This is your Soma workflow. Four pillars. Work through them in order the first time. Come back to any section as a reference when you need it.

Mental fatigue is invisible. It does not show up the way physical fatigue does. Reaction time slows, decisions become less clean, and focus fades long before the body gives out. You cannot rely on what you see or what the athlete says they feel. It must be measured objectively.

Soma provides two primary ways to monitor mental fatigue: the PVT-B and the PFTT. While both measure cognitive performance, they answer slightly different questions.

We generally recommend using one or the other depending on how you prefer to monitor your athletes.

The PVT-B measures overall mental fatigue before and after training, giving you a simple snapshot of how the session impacted the athlete's cognitive state.

The PFTT measures cognitive performance throughout the training session itself, helping you identify exactly when fatigue begins to affect performance.

Neither is better than the other. The PVT-B tells you how fatigued the athlete is. The PFTT tells you when fatigue starts to impact performance.

Alongside both tools, Soma also includes the RMF (Rating of Mental Fatigue) scale. Unlike the PVT-B and PFTT, which provide objective data, the RMF captures how mentally fatigued the athlete feels.

We recommend collecting it regularly alongside whichever monitoring method you choose, as comparing subjective and objective fatigue can often reveal valuable insights that would otherwise be missed.

A simple reaction test. The athlete reacts as fast and accurately as possible. There is no strategy and nothing to hide behind, which is why even small drops in focus show up immediately in the data.

Run it before and after every session, three minutes each way. Three metrics matter: reaction time, variation, and lapse count.

Read them together, never one in isolation.

Lapse count is the most important signal. A lapse is any response slower than 355ms and even a small rise tells you cognitive fatigue has arrived long before reaction time shows any obvious change. If post-session numbers barely shift, the load was not high enough. If the shift is very large, you exceeded capacity. The goal is a controlled, measurable shift in the right direction every session.

The Psychomotor Fatigue Threshold Test finds the exact point where cognitive performance begins to break down during physical work.

It is a three-choice reaction task: tap right for red, tap left for green, do not tap for yellow. Simple rules make it extremely sensitive to fatigue. The moment cognitive control starts to slip, it shows up immediately.

Run it between sets during the training session, not as a standalone test. The sequence is: cognitive task, physical set, PFTT. Repeat that throughout the session and aim for six PFTT tests in total. This gives you enough data points to see exactly where in the session performance starts to fall.

Over time, if the athlete holds their peak zone longer before scores drop, mental endurance has improved.

The Rating of Mental Fatigue scale captures how mentally tired the athlete feels after each task. It takes seconds to complete and links automatically to each task in Soma. Use it alongside the PVT-B, not instead of it. When RMF and PVT-B data agree your read is accurate. When they disagree, that gap is worth investigating because it often tells you something the numbers alone cannot.

Once you can measure cognitive load, you need to decide where it fits in the training day. There are four methods and all four are backed by peer-reviewed research. The right choice depends on what you are trying to achieve and where you are in the season.

Applies cognitive load before the physical session starts. The athlete begins physical training already mentally fatigued, which raises the perceived intensity of the session without adding any mechanical stress to the body.

Slots three-minute cognitive tasks between physical sets. The athlete stays mentally engaged during rest periods rather than drifting. Total cognitive load rises across the session without extending the session length at all.

Runs cognitive tasks during steady cardiovascular work. The athlete must maintain physical output while processing information under fatigue at the same time. One of the strongest methods for building mental resilience but use it in off-season and pre-season only.

Places cognitive tasks immediately after the physical session ends. This trains decision making under the same tired conditions the athlete faces late in competition. The simplest entry point and the most flexible method. Works all year.

There is no single best method. Each one is a different tool for a different objective.

Choose Pre-Training when you want to increase the perceived intensity of a session without adding mechanical stress to the body.

Choose Intermixed when you want to increase the total cognitive load of a session without extending its duration. It is a strong option for keeping athletes engaged during rest periods on a normal training day.

Choose Concurrent when your goal is to build mental resilience. By performing cognitive and physical training simultaneously, athletes must maintain performance while managing high levels of both physical and mental fatigue. It is one of the most powerful integration methods, but also one of the most demanding, making it best suited to off-season and pre-season periods.

Choose Post-Training when you want to challenge cognitive performance under the same fatigued conditions athletes experience late in competition. With the body already fatigued, the same cognitive task becomes significantly more challenging, making this one of the easiest ways to increase cognitive demand. It is the simplest method to implement, the most flexible, and can be used year-round. If you are unsure where to start, start here.

As a general guideline, we would suggest utilising all four integration methods throughout the off-season, as this is typically the best opportunity to build long-term cognitive and physical capacity. During the competitive season, we generally suggest leaning more heavily on Intermixed and Post-Training methods, as they allow you to maintain cognitive load while better managing physical fatigue, recovery, and competition performance. Ultimately, the closer you get to competition, the more important it becomes to balance adaptation with freshness.

Priming is not training. The goal is to activate the brain before a training session or competitive event, not to build adaptation over weeks. It uses short, sharp cognitive work as a mental warm-up, so the athlete enters the session or event already switched on.

Run four three-minute tasks between warm-up drills and the main session. Around 12 minutes total.

Here is what a priming session looks like in practice:

Rotate tasks across sessions to keep the stimulus fresh. Before relying on priming for competition, run three to five priming sessions when the athlete is fully fresh. This builds a baseline for what activated performance looks like for this athlete specifically, and gives you a reference point to compare against on competition day.

