A scientific institute and a Japanese football club are launching a year-long project to measure and analyze synchronization levels between players on the same team. The objective of this experience? Improve the performance of athletes on the field.
- Analysis of players’ brain activity will give insights into how they synchronize their actions
- The objective of this work is to improve the performance of the team
How do athletes’ minds behave in team sports? That’s the question posed by the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and Japanese soccer club FC Ryukyu, who are launching a partnership to determine how knowledge of brain science could improve the performance of professional athletes in team sports.
The project, which will take place over a period of at least one year, will focus on studying the levels of synchronization between FC Ryukyu football players. Based on the timing of footballers’ breathing and physical movements, OIST Assistant Professor Tom Froese will determine whether “synchronization” occurs when team members play a football game and how it affects their teamwork.
Perfect the technique of corners or free kicks
The volunteer athletes will then be asked to take an exam to measure their brain waves as they perform tasks similar to those in a football game. The goal is to verify how this “synchronization” manifests itself through the brain activity of the players.
Once these different levels of synchronization are studied and examined, project managers hope to be able to use this data to strengthen the performance of teams in the field. For example to refine the coordination of free kicks and corners or to develop communication between players.
“In modern football, elements of brain science such as “cognition” and “intuition” are considered very important and can be improved. We are very pleased with the collaboration between OIST and FC Ryukyu to advance research in this area.“, underlined in a statement Atsushi Ogawa, President of FC Ryukyu.
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