How To Progressively Overload Your Athlete’s Cognitive Training Plan.
The most straightforward way to progressively overload your athlete's cognitive training plan is to either increase the intensity or duration of the cognitive tasks each week.
What is Progressive Overload?
Progressive overload is a periodisation method that advocates for the gradual increase of the stress placed upon the nervous system.
Progressive Overload is an important principle in cognitive training. Without progressive overload, you won’t create enough cognitive stress, and training results will be minimal. However, too much overload can lead to under-recovery and mental fatigue.
The most straightforward way to progressively overload your athlete's cognitive training plan is to either increase the intensity or duration of the cognitive tasks each week. It’s a good idea to combine different intensities and durations to ensure the overall cognitive load is higher than the previous week. Without sufficient cognitive load, you will not create enough cognitive stress, and training results will be minimal.
Example
Increase Task Intensity
- Week 1 70%
- Week 2 80%
- Week 3 90%
- Week 4 100%
Example
Increase Task Duration
Week 1
- 3m cognitive task duration x6 sets
Total session duration 18 mins
Week 2
- 5m cognitive task duration x6 sets
Total session duration 30 mins
Week 3
- 3m cognitive task duration x3 sets
- 5m cognitive task duration x5 sets
Total session duration 34 mins
Week 4
- 10m cognitive task duration x4 sets
Total session duration 40 mins
Example
Increase Task Intensity & Task Duration
Week 1
- 70% intensity
- 3m cognitive task duration x6 sets
- Total session duration 18 mins
Week 2
- 80% intensity
- 5m cognitive task duration x6 sets
- Total session duration 30 mins
Week 3
- 90% intensity
- 3m cognitive task duration x3 sets
- 5m cognitive task duration x5 sets
- Total session duration 34 mins
Week 4
- 100% intensity
- 10m cognitive task duration x4 sets
- Total session duration 40 mins
Once you have periodization we suggest applying specialized training modes on top of tasks. Athletes need more than just a cognitive task that focuses on the cognitive demand, it is important to realise that they need sufficient cognitive load to create mental adaptions that will ultimately enhance their performance. Layering cognitive tasks is the simple key to achieving success with cognitive training.
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