’s game vs. Toronto.”
Antetokounmpo reportedly said that he “didn’t remember much” after sustaining the injury. But he returned to practice less than a week later, and was cleared to play against the Celtics.
Observers often consider basketball to be a “safe” alternative to more contact-heavy sports such as football or hockey, especially when it comes to sustaining dangerous head injuries with long-term impacts. Yet this bias clouds the fact that dangerous cognitive injuries can be suffered in any setting and any game. The New York Times reports that female youth basketball players suffer 5.6 concussions per 10,000 exposures, which is twice the rate of male players. A small percentage, but a percentage nonetheless.
A study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine listed NBA concussions per season at 14.9, while another review calculatedthat of 100 exposures, 23 concussions were suffered by WNBA players.
Professional and college leagues maintain specific protocol to monitor players’ cognitive health. But to fully ensure players’ safety, they will likely, alongside other athletics coordinators, transition to cognitive data collectors such as the Reflexion Edge. The Edge is a six-by-two-foot portable LED touchscreen board that measures and trains cognitions such as peripheral vision, reaction time and depth perception and records scores using an individual user profile. Athletes interact with numerous custom light patterns that appear on the board, and incorporate the Edge into their training regimen to build a large baseline of data. This baseline is then compared to every test the athlete takes, and if the system records a drop, the administrative professional is automatically notified.
Visual training and cognitive monitoring are developing trends in the performance training and sports medicine world. These two entities are both addressed by the Edge, which is used to isolate and evaluate individual cognitions while training an athlete’s visual abilities. The Edge allows athletes to improve their mental acuity, instruction following, concentration, problem solving, multitasking, decision-making, logic, pattern recognition or eye-hand coordination while simultaneously assessing their cognitive state. The Edge can also be used to aid athletes recovering from cognitive injury by exercising their vestibular and oculomotor skills and evaluating their brain function.
The brain and its protection are crucial in any sport, making cognitive monitoring and training the next frontier of their improvement and safety.
In 2009, a staggering 25 percentof male high school athletes played football.
Now, high school teams across the country are being forced to forfeit games, recruit players and attempt to understand why 2009’s peak participation total has dropped by 6.5 percent in nine years.
The New York Times recently published an in-depth examination of the player drought in New Jersey, a state that has suffered significantly from the recent drop in player turnout. According to the Times, the state’s football-playing total dropped by 1,700 athletes from 2016 to 2017. Datelines from Denver,Texas, and Sacramento precede articles chronicling thinning local high school football rosters. The primary reason behind these shrinking figures, the report indicates, is a growing concern among parents and students regarding an increased awareness of concussions and football’s long-term cognitive effects.
These fears, according to a reportpublished last fall by the Chicago Tribune, relate to the enhanced scientific understanding of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. CTE is a neurodegenerative disease with cognitively damaging and potentially life-threatening effects. A recent study of the brains of 111 deceased NFL players found that 110 of the subjects, or 99 percent, exhibited signs of the disease, which was first recorded by Dr. Bennet Omalu after he performed an autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster in 2002.
Reuters reported last springthat parental fears are likely related to increased media coverage of CTE and the dangerous effects of football on the developing brain, and the Tribune article cited parents who said that although they played football as children, they wouldn’t let their own children participate in the sport.
Although, according to the Times, football remains the nation’s most popular sport among boys ages 14 to 17, its decline continues to intrigue and bedevil news outlets and scrambling coaches across the nation. Several outlets have pointed out that concussion fears aren’t the only factor contributing to declining participation. In a post titled “Why High School Football is Dying a Slow Death (It’s Not Just Concussions),”Forbes’s Bob Cook cites declining enrollment, demographic shifts, a loss of interest in football, and pressure to choose a primary sport earlier in an athlete’s high school career as hindrances to football’s struggle to retain its top spot among American youth sports.
Despite parental concerns, new regulations and laws have reportedly helped to curb alarming concussion statistics among youth and college athletes. The Washington Post reported last fall that a study found a series of laws passed between 2009 and 2014 to have significantly decreased concussion rates among teenagers. The laws focused primarily on preventing cognitively at-risk athletes from returning to play as well as educating parents, coaches and athletes on the potential signs and symptoms of concussions. Kickoff and touchback line adjustments in the Ivy League,according to the Times, reduced concussions by 80 percent. Yet even with these improvements, the University of Pittsburgh Medical center estimates that between 1.7 and 3 million sports and recreation-related concussions are sustained each year.
