"Rotate it like Ronaldo" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "Bend it like Beckham", but the curving free kick is still one of the most exciting plays in soccer/football. Starting with Rivelino in the 1970 World Cup and on to David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo and the other specialists of today, more players know how to do it and understand the basic physics behind it, but very few can perfect it. But, when it does happen, by chance or skill, it is the highlight of the game.

With the crack of the bat, the ball sails deep into the outfield. The center-fielder starts his run back and to the right, trying to keep his eyes on the ball through its flight path. His pace quickens initially, then slows down as the ball approaches. He arrives just in time to make the catch. What just happened? How did he know where to run and at what speed so that he and the ball intersected at the same exact spot on the field. Why didn't he sprint to the landing spot and then wait for the ball to drop, instead of his controlled speed to arrive just when the ball did? What visual cues did he use to track the ball's flight?  Did Willie Mays make the most famous catch in baseball history because he is one of the greatest players of all-time with years of practice? Maybe, but now take a look at this "Web Gems" highlight video of 12 and 13 year-olds from last year's Little League World Series:

Just like we learned in pitching and hitting, fielding requires extensive mental abilities involving eyes, brain, and body movements to accomplish the task.

Ted Williams, arguably the greatest baseball hitter of all-time, once said, "I think without question the hardest single thing to do in sport is to hit a baseball".

Williams was the last major league player to hit .400 for an entire season and that was back in 1941, 67 years ago!

In the 2008 Major League Baseball season that just ended, the league batting average for all players was .264, while the strikeout percentage was just under 20%. So, in ten average at-bats, a professional ballplayer, paid millions of dollars per year, gets a hit less than 3 times but fails to even put the ball in play 2 times.

Why is hitting a baseball so difficult? What visual, cognitive and motor skills do we need to make contact with an object moving at 70-100 mph?

With the MLB League Championship Series beginning this week,  Twenty-six teams are wondering what it takes to reach the "final four" of baseball which leads to the World Series.  The Red Sox, Rays, Phillies and Dodgers understand its not just money and luck.  Over 162 games, it usually comes down to the fundamentals of baseball: pitching, hitting and catching.  That sounds simple enough.  So, why can't everyone execute those skills consistently?  Why do pitchers struggle with their control?  Why do batters strike out?  Why do fielders commit errors?  It turns out Yogi Berra was right when he said, "Baseball is 90% mental, and the other half is physical."  In this three part series, each skill will be broken down into its cognitive sub-tasks and you may be surprised at the complexity that such a simple game requires of our brains.

A player can feel it during a game when they hit a game-changing home run or when they go 0 for 4 at the plate. A team can feel it when they come back from a deficit late in the game or when their lead in the division vanishes. A fan can feel it as their team "catches fire" or goes "as cold as ice". And, play-by-play announcers love to talk about it.

We know it as the "Big Mo", the "Hot Hand", and being "In The Zone" while the psychologists call it Psychological Momentum. But, does it really exist? Is it just a temporary shift in confidence and mood or does it actually change the outcome of a game or a season? As expected, there are lots of opinions available.

Maybe its the fear of turning 40. Maybe its the feeling of unfinished business. Maybe its the fire in the belly that has not quite extinguished. For retired elite athletes, the itch is always there to make a return after experiencing "life after sport". For some, it becomes too strong to ignore.

This year has seen the return of at least three champions, Dara Torres, Lance Armstrong and Brett Favre. As they explain their individual reasons for coming back, some similarities emerge that have more to do with psychological needs than practical needs.

In a recent Miami Herald article, Torres explained her comeback to competitive swimming at age 41, "For me, it's not like I sat around and watched swimming on TV and thought, `Oh, I wish I was still competing'. It was more gradual. But all of a sudden, something goes off inside you and you start seriously thinking about a comeback. You'd think the competitive fire would die down with maturity, but I've actually gotten worse. I wasn't satisfied with silver medals. I hate to lose now more than I did in my 20s. I'm still trying to figure out why.''

If there is a poster child sport for our favorite phrase, "Sports Are 80 Percent Mental", it must be golf. Maybe its the slow pace of play that gives us plenty of time to think between shots. Maybe its the "on stage" performance feeling we get when we step up to that first tee in front of our friends (or strangers!) Maybe its the "high" of an amazing approach shot that lands 3 feet from the cup followed by the "low" of missing the birdie putt. From any angle, a golf course is the sport psychologist's laboratory to study the mix of emotions, confidence, skill execution and internal cognitive processes that are needed to avoid buying rounds at the 19th hole. In Putt With Your Brain - Part 1, we looked at some of the recent research on putting mechanics but, as promised, we now turn to the mental side of putting. Sian Beilock and her team at the University of Chicago's Human Performance Lab recently released the latest of a string of research studies on sports performance, or more specifically, how not to choke under pressure. Lucky for us, they chose putting as their sport skill of choice. This ties in with Dr. Beilock's theory of embodied cognition that we featured in Watching Sports Is Good For Your Brain.

