Using Quiet Eye training in an elite sport context – comment on Vickers

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Esports: The chess of the 21st century

© 2019 Pluss, Bennett, Novak, Panchuk, Coutts and Fransen. For many decades, researchers have explored the true potential of human achievement. The expertise field has come a long way since the early works of de Groot (1965) and Chase and Simon (1973). Since then, this inquiry has expanded into the areas of music, science, technology, sport, academia, and art. Despite the vast amount of research to date, the capability of study methodologies to truly capture the nature of expertise remains questionable. Some considerations include (i) the individual bias in the retrospective recall of developmental activities, (ii) the ability to develop ecologically valid tasks, and (iii) difficulties capturing the influence of confounding factors on expertise. This article proposes that expertise research in electronic sports (esports) presents an opportunity to overcome some of these considerations. Esports involves individuals or teams of players that compete in video game competitions via human-computer interaction. Advantages of applying the expert performance approach in esports include (i) developmental activities are objectively tracked and automatically logged online, (ii) the constraints of representative tasks correspond with the real-world environment of esports performance, and (iii) expertise has emerged without the influence of guided systematic training environments. Therefore, this article argues that esports research provides an ideal opportunity to further advance research on the development and assessment of human expertise

COACH AND BIOMECHANIST KNOWLEDGE OF SPRINT RUNNING TECHNIQUE

The purpose of this study was to establish how coaches and biomechanists assess sprint running technique to increase understanding of current coaching and biomechanical practice leading to an identification of ways to improve coach-practitioner relationships. Australian sprint coaches (n=56) and international sport biomechanists (n=12) completed an online survey that asked questions relating to their knowledge of sprint running, current biomechanical-based practices and the coach-biomechanist relationship. A level of congruence was found in the two group’s understanding of sprinting technique with a number of similarities between aspects of the stance and swing phases especially around the instance of contact. There were key differences in the relative importance of the stance phase, arm movement and postural alignment of the body. The potential gaps in knowledge and practice suggested in this initial research create a foundation for further research into the coach-practitioner relationship and its overall effectiveness

The effects of either a mirror, internal or external focus instructions on single and multi-joint tasks

Training in front of mirrors is common, yet little is known about how the use of mirrors effects muscle force production. Accordingly, we investigated how performing in front of a mirror influences performance in single and multi-joint tasks, and compared the mirror condition to the established performance effects of internal focus (IF) and external focus (EF) instructions in a two part experiment. In the single-joint experiment 28 resistance-trained participants (14 males and 14 females) completed two elbow flexion maximal voluntary isometric contractions under four conditions: mirror, IF, EF and neutral instructions. During these trials, surface EMG activity of the biceps and triceps were recorded. In the multi-joint experiment the same participants performed counter-movement jumps on a force plate under the same four conditions. Single-joint experiment: EF led to greater normalized force production compared to all conditions (P ≤ 0.02, effect-size range [ES] = 0.46–1.31). No differences were observed between neutral and mirror conditions (P = 0.15, ES = 0.15), but both were greater than IF (PP ≥ 0.1, ES = 0.10–0.21). Multi-joint experiment: Despite no statistical difference (P = 0.10), a moderate effect size was observed for jump height whereby EF was greater than IF (ES = 0.51). No differences were observed between neutral and mirror conditions (ES = 0.01), but both were greater than IF (ES = 0.20–22). The mirror condition led to superior performance compared to IF, inferior performance compared to EF, and was equal to a neutral condition in both tasks. These results provide novel and practical evidence concerning mirror training during resistance type training

Response: Commentary: Long-term Practice with Domain-Specific Task Constraints Influences Perceptual Skills

A Commentary on: Commentary: Long-term Practice with Domain-Specific Task Constraints Influences Perceptual Skills by Yiannaki, C., Carling, C., and Collins, D. (2018). Front. Psychol. 9:1214. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg. 2018.0121

Modified perceptual training in sport:A new classification framework

Objectives: To overview a framework that provides a theoretically-grounded approach to predicting the types of modified perceptual training tasks that will stimulate transfer of improved perceptual skills to sport performance environments. Modified perceptual training (MPT) collectively describes on- or off-field sports training tasks that are specifically designed to develop visual and perceptual-cognitive skill. Traditional training approaches in sport include sports vision training and perceptual-cognitive training, while recently, new technologies have enabled a broad range of additional MPT tools to become available to coaches and athletes. Design: Short literature review and opinion article. Methods: Literature in the fields of sports vision training and perceptual-cognitive training are summarised and contrasted. A selection of emerging MPT technologies are then overviewed. This leads to the identification of three interacting factors of MPT task design that may influence the task's capacity to transfer improved training performance to actual competition: (i) the targeted perceptual function, (ii) stimulus correspondence, and (iii) response correspondence, which are assimilated with key tenets of representative learning design. Results: These three theoretically-grounded differences are adopted to support and justify the structure of the Modified Perceptual Training Framework which sets out predictions for future research to test in order to clarify the transfer effect of MPT tools. Conclusions: The application of the Modified Perceptual Training Framework may assist in future testing, design and selection of beneficial training tools in sport and as such, is predicted to have significant impact in empirical and practical settings