The effects of visual training on sports skill in volleyball players

While there has been a marked increase in investigation of benefits of sporting engagement and fitness beyond typical health benefits, particularly looking at beneficial effects on cognitive ability, there has been less investigation of whether cognitive training can benefit sporting-specific skills. Here, the effects of simple cognitive training on a sport-related skill were assessed, with the specific hypothesis that training on a visual tracking task would improve the ability of volleyball players to spike the ball on a volleyball court (the volleyball equivalent of a tennis smash). Following training with such a task, improvement in spiking performance was seen when the target was indicated before spike execution but not when it was indicated during execution. There was some retention of the spiking improvements 1 month after visual task training. No improvements were seen when a cognitive task with no motion was used for training such that the results suggest benefits of appropriate cognitive training on aspects of sporting skills. Future work could beneficially assess application to a more sporting environment, evaluate the suitability of different cognitive training, and