An underlying theme to this work is the concept of automaticity, or the ability to carry out sport skills without consciously thinking about them. Performing below expectations (i.e. choking) starts when we allow our minds to step out of this automatic mode and start thinking about the steps to our putting stroke and all of those "swing thoughts" that come with it ("keep your elbows in", "head down", "straight back"). Our brain over analyzes and second-guesses the motor skills we have learned from hundreds of practice putts.

If Mark Twain thinks golf is "a good walk spoiled", then putting must be a brief pause to make you reconsider ever walking again. With about 50% of our score being determined on the green, we are constantly in search of the "secret" to getting the little white ball to disappear into the cup. Lucky for us, there is no shortage of really smart people also looking for the answer.

The first 8 months of 2008 have been no exception, with a golf cart full of research papers on just the topic of putting. Is the secret in the mechanics of the putt stroke or maybe the cognitive set-up to the putt or even the golfer's psyche when stepping up to the ball? This first post will focus on the mechanical side and then we'll follow-up next time with a look inside the golfer's mind.

When was the last time you listened to a sporting event on the radio? If given a choice between watching the game on a big screen plasma in HD or turning on the AM radio, most of us would probably choose the visual sensation of television. But, for a moment, think about the active attention you need in order to listen to a radio broadcast and interpret the play-by-play announcer's descriptions. As you hear the words, your "mind's eye" paints the picture of the action so you can imagine the scene and situations. Your knowledge of the game, either from playing it or watching it for years helps you understand the narrative, the terms and the game's "lingo".

Now, imagine that you are listening to a broadcast about a sport you know nothing about. Hearing Bob Uecker or Vin Scully say, "With two out in the ninth, the bases are loaded and the Brewers' RBI leader has two strikes. The infield is in as the pitcher delivers. Its a hard grounder to third that he takes on the short hop and fires a bullet to first for the final out." If you have no baseball-specific knowledge, those sentences are meaningless. However, for those of us that have grown up with baseball, that description makes perfect sense and our mind's eye helped us picture the scene.

It sounds like a sales job from a 12 year old; "Actually, Dad, this is not just another video game. Its a virtual, scenario-based microcosm of real world experiences that will enhance my decision-making abilities and my cognitive perceptions of the challenges of the sport's environment."
 

You respond with, "So, how much is Madden 09?"

  With over 5 million copies of Madden 08 sold, the release of the latest version two weeks ago is rocketing up the charts.  Days and late nights are being spent all over the world creating rosters, customizing plays and playing entire seasons, all for pure entertainment purposes.

  Can all of those hours spent with controller in hands actually be beneficial to young athletes?  Shouldn't they be outside in the fresh air and sunshine playing real sports?  Well, yes, to both questions.

For an athlete, it seems to good to be true. A "sports supplement" that increases alertness, concentration, reaction time and focus while decreasing muscle fatigue or at least the perception of fatigue. It can even shorten recovery time after a game. HGH? EPO? Steroids? Nope, just a grande cup of Juan Valdez's Best, Liquid Lightning, Morning Mud, Wakey Juice, Mojo, Java, aka coffee.

Actually, the key ingredient is caffeine which has been studied repeatedly for its ergogenic (performance-enhancing) benefits in sports, both mentally and physically. Time after time, caffeine proves itself as a relatively safe, legal and inexpensive boost to an athlete.  Or does it?

Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, Misty May-Treanor and Lin Dan are four Olympic athletes who have each spent most of their life learning the skills needed to reach the top of their respective sports, swimming, gymnastics, beach volleyball and badminton (you were wondering about Lin, weren't you...)  Their physical skills are obvious and amazing to watch.  For just a few minutes, instead of being a spectator, try to step inside the heads of each of them and try to imagine what their brains must accomplish when they are competing and how different the mental tasks are for each of their sports.

Imagine winning a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.  No really, go ahead, close your eyes and visualize it.  What did you see?  Were you standing on the medal platform looking out at the crowd, waving and taking in the scene through your own eyes, or were you a spectator in the crowd watching yourself getting the medal put around your neck?  This choice between "first-person" or "third-person" perspective actually has an effect on our motivation to achieve a future goal.

