After baseline testing and determining your integration strategy, select tasks that align with the athlete’s specific goals and cognitive demands. We recommend choosing 3–6 tasks per session to provide enough variety without overwhelming the athlete.
Once you’ve selected the tasks, consider incorporating Soma’s training modes to maintain challenge, progression, and engagement over time.
As a coach, you already know this: using the same cognitive tasks — even with small changes to time or intensity — can quickly lose their impact.
Athletes adapt. The challenge fades.
But before we go further—let’s clear something up:
There’s no such thing as the perfect task.
Coaches often waste time hunting for the “right drill,” thinking performance comes from discovering the golden task. But it’s not about the task — it’s about the load.
Soma offers over 80 cognitive tasks. Every single one can be effective — if the demand is right.
What makes a task powerful isn’t what it is.
It’s what you layer onto it.
Use Modes to Scale Load, Not Swap Tasks
Want to train decision-making under fatigue?
→ Stack a Zone 4 heart rate mode on top.
Want to challenge focus under chaos?
→ Add distraction, dual tasks, or time pressure.
The task doesn’t need to be unique — it just needs to be hard enough.
Your role as a coach isn’t to find the “perfect drill.”
It’s to create the right demand — and then monitor how the athlete responds.
The real mistake? Thinking the task is the stimulus.
It’s not.
The load is.
The Four Layers of the Cognitive Stack
Each layer adds a new type of brain load:
1. The Core — the task itself
2. The Grind — how long they do it
3. The Pressure — how intense it becomes
4. The Multiplier — what mode you layer on top
Using Soma Modes to apply these layers makes training more scalable, versatile, and neurologically engaging — helping your athletes stay sharp, adaptable, and always progressing.