This quickstart guide built for coaches who want to get up to speed fast without skipping the essentials.
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If you have time, we still recommend going through every onboarding article one by one. But if you’re in a rush, this piece brings the core of Soma together, including embedded audio education to accelerate your learning curve.

Let’s begin with the fundamentals.

Soma tracks a wide range of performance indicators. Here’s what they mean in plain terms:

Reaction Time

How fast your athlete responds.

→ Lower is better.

Speed

The inverse of reaction time often more sensitive to outliers.

→ Higher is better.

Variation

Measures consistency in response speed.

→ Lower is better.

RCS (Rate Correct Score)

Correct responses per second of neural activity.

→ Higher is better.

Accuracy

Percentage of correct responses.

→ Higher is better.

BPM (Beats Per Minute)

Heart rate during task execution.

rMSSD and SDNN

Heart rate variability metrics. Indicators of parasympathetic recovery and autonomic nervous system function.

Soma also lets you monitor an athlete’s minute by minute data during each task.

It captures real time changes across every metric, revealing exactly when speed fades, accuracy drops, or consistency breaks.

This level of detail sharpens your programming and shows you where their system starts to crack.
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What cognitive demands define your athlete’s performance?

Pick one or two to prioritize based on the needs of the sport.

Create a baseline that targets the demand you want to improve.

Lean into the weak point, but don’t neglect strengths. A balanced plan builds total capacity, but biasing toward weakness accelerates adaptation.

Choose tasks that reflect the target demand, and layer them with training modes to increase overall load. Because the load matters more than the task.

Baseline Test Recommendations

Duration: At least 30 minutes

→ Enough to expose cognitive deficits

Task Selection: 3 to 6 tasks

→ 4 is often ideal to avoid overload

Interpreting Results:

Use baseline data to tailor the plan.

Example: Strong in decision-making but weak in inhibition? Focus training on inhibition tasks.

Example Baseline Structure

Decide when to run the cognitive training:

Once you’ve completed baseline testing and selected your integration method, it’s time to build the plan.
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Start by choosing tasks that align with your athlete’s goals and cognitive demands. We recommend 3 to 6 tasks per session, enough variety to maintain pressure without overwhelming their system.
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Most coaches make the same mistake: they chase the perfect drill. But performance doesn’t come from finding the magic task. It comes from load.

What makes a task powerful isn’t what it is, it’s how you use it. Want to train decision-making under fatigue? Stack the task with sustained heart rate. Want to test focus under pressure? Add distractions, time constraints, or dual task demands.
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Use training modes to layer the load. Because the task is not the stimulus. The load is.

Your job isn’t to find the drill. It’s to apply the right pressure and monitor the response.

Soma’s training modes make that process scalable, neurologically rich, and endlessly adaptable.

🎥 Soma’s Training Modes

Two ways to build long-term adaptation:

Progressive Overload

Gradually increase time, intensity, or frequency.

Undulating Load

Vary time, intensity, or frequency across days or weeks.

This video walks you through the full process of building a high-performance cognitive training plan inside Soma Analytics.

You’ll learn how to:

Watch it now to create your own custom plan in minutes.

Sharp. Fast. Effective.

Want to measure mental fatigue? Use PVT B. Run it before and after each session.

If the athlete’s post session reaction time slows and the number of lapses increases, it means the session applied enough cognitive stress. If they get faster, it was too light.

But context matters.

Off season or high load phases:

You want to see signs of fatigue, but also recovery by the next session.

In season or tapering:

Minimal change is ideal. You’re maintaining sharpness, not chasing breakdown.

If PVT B values never change, you’re likely not applying enough stress, unless you’re using it purely for performance maintenance.

But if both pre and post session values rise over a 4 week period and never return to baseline, recovery is failing. You’re pushing too hard.

PVT B gives you a clear, real time readout of brain fatigue.

Use it to adjust, recover, and optimize.

Want to find an athlete’s fatigue threshold during escalating exercise intensity? Use the PFTT.

The Psychomotor Fatigue Threshold Test helps you pinpoint the moment the brain begins to break, even if the body is still performing.

As physical intensity rises, reaction time improves — up to a peak. But beyond that peak, things start to unravel.

Slower responses. Inconsistent decisions. More mental noise.

That’s the fatigue threshold, and it’s where the system begins to fail.

Run the PFTT before, mid, and after intense sessions.

You’ll see when the brain is performing at its best, and when it collapses under load.

If an athlete crosses their threshold too early, they need more resilience.

If it takes longer to reach over time, that’s progress.

The PFTT doesn’t just show you the edge. It helps you move it.

Tracking Progress: The Big Three

Focus on these core metrics to measure cognitive adaptation:

They only count if all three improve by at least 5% — not on average, but individually.

If all three improve:

If there’s no improvement:

Know what moved. Know what didn’t.

Then adjust.

Once you’ve assessed baseline data, the goal is simple: keep the brain under pressure.

If the athlete is performing well across all tasks, the load is too light.

Progress the plan to keep driving adaptation.

Here’s how:

Prioritize weaknesses

Use a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio to target weaker areas more often.

Use hard tasks

More difficulty means more fatigue, which leads to more adaptation.

Track and adjust

Monitor progress and evolve the plan as performance improves.

Cognitive gains come from training what’s uncomfortable.

Progress happens when the brain is forced to adapt again and again.

Want to go deeper?

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