You are a coach, trying to juggle practice plans, meetings, game prep and player issues while trying to stay focused on the season's goals.  At the end of another long day, you see this in your inbox:

MEMO
To:         All Head Coaches
From:     Athletic Director
Subject:  Monthly Reading List to Keep Up with Current Sport Science Research 
-  Neuromuscular Activation of Triceps Surae Using Muscle Functional MRI and EMG
-  Positive effects of intermittent hypoxia (live high:train low) on exercise performance are not mediated primarily by augmented red cell volume
-  Physiologic Left Ventricular Cavity Dilatation in Elite Athletes
-  The Relationships of Perceived Motivational Climate to Cohesion and Collective Efficacy in Elite Female Teams

Just some light reading before bedtime...  This is an obvious exaggeration of the gap between sport science researchers and practitioners.  While those are actual research paper titles from the last few years under the heading of "sport science", the intended audience was most likely not coaches or athletes, but rather fellow academic peers.  The real question is whether the important conclusions and knowledge captured in all of this research is ever actually used to improve athletic performance?  How can a coach or athlete understand, combine and transfer this information into their game?

As the puck was cleared to the other end of the ice, my 9-year old son's hockey teammates raced after it. Then, I saw him. He was lying motionless and face down at the blue line. He had slid headfirst into the boards to make a play. By the time our coach made it over to him, he had started to move. After a few minutes, they both skated to the bench where I saw the two talking. Coach looked up at me in the stands with a grim look and motioned for me to come down. The next four hours were my introduction to sports concussions.

 

A concussion, clinically known as a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI), is one of the most common yet least understood sports injuries. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are as many as 300,000 sports and recreation-related concussions each year in the U.S., yet the diagnosis, immediate treatment and long-term effects are still a mystery to most coaches, parents and even some clinicians. The injury can be deceiving as there is rarely any obvious signs of trauma. If the head is not bleeding and the player either does not lose consciouness or regains it after a brief lapse, the potential damage is hidden and the usual "tough guy" mentality is to "shake it off" and get back in the game.

Sometimes, during my daily browsing of the Web for news and interesting angles on the sport science world, I get lucky and hit a home run.  I stumbled on this great May 2007 Wired article by Jennifer Kahn, Wayne Gretzky-Style 'Field Sense' May Be Teachable.  It ties together the people and themes of several of my recent posts, focusing on the concept of perception in sports.

Wayne Gretzky is often held up as the ultimate example of an athlete with average physical stature, who used his cognitive and perceptual skills to beat opponents. Joining Gretzky in the "brains over brawn" Hall of Fame would be pitcher Greg Maddux, NBA guard Steve Nash and quarterback Joe Montana.  They were all told as teenagers that they didn't have the size to succeed in college or the pros, but they countered this by becoming master students of the game, constantly searching for visual cues that would give them the advantage of a fraction of second or the element of surprise.

Its something that every coach and every athlete of every sport is searching for... the EDGE. That one training tip, equipment improvement, mental preparation or tactical insight that will tip the game towards them. The body of knowledge that exists today in each sport is assumed, with each competitor expected to at least be aware of the history, beliefs and traditions of their individual sport. But, if each team is starting with the same set of information then the team that takes the next step by applying new research and ideas will capture the edge.

To me, that is what sport science is all about. The goal is to improve sports performance by imagining, analyzing, experimenting, testing, documenting and training new methods to coaches and athletes.

Athletes, both professional and amateur, as well as the general public are convinced that human growth hormone (HGH), Erythropoietin (EPO) and anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) are all artificial and controversial paths to improved performance in sports.  The recent headlines that have included Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, Floyd Landis, Dwayne Chambers, Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens and many lesser known names (see the amazingly long list of doping cases in sport) have referred to these three substances interchangeably leaving the public confused about who took what from whom. 

With so many athletes willing to gamble with their futures, they must be confident that they will see significant short-term results.  So, is it worth the risk?  Two very interesting recent studies provide some answers on at least one of the substances, HGH.

Here are some quotes we have all heard (or said ourselves) on the golf course or at the ball diamond. 
On a good day:
"It was like putting into the Grand Canyon"
"The baseball looked like a beach ball up there today"

On a bad day:
"The hole was as small as a thimble"
"I don't know, it looked like he was throwing marbles"

The baseball and the golf hole are the same size every day, so are these comments meaningless or do we really perceive these objects differently depending on the day's performance?  And, does our performance influence our perception or does our perception help our performance?

You have probably seen both types of teams. Team A: players who are evenly spaced, calling out plays, staying in their positions only to watch them dribble the ball out of bounds, lose the pass, or shoot wildly at the goal. Team B: amazing ball control, skillful shooting and superior quickness, speed and agility but each player is a "do-it-yourselfer" since no one can remember a formation, strategy or position responsibility. Team A knows WHAT to do, but can't execute. Team B knows HOW to do it, but struggles with making good team play decisions. This is part of the ongoing balancing act of a coach.

At the youth level, teaching technique first has been the tradition, followed by tactical training later and separately. More recently, there has been research on the efficiency of learning in sports and whether there is a third "mixed" option that yields better performance.