COGNITION IN ELITE FOOTBALLERS PART 7

 

In part 7 from this knowledge-rich study, we go back and look at stage 2 in ridiculous detail so strap in and put your brain on!

• Stage 2 consists of action selection/execution + action/selection between response options with both being based on the assessment of the current situation from stage 1 where the player must decide which action to make
• The decision-making process is a competition between response options with the starting point being comparison of the current play situation to representations of similar situations in long term memory
• Through experience, certain actions are linked to positive/negative outcomes in particular situations
• For experts the situational assessment is highly specific, implying that very few actions (and sometimes only 1) are associated with it
• Neural populations in the brain’s motor systems related to each of these actions are activated at the beginning of stage 2 but as only 1 action can be carried out, the actions compete for selection and this competitive process constitutes an implicit evaluation of response options that results in the selection/execution of an action
• There are 2 main determinants of the evaluation being how closely the present situation matches similar patterns in long term memory and this matching also includes the player’s current proprioceptive state and readiness to perform certain actions + how strongly the different actions have been linked to these patterns/player’s response biases
• By integrating these 2 factors, the selection process can combine present information with previous experience to maximise the probability for a successful outcome of the chosen action and the selected action also implies an expectation of its likely outcome, based on previous learning, which feeds into stage 3 (assessment of outcome/feedback-based learning)
• For experts, the action selection process occurs at an unconscious level since decisions need to be made fast/intuitively to take advantage of dynamic opportunities as they occur in a game which is different for novices where conscious deliberation is more prominent
• Greater level conscious processing with more deliberation time typically reduces the quality of decisions
• Conscious thought is restricted by working memory capacity but unconscious processing can evaluate several choice options simultaneously and in any given game-situation multiple response options are relevant bit it is highly unlikely that each option is sequentially considered/weighted against others within consciousness as it would take too long
• Since response selection is based on the situational assessment it is difficult to determine if poor decision making is due to poor response evaluation or if the evaluation was accurate but based on a poor situational assessment
• Response selection processes at stage 2 relates to motor decision making being dependent on a competition between populations of neurons representing different movement options in a fronto-parietal system that integrates sensory, memory and motor related information as the current situation is perceived, triggering response options based on past experiences of similar scenarios
• The relevant response options compete and while neurons within populations representing the same action will excite each other, neurons from different populations tend to exhibit each other
• Eventually 1 neural population reaches a critical activation threshold, out-competes the others and the associated action is executed
• Structures in the basal ganglia may function as gatekeepers for response selection in this process with the competition being resolved based on an ongoing analysis of costs, risks and rewards
• This affordance competition theory suggests less familiar scenarios/fewer available good solutions tend to produce slower decision making via the lower activation in neuronal populations when the match between a current situation and stored representations is poor due to limited previous exposure to such scenarios + reaction times on decision tasks generally increase with the number of relevant options available via the fiercer competition between neural populations that will inhibit each other when no obvious decision presents itself
• In both cases it will take longer for a neural population to reach the activation threshold resulting in a slower response
• This may explain the "take the 1^st" heuristic that suggests a skilled player will typically pick the 1st viable response option that presents itself and could reflect behavior in scenarios that have become so familiar that response evaluation entails almost no competition and a highly practiced motor response can be initiated almost immediately
• Decision making is a continuous process representing an ongoing interaction between environment and actor and in-game decision making corresponds more closely to what can be termed embodied decision settings where the environment is constantly changing and affords new response options in a way that blurs the lines between perception, decision and execution
• Individuals executing a motor response will sometimes suddenly change their minds and switch course mid-action when new information presents itself and makes another response more beneficial which highlights that both situational assessment and action selection continues well into motor execution
• Action selection is continuously on-going and each processing stage is updated as new perceptual/cognitive information becomes available
• This situational assessment from stage 1 will continue to update and bias response selection in stage 2 and even after motor execution has begun, a new decision may reach the activation threshold and change motor behavior in another direction
• Difficulties in reaching a decision at stage 2 may initiate more explorative behavior at stage 1 to provide sufficient information for the decision so the 2 stages function in an interactive manner v traditional decision making models of perception then decision then execution
• Motor competence is the ability to execute a particular movement pattern - is a precondition for action selection for example a bicycle kick is not a move every player has and requires very specific motor skills which implies that the neural/bodily activity required for it is not activated in stage 2 for such players but given appropriate physical fitness it may be altered by the training of that skill in which case the option of it can then enter stage 2’s action selection in relevant situations
• A motor representation of a bicycle kick now exists in the player’s procedural long term memory from which it can be activated by relevant situational cues perceived at stage 1
• Stage 2 is a competition between response actions in which activated options are evaluated based on a match between the situational assessment, stored situational representations and the strength of associations between these representations and the specific actions involved in competitive decision making + action selection is a continuous process that regulates decisions all the way until they are carried out

