Mental reps….

Quality mental reps…

The highest quality mental reps…

There are limitations to the number of actual, physical reps that your athletes can take during the week.

• Access to fields and equipment
• Practice time
• Access to other players to compete against
• Fatigue
• Access to coaches
• Increased risk of injury

In a previous post, Adaptation, I wrote about how, with the changing nature of our sport, it will become increasingly important for coaches to come up with new and better ways to mentally prepare our athletes for peak contest performance. One way to do that is for the athlete to take mental reps along with their physical reps.

Mental Reps…

The problem with mental reps is, well, they are mental. Being such, there are limitations to their effectiveness. In the past, in order to see positive results of taking mental reps, a player had to rely on a great imagination, concentration, or a great mental visualization process (see my post on Mental Visualization). It is a tough skill for a 15-21 year old kid with a lot on their mind and limited time to develop.

Quality Mental Reps…

In my post, Adaptation, I shared a technique we have used for years to get quality mental reps during the week. You can read in detail about this teaching technique here (Adaptation) but in essence we try to construct a crude virtual reality setting by using a large area with an overhead projector. We arrange 11 desks (or chairs, or have the athletes stand) facing the screen, roughly in our defensive alignment… 4 desks up front for the DL, 3 behind those for the LB’s, and 2 desks outside for the corners, and 2 behind for the safeties. We run through a script, projecting an endzone shot of the plays on the screen, giving our players a down and distance situation for each play. We signal, communicate all calls, and mentally play the play.

This technique works well, but as I said, it is a relatively crude attempt at virtual reality. It is 3^rd person NOT 1^st person.

The Highest Quality Mental Reps…

This past week I had an opportunity to see the future… a future that is available to coaches now through a system called EON Sports VR – Virtual Reality Training… and there is nothing crude about this product. Their software SIDEKIQ is a Virtual Reality Training software for football that allows coaches to replicate game-like plays, scenarios, and situations.

 

Brendan Reily (@EONSportsVR), the CEO of the Kansas City based company, gave me a great demonstration of the powerful teaching system. Brendan, a Kansas City product himself, was a former GA for Bill Self at KU, and developed this product with help from some of the leading football programs in the country.

With the EON Sports VR system, coaches have the ability to create a virtual reality football arena using their playbook and/ or their game film. Using the SIDEKIQ software, coaches can do this themselves, or have the team at EON Sports do this conversion for them (for a fee).

The system is nothing short of amazing. As a coach, you can convert plays from your game film to a virtual 3 dimensional platform. If you have ever created a play using PlayMaker Pro or Hudl, getting your team into a 3D virtual reality playing arena using SIDEKIQ is a piece of cake.

 

Now here is the main difference.  Once the play is animated and rendered in 3D,  instead of watching from an endzone or pressbox perspective, your athletes can get completely immersed in the play…. they can watch from the QB’s perspective, or see the play from the LB’s helmet…. or the helmet of any other player on the team.

It is as if you are in the play…. It is total immersion…. it is from a 1st person perspective… It is the highest quality mental rep.

Watching the play is intuitive, using a computer screen, projector or even better, the OculusVR, a virtual reality headset.

This software/ hardware system is poised to revolutionize teaching and coaching, much in the same way Hudl did with film exchange and evaluation 5-6 years ago. It is potentially a game changer ….

 

The videos that I have embedded really do not do the EON Sports VR Training system complete justice.  I suggest contacting Brendan to set up a demonstration… I promise you will not be sorry!  Tell him you read about it here at YouCanDoMore.net!

Did you know 2 of the 3 founders of Hudl were from KC as well?

You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

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