The answer to the problem may lie in cognitive monitoring systems such as the Reflexion Edge. By measuring crucial cognitions such as reaction time, peripheral vision and reaction time, athletic trainers and coaches can use the Edge to asses the cognitive health and ability of their athletes, allowing them to make objective, data-backed decisions when an athlete’s health is on the line. The Edge allows these individuals to analyze each athlete’s cognitive state following a 30-second to 1-minute test.
Visual training is crucial to every athlete’s overall performance, yet it is chronically underutilized among amateur and youth teams. The Edge allows athletes to improve their mental acuity, instruction following, concentration, problem solving, multitasking, decision-making, logic, pattern recognition or eye-hand coordination while simultaneously assessing their cognitive state.
Rapid and objective cognitive assessment and training on the portable Reflexion Edge also allows athletes with cognitive injuries to exercise vestibular and oculomotor systems evaluate and brain function during the recovery process.
On July 14, 2014, Borussia Dortmund attacking midfielder Mario Göetze shed his brown substitute’s vest, left the German national team dugout, and stood next to head coach Joachim Löw on the sideline of Brazil’s famous Maracanã stadium. He had spent the last eighty minutes watching his teammates struggle to score a winning goal against Lionel Messi’s Argentina on Soccer’s biggest stage — The FIFA World Cup Final.
He replaced veteran striker Miroslav Klose in the 88th minute, jogging into the scramble with the slouched confidence of an underdog boxer. 25 minutes later, he controlled Andre Schürlle’s cross with his chest and poked the ball into the far corner of Argentina’s goal. He sprinted toward the corner flag in celebration, the defenders behind him maintained their shutout, and Germany left Brazil with one of the most valuable trophies in world sports.
Despite a several-season stint with German powerhouse Bayern Munich, Göetze spent his developmental years at Borussia Dortmund — the Bundesliga’s perennial second-place team and occasional underdog title winner. When he became a national hero, the global media profiled his impressive and prolific career in an attempt to understand why the soccer gods had chosen him to play the part of super substitute.
Some attributed his clinical finishing skills and deft touch on the ball to the now-famous Footbonaut: an automated training tool, first used at Dortmund, designed to improve a player’s technical skills and soccer reactions. Like the Reflexion Edge, the system relies on sensory stimuli to engage players’ brains and bodies simultaneously.
Dortmund implemented the $3.5 million training system into their training program for youth and senior players in the fall of 2012. The club continues to use the cage-like device to sharpen its squad and to help players recovering from injury regain their touch. Another German club, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, also uses the device.
The Footbonaut consists of four walls of rectangular passing targets. Each target is surrounded by a banner of lights that can appear as red, green and blue depending on the player’s task. Each of the four walls features a ball dispenser, which plays the user passes of various speeds, heights and styles. An audio signal indicates where the ball will be dispensed and where the next target will appear. A single rectangular panel is illuminated, and the player must pass the ball into the target as quickly and accurately as possible.
The solo training system allows players to sharpen their first touch, passing accuracy and efficiency, and sensory processing skills. The Footbonaut is completely customizable — trainers can change the speed and type of pass as well as target frequency and placement using an accompanying software system. They can then track each players’ progress using metrics such as passing speed and touches or passes per session.
What makes the Footbonaut unique is its combination of technical training with visual and auditory reflex stimuli. Technology and performance training continue to intersect in new and exciting ways. Standardized systems that incorporate visual and auditory aspects such as the Footbonaut and Reflexion’s Edge allow players to train not only their on-the-ball skills, but also crucial cognitions such as their reaction time, peripheral vision and depth perception. These cognitions and the ability to use them correctly are invaluable in the fast-paced world of professional sports, and allow players to avoid injury in addition to playing faster.
The same cognitions are quantified by the Edge, which uses data to train and asses each cognitions in a less sports-specific setting. After a test, users can track their improvement or use the Edge as a recuperation tool following an injury.
The Footbonaut, a cage of sound, lights and fast reactions, sharpens these cognitions along with each player’s traditional technical ability. It adds a cerebral and cognitive element to the traditional passing drill that trains players’ brains alongside their bodies, making the system another customizable and sports-specific addition to the growing cognitive performance training frontier.