ROUND 7 GAME ANALYSIS

This week we have clips from a bunch of games over the weekend where we look at:

• Mason Wood Wing Run
• Poor North Melbourne D50 Defense
• Bont Draw and Dish Handball
• Rhylee West F50 Leading Patterns
• Sydney Handover and Bice Press
• Sydney Center Bounce Clearance
• Gold Coast Kick Out
• Sydney Kick Out

For full access to this game analysis, register for a level 1 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

BRISBANE v COLLINGWOOD GAME ANALYSIS

                               

Finally back to some good ole game analysis after catching up on this yesterday/today.

Pies look to be back for season 2025 but in a different way with the best defense and more ball movement along the boundary then in their premiership year in 2023 but as effective.

Today we look at:

- Brisbane not using the extra handball

- Collingwood center bounce clearance

- Brisbane react to previous center bounce clearance

- Checkers engaging Andrews perfectly

- Collingwood kick out

- Collingwood lanes from defense to offense

- Collingwood transition

For full access to this game analysis, register for a level 1 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

COGNITION IN ELITE FOOTBALLERS PART 6

                                                 

We had the internet connected at the new house for a second or 2 before it cut back out so again I've only sparingly watched any footy on TV (went to 2 games live though!) so no game analysis until next week unless I can catch up on some games during the week so it's part 6 of the Cognition in Elite Footballers study where we're  still looking at the stage 1 which is the assessment of the current play situation which has covered visual orientation and attention, pattern recognition and anticipation with the final piece of this puzzle, working memory, being the focus today.

• Working memory serves as the store for information that makes up the situational assessment of stage 1 and through working memory the assessment is carried over to stage 2 where it activates representations in procedural long term memory
• Within stage 2 working memory contributes to conscious executive processes that bias the action selection process
• There is a link between multi-object tracking ability and more successful passes
• Strategic team sport athletes tend to exhibit better executive functioning, including working memory, than athletes from non-strategic sports as well as a higher workload capacity during fast decision making
• Lower working memory capacity is related to how much a player will be distracted by irrelevant information during games where auditory distractions impact performance negatively for elite/novices on a tactical decision making task and the beneficial effects of prior contextual information on decision making is lessened when a distractor-task must be performed simultaneously showing that the degree of load on working memory is important to performance
• Experts can bypass the normal capacity limitations of working memory by relying on other memory systems to perform tasks quicker/more efficiently
• Extensive experience facilitates a separate domain-specific long term memory system that can quickly retrieve/apply game relevant-information/patterns from long term memory with no additional load to working memory and may be closely related to pattern recognition skills
• Skilled players generate, classify and recognise game situations quicker then lesser skilled and can recall information from past matches with greater accuracy
• Skilled also apply more advanced memory representations to sport-related problem solving
• Experts develop a domain-specific executive system which can quickly retrieve/apply game-relevant information from long term memory and when showed a soccer-related picture which is later shown again to prompt a decision, it can lower the response time for that decision
• With shorter intervals between prime and decision, a priming effect was shown for novice/experts but as working memory was overloaded with the a secondary task, the priming effect remained only for experts
• Experts can efficiently utilise a separate memory system when information has not been registered consciously or when working memory is overloaded
• Novices/experts relied on working memory to a similar degree when solving problems
• Rather than more efficient encoding/retrieval of visual information, experts have superior attention allocation/perceptual ability.
• When working memory is overloaded, performance drops and skilled players can perform better on working memory task
• Highly experienced players re-delegate information normally processed by working memory to a separate domain-specific memory system but the evidence is mixed and it seems they still rely on working memory to a large extent
• It’s hard to disentangle the involvement of working memory in guiding perception/attention  (stage 1) from its role in influencing response selection (stage 2)

COGNITION IN ELITE FOOTBALLERS PART 5

 

As per rental life, I moved house once again last week + don't have internet until tomorrow or the next day so here's 2 posts in 1 on the Cognition in Elite Footballers study.

Today we look at pattern recognition and anticipation.

