Welcome to your roadmap for building an effective cognitive training plan for your athletes with Soma. This guide will walk you through the strategic implementation and adaptation of tasks, ensuring that your athletes’ training evolves alongside their progress. Cognitive training isn’t just about selecting exercises—it demands a tailored approach to meet the unique needs of each athlete. A well-designed plan keeps athletes engaged, consistently challenges them, and helps prevent plateaus in their development.

The foundation of an effective cognitive training plan lies in identifying and targeting the right cognitive demands. It's more important to choose the appropriate cognitive challenges than specific tasks. Ensuring sufficient cognitive load is key to driving progress.

With Soma, you can modify tasks with training modes to meet the required challenge, eliminating the need to find the perfect task.

👉 Cognitive Task List

Start by assessing each athlete’s current cognitive abilities with a baseline test. This diagnostic tool identifies strengths and weaknesses, providing crucial data to design a personalized and effective training plan.

Example

There are multiple ways to integrate cognitive tasks into an athlete’s training regimen. You can choose a single methodology or combine multiple integration methods.

Below, we outline strategies for incorporating cognitive training at different stages of physical training—pre-training, intermittent, concurrent, and post-training—all backed by peer-reviewed research for their effectiveness.

You can also mix approaches, such as combining pre- and post-training or integrating pre-training with intermittent and post-training.

The choice is yours.

Pre-exhaust the brain to enhance the perceived intensity of physical training.

Perform cognitive tasks before physical workouts.

20 minutes total, structured as:

Amplify the overall training load while keeping athletes mentally engaged during recovery periods.

Introduce cognitive tasks during rest intervals between physical training sets to challenge the brain and maximize training efficiency.

Minimum 20 minutes, structured as:

Concurrent cognitive training aims to double the efficiency of your training sessions. This strategy helps save time for maximum efficiency.

Combine cognitive tasks with cardiovascular training within a specific heart rate zone.

20 minutes total, structured as:

Capitalize on residual fatigue from physical training to test limits, strengthen cognitive resilience, and drive further adaptation.

Perform cognitive tasks after physical workouts to harness mental fatigue, enhancing both endurance and focus.

20 minutes total, structured as:

After baseline testing and determining your integration methods, select tasks aligned with the athlete’s specific goals and cognitive demands. We suggest choosing 3–6 tasks per session to provide sufficient variety in the training program. Once you’ve selected the tasks, consider incorporating Soma’s training modes to maintain challenge and variety.

As a coach, you know that using the same cognitive tasks—even with slight adjustments in time or intensity—can quickly lose their impact. Athletes adapt, and the tasks become less challenging.

That’s where Soma’s training modes come in.

But before we go further—let’s clear something up:

Coaches waste time hunting for the “right drill,” thinking performance comes from finding the golden task. But it’s not the task—it’s the load.

Soma offers over 80 tasks. And 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 turn a basic drill into a brutal challenge. Want to train decision-making under fatigue? Stack cognitive load with sustained heart rate. Want to challenge focus under chaos? Add distraction, dual tasks, or time pressure.

The task doesn’t have to be unique—it just has to be hard enough.

That’s your job: not to find the “perfect drill,” but to create the right demand and then monitor the response.

The real error? Thinking the task is the stimulus.

It’s not.

The load is.

Each layer adds a new type of brain load:

Using Modes to apply these layers makes training more scalable, more versatile, and more neurologically engaging—keeping your athletes sharp, adaptable, and always progressing.

👉 Learn about all of Soma's training modes—when to use them and why

Once you’ve completed all the previous steps, selected the tasks for each session, and applied modes to them, it’s time to focus on periodizing the cognitive training plan.

Periodization involves adjusting the cognitive load over time using principles borrowed from physical training.

You can choose either:

In the next section, we’ll look at how to apply both methods.

Gradually increase the cognitive load to ensure continuous cognitive growth and adaptation. Select one method or blend several strategies according to your needs.

Intensity:

Session Duration:

Frequency:

Introduce variability in intensity, volume, and frequency to prevent mental stagnation and promote adaptability. Select one method or blend several strategies according to your needs.

Task Intensity:

Task Intensity Over a Week

Task Intensity Over a 4-Week Period

Task Duration & Frequency:

Variation of Session Duration and Frequency Over a 4-Week Period

We have created a PDF of plans designed to serve as guidelines, helping you get started with Soma quickly and effectively. These plans offer a flexible framework for structuring a program, allowing you to adapt task placement, duration, intensity, and periodization to meet the unique needs of your athletes.

📥 Download

Creating an effective cognitive training plan with Soma starts with a clear and strategic approach. First, identify the cognitive demands of your athletes, conduct thorough baseline testing, and integrate cognitive tasks into their physical training. Then, select suitable tasks and apply periodization techniques like progressive overload or undulating periodization to structure the program effectively. When a task lacks sufficient challenge, you can increase complexity by adding a specialized training mode instead of searching for entirely new exercises. By adjusting factors like intensity, duration, and frequency, you can promote continuous cognitive growth and adaptability, ensuring your athletes stay engaged and achieve effective results.

Q: Does the Task Really Matter?​

A: When it comes to cognitive training, the specific task you choose is important—but not as much as you might think. Every cognitive task has a primary focus, but most also involve multiple demands. For example, a sustained attention task is primarily about maintaining focus, but it also requires inhibition, such as ignoring specific stimuli (e.g., not responding to the number 3).

Some tasks impose a higher cognitive load than others, but the key factor isn’t necessarily the task itself—it’s the amount of load placed on the athlete. Traditionally, increasing difficulty meant selecting a harder task or extending its duration. However, with Soma, these rules don’t apply.

Soma offers specialized training modes that allow you to modify the load dynamically without changing the task itself. If a task seems too easy, you can apply a specialized mode to increase the intensity, duration, or complexity, making the training adaptable to different needs and athletes.

So, while choosing the right task is important, it’s not the ultimate factor. With Soma, you have the flexibility to adjust task duration, intensity, and load layering to match your training goals.

Bottom line: The amount of cognitive load is more important than the specific task itself.

Q: How often should I conduct baseline tests for my athletes?

​A: It's recommended to conduct baseline tests at the beginning of a training program and periodically (e.g., every 6-8 weeks) to assess progress and adjust training plans accordingly.

Q: Can cognitive training be integrated with all types of physical training?

​A: Yes, cognitive training can complement various physical training regimes. It's essential to tailor the integration method (pre-training, intermittent, concurrent, post-training) to fit the specific needs and goals of the athletes.

Q: What if an athlete shows no improvement over time?

​A: If there's no improvement, consider reassessing the cognitive demands, adjusting task difficulty, or modifying the training schedule to better match the athlete's needs.

Q: How do I keep athletes motivated during cognitive training?

​A: Varying tasks, tracking progress, setting achievable goals, and incorporating engaging activities can help maintain motivation. Additionally, highlighting the benefits of cognitive training on overall performance can reinforce its importance.