To assist athletes in reaching peak performance, coaches must have a complete understanding of their cognitive task performance. By assessing multiple measures, coaches can obtain a comprehensive overview of an athlete's progress, which is crucial in determining their performance profile.
Defining Cognitive Performance
The cognitive performance of an athlete can be represented by a triangular profile, showcasing their speed, accuracy, and consistency. An ideal profile would show improvement in response speed while maintaining accuracy and consistency. However, this is not always the case, and trade-offs between speed and consistency are common.
Balancing Speed and Consistency
To ensure peak performance, it is crucial to define threshold performance metrics. We recommend allowing for a 3-5% range of adjustments in speed and consistency. The aim is to strike a balance between accuracy, consistency, and speed.
Interpreting Cognitive Baseline Data
To make it easier to track improvements, a color legend is used to highlight changes in cognitive performance. A purple dot indicates improvement, blue indicates no change, and grey shows a decline.
Example A: Positive Outcome
In this example. Most cognitive measures showed improvement, with a 7.15% improvement in Task Switching reaction time and a 7.14% improvement in RCS. Although accuracy and variation had decreased performance, the changes were within the 5% allowance, and the overall improvement was considered positive.
Example B: Focusing on Improvement
In this example, most tasks showed improvement across metrics. However, there was a decrease in accuracy and variation in two tasks. This shows that the athlete prioritized speed over accuracy and consistency. As a result, the focus for the next program will be on improving the athlete's capability to produce consistent and accurate responses.
Conclusion
By analyzing cognitive baseline data, coaches and athletes can gain valuable insights into performance and identify areas for improvement. It is essential to recognize that performance data will rarely be flawless. Having a clear comprehension of what the data indicates in different situations enables you to make appropriate adjustments to the next program.
To Summarise
🔎 To assist athletes in reaching peak performance, coaches must have a complete understanding of their cognitive task performance.
🧠 The cognitive performance of an athlete can be represented by a triangular profile, showcasing their speed, accuracy, and consistency.
⚖️ To ensure peak performance, it is crucial to define threshold performance metrics, with a 3-5% range of adjustments in speed and consistency to strike a balance between accuracy, consistency, and speed.
📊 Interpreting cognitive baseline data is easier with a color legend used to highlight changes in cognitive performance, where a purple dot indicates improvement, blue indicates no change, and grey shows a decline.
💪 Example A showed improvement in most cognitive measures, while example B revealed a focus on accuracy and consistency, sacrificing speed.
💡 Analyzing cognitive baseline data provides valuable insights into performance and identifies areas for improvement.
🏅 In conclusion, a clear comprehension of what the data indicates in different situations enables coaches to make appropriate adjustments to the next program.