• Pattern Recognition is central for the development of expertise
• Skilled players show no difference in memory performance for videos of play situations with abstract displays/fully detailed videos but there is a significant gap with lesser skilled players  indicating that experts are better at picking up abstract structural play configurations v lesser skilled who rely on more superficial sensory features
• Dynamical motion aspects of the patterns, not static configurations, differentiated experts from lesser skilled observers
• Relative, not absolute, motion patterns are crucial
• Centrally located attacking players seem to be especially critical for experts indicated by the number of eye movements directed at these players as well as by experimental removal of player stimuli which shows that movements of central attacking players hold essential information
• For a given position, there are a great variety of playing patterns relevant to expert performance
• Pattern recognition is highly relevant to anticipation since you can predict the play and react earlier and eye tracking data indicated visual search strategies that both show similarities/differences when performing anticipatory and recognition tasks + athlete's report on more sophisticated memory representations when anticipating v when recognising and although they overlap, they are functionally distinct from each other
• Anticipation is the ability to predict actions and is a part of stage 1 with prediction about consequences of your actions in stage 2
• Serves to provide accurate predictions of how a situation might change in the next few seconds and soccer players rely on postural cues to predict the opposition as skilled athletes outperform lesser skilled on postural tasks in accurate responses and the time they can respond in
• They are also better at anticipating deceptive moves and at generating relevant action options for the opposition + verbal statements of higher complexity about their own thought processes during anticipation
• At the neurophysiological level, these processes may be supported by mirror neuron systems
• On top of postural cues, skilled athletes also use the opposition players action tendencies or the opposition team's structural knowledge
• The provision of contextual priors through knowledge about opposition action tendencies benefitted anticipation for both novice/expert players but when opposition acted against their tendency then a detrimental effect was observed for novices suggesting experts are more skilled at determining when contextual information should be relied upon or not
• Skilled and lesser skilled athletes both learn/benefit from opposition action tendencies when anticipating but when opposition tendencies change then only skilled players adapted to their expectations
• Knowledge of opposition action tendencies is important for anticipation so teams should develop this as shared knowledge
• When varying the reliability of video clips, experts employ a Bayesian probability-based strategy when anticipating
• Skilled players possess a greater advantage in postural anticipation and if postural cues are reliable then they will primarily base their anticipatory judgement on this source of information
• Although initially relying on contextual information, experts will switch to postural cues right before an opposition’s action is executed when kinematic information is most reliable v not observed in novices
• When kinematic information is unreliable due to a greater distance from the action, early occlusion or other manipulation, contextual priors of low/high reliability as well as structural information take precedence in anticipation
• Experts utilise multiple sources of information when anticipating and their superior performance is from an ability to adapt their anticipation strategy depending on the relative reliability of the different information sources
• Reaction is a response to an already unfolding event v anticipation is a prediction of an event that may occur with some probability
• Athletes also need to learn to react to cues that appear ambiguous to an untrained observer but almost always precede a certain outcome
• Visual information becomes more reliable the closer it is to execution of the action being anticipated
• Again experts rely on postural cues right before action execution and this very late perceptual information is extremely useful when the opposition makes a deceptive move
• If experts wait until the last moment to anticipate then are they really anticipating or simply reacting once the opposition can no longer inhibit a certain response as goal keepers rely on reaction rather then anticipation when defending shots
• There is a trade off between speed/anticipation and accuracy/reaction where speed/anticipation allows you to respond to the opposition action quicker but the response may be ineffectual if perceptual information is unreliable v reacting may allow a player to respond to an opposition action more accurately but the response time may come too late to be effective
• Anticipation can work for you or against you depending on the situation and while for some actions it may be better to wait/react, for others it may occur so quickly that a player must rely on anticipation instead
• Skilled are better at anticipating than lesser skilled via postural cues, contextual information and strategic knowledge of patterns but it remains uncertain how much is enhances performance and might be most useful when it is relied upon flexibly depending on the circumstances
• When teammate/opposition actions occur too quickly to allow for a reaction, anticipation can be a useful way to create an understanding of the current play situation and allow for earlier initiation of the next phase of the perception-action cycle and thus action selection

PENDLEBURY: BEYOND 400 PODCAST PART 1/2

                                           

I'm not a major podcast listener but I had this on my agenda to get to at some stage and doing the lawns the last 2 days was the perfect opportunity to do so.

Being a very older player (46) still playing senior/reserve grade football every Saturday and a senior coach for a women's team on a Sunday, this just delivered nugget after nugget in regards to everything football at the top level that local/amateur footballers can easily implement in their own lives.

Pendlebury: Beyond 400 is the brain child AFL commentator Mark Howard and is 8 episodes of about 25mins in length detailing Pendles' time from the first day of pre-season 2024 right up until Collingwood's very first game in opening round 2025.

Here are my takeaways.

EPISODE 1 - DAY ONE

In this one he talks fleetingly about the fundamentals of football which he mentions the usual go-to's of tackling, marking etc but also adds in spatial awareness so I want to touch on that a but more.