Monitor priming scores over time. If they start drifting down, priming is accidentally becoming fatiguing. Pull back immediately. Priming should sharpen the athlete, not tire them. When in doubt, do less.

So far, we have covered how to monitor mental fatigue and interpret the data, where and why to integrate cognitive load into physical training, and how to prime an athlete before a training session or competitive event.

Now, we will bring everything together by focusing on how to build a structured, long-term programme designed to create lasting adaptations and progressively improve both cognitive and physical capacity.

Every effective plan starts with understanding what the athlete's brain needs to do during competition. You are not choosing tasks at random. You are first identifying which cognitive demands need to be trained.

There are four demand categories: Attention, Inhibition, Decision, and Memory. Most athletes benefit from training all four, but the plan should prioritise the demands most relevant to the sport and position.

Before building the plan, run a baseline session lasting around 30 minutes. Include three to six tasks, with four being ideal. Choose tasks that cover the cognitive demands most relevant to the sport.

For example:

The baseline shows which demands are strong and which begin to break down under load. It also provides a reference point for the end of the training block, helping you confirm whether adaptation has occurred. Include some of the same tasks in both the baseline and the training plan so progress can be measured consistently.

Need Some Inspiration?
If you're new to building cognitive training plans, try our Session Designer. It's an optional tool that generates session ideas to help you get started faster.

→ Open the Session Designer

Once the baseline identifies the demand that breaks down most under load, prioritise it during the training block. Use a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. For every one task or session focused on a stronger demand, complete two or three focused on the weaker demand. This ratio applies to the number of tasks or sessions, not how difficult they are. Continue training the stronger demands at a lower frequency to maintain them. Reassess performance during the block and move towards a more balanced programme as the weaker demand improves.

The task alone does not create adaptation. The load applied to it does. A low-load Flanker provides little training stimulus, while a suitably high-load Flanker creates the challenge needed for adaptation. The task stays the same, but the load changes. Modes are how you increase load without switching tasks constantly. They add pressure, speed, fatigue, or automatic scaling on top of any task. For your first block, pick one mode and stick with it for all four weeks. You want to see what is actually driving the adaptation before adding more variables.

Once tasks and modes are selected, adjust the load each week. For your first block use progressive overload. Increase intensity, duration, or frequency week by week across the four weeks. Once you know how your athlete responds to load, you can switch to undulating periodization which alternates load rather than increasing it linearly, keeping the brain adapting through constant variation.

You need at least nine sessions before a trend becomes clear. The first week often feels messy and that is normal. By week three adaptation starts. By week four the athlete has adjusted. Do not change the plan mid-block based on one or two sessions. If the load is right, post-session data will show slower RT, higher variation, and more lapses. That means the brain has been pushed enough to adapt.

The step-by-step guide below covers each stage.

Give your plan a clear, descriptive name so it's easy to find later, then select New Plan to start from scratch.

Before you add any tasks, the first thing to do is create your sessions. Select Add Session to add one. We recommend a simple naming convention like Baseline, Session 1, Session 2, and Session 3. Keeping them clearly labelled makes the whole plan far easier to manage and read back later.

Next, set how many times each session should repeat. By default every session runs for a single cycle, but you can adjust this to suit your programme.

You can also turn on athlete feedback scales. There are three: Rating of Mental Fatigue, Rating of Mental Effort, and Rating of Perceived Exertion. Your athlete completes these after each task, giving you valuable subjective feedback alongside the objective cognitive data.

If you switch on Baseline Comparison, Soma automatically generates pre and post baseline reports at the end of the block. With this turned on, the session cycle is set to two for you, so both baseline assessments are included.

Finally, if you want more detailed analysis, enable Minute on Minute tracking. Instead of just the final average for a task, this records performance all the way through, so you can see how your athlete responds as mental fatigue develops.

With your sessions ready, start building the structure. Soma lets you filter tasks by cognitive demand, which makes the process much quicker. Most athletes benefit from training all four demands, but prioritise the ones that matter most in their sport, where split-second focus, control, or decision-making count.

→ How to Filter Tasks by Demand

→ How to Filter Tasks by Mode

Next, decide when the cognitive work happens around physical training: pre-session, in-session, or post-session. Only the placement you choose shows up inside Soma NPT, so your athlete's workflow stays clear. To add a task, select Add Drill within a session, then set the duration, the intensity, and the mode. The mode adds an extra layer that increases the load on top of the task. Repeat this until the session is complete.

→ How to Adjust Task Settings

→ How to Access Mode Information

→ How to Access Task Information

A practical approach is to create a core group of three sessions and repeat them each week. Simply copy and paste the sessions, then progressively increase the training load or use undulating periodisation by varying intensity, duration throughout the block.

Once you're finished, tap the periodisation overview to see how the plan develops across the entire block.

If you'd rather look at baseline data before finalising, just set up your session names, add your scales, and enable Minute on Minute first. Once you've reviewed the baseline results, carry on and build the rest.

To assign it now, select Assign Users, choose your athletes, and tap Assign. To start it later, pick a date and time from the calendar and Soma will assign it for you automatically.

When a new plan is assigned, your athlete opens the Home tab in Soma NPT to refresh their plan list. Once it refreshes, the new plan appears. For example, a plan updating from Soma 1.0 to Soma 1.1 will only show after they tap the Home tab.

Important: Saving and Deleting Plans

Plans save automatically as you work. Assigned plans sit under Active, and unassigned plans sit under Inactive. One thing to be careful with: if you delete a session that an athlete has already completed, all its data is permanently lost, and this can't be undone.