There are 4 co-actives to performance being technical, tactical, physical and psychological and they each have their own set of fundamentals so what he really means is the technical fundamentals of football.

Fundamentals for tactical would be things that your team is specifically trying to do during games such as switch kicks, kick-mark possession, territory dominant etc.

For physical we're talking endurance, speed, repeat speed, change of direction and robustness that we all pretty much work on to varying degrees.

Psychologically is where most local/amateur teams fall away dramatically where we look at things like confidence, resiliency, grinding and flow but that mostly comes from not having the knowledge/resources to deal with it but keeping some cash handy from overpaying players to developing a mindset program within your club would be a very wise-investment in my book.

Foundational fundamentals that also need to be trained from youth ages right through to adult ages are be things like knowledge of and in the game, perception, anticipation, space, time and timing but can also shift in team specific tactics.

My point is don't think ground balls and tackling are the only foundations of football - they're not - and you need to find a way to touch on them on in some fashion!

EPISODE 2 - CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

Here's a hill session that he did in place of main training on a hill that's about 350m long at an treadmill incline of 12 - 15 by his estimates.

120m  x 3 run up and jog back down, then 240m the same and then 350m the same for 4260m total but jogged there and back for 10kms total.

It's on the Sandy Trails so if you know where it is give it a crack!

He also detailed a change of direction conditioning at Collingwood training of 2 x 5mins of 30secs on/off of suicides, 90secs rest, adding that you should never leave this out of your training so you only go through the soreness once.

All in-close work is full contact but otherwise it's 50% contact early in the pre-season.

The final session before Christmas break they did main training with game play then the fitness crew get their rocks off with a free-for-all with the long break coming up.

After main training and game play was already completed he then describes a training activity I actually detailed in vol 3 of the Collingwood Training Activities but I've also seen Sydney do it and West Coast released a video of Josh Kennedy and Will Schofield doing it as well.

It's basically 3 lead and get back efforts with the defender giving you the absolute treatment the entire time with close to zero rules. 

Next up they put the runners up and headed down to the tan where they paired up and wrestled each other in the grass x 20mins then off to Anderson Street Hill for 12 - 15 half hills then jogged back along the Yarra to the start of the Tan at another grass hill for half way, 3/4 and full hill 5 reps each and finishing with bear crawls up the same hill x 2 reps for each distance again then 2 full hills running and Merry Christmas for 16 - 17kms followed by a pump gym sesh after lunch!

Pure madness.

EPISODE 3 - NO SUCH THINGS AS A HOLIDAY

Embrace those tough sessions and do the time so there's nothing you can't handle during games - train harder then the game while you have the time and resources to do so (pre-season and no games).

1 holiday running session consisted of 12 x 400 resting the time it takes you to perform the previous set + an off legs session of a 50km bike ride he does along the bay for about 90mins.

Christmas day he's relaxed his hardcore prep but still does some training Xmas morning at home 

Gets the plan from the fitness staff then adds in what he wants on top of it (mobility, gym etc) but gets it all ticked off to do while away on holiday.

Post Xmas starts watching some footy again.

At 46 I bank a lot of training from September to March having trained 231 out of 234 days at an average of 129mins/day that has already dropped a touch from practice games and less time to train during the season but the point is you can't catch up during the season so bank the sessions and the time when you can.

EPISODE 4 - COACHES

This episode breaks from tradition a touch where Pendles' 3 coaches (Malthouse, Buckley, McRae) talk about Scont (had to get that in somewhere!) while he talks about their different approaches to coaching.

Malthouse - very encouraging, gave him so much confidence and made him feel like he belonged well before he thought he did, train smart/no hero players (no tackling/back with the flight/hangers etc) - health is wealth!

Buckley - full contact straight away, OK with losing some to training injuries, train with purpose/as you play, specific conditioning via games, a general day is 10kms but if that's taken up by a lot of dedicated running volume then it leaves less room for actual footy training (activities + game play and footy) so instead of 4kms of running + 6kms of game play they shifted to 4kms of game play and 6kms of footy activities. mostly cone-less

McRae - you don't win without getting the process right, a lot of shuttle running but little long running which was slightly concerning for him, cone to cone stuff, did about 5 activities repeatedly, develop habits that become habitual so you don't have to think about them, training resets which are drink breaks over the line where you can decompress for 60 - 90mins but as soon as you cross back over the line it's back to focus, prior first pre-season game they'd done maybe 15mins of match play and wasn't sure how they'd go based on what they've done in the build up but were 80pts up at half time and everything that'd did at training came out in the game (high transfer) and he was the fittest he'd ever felt playing during his 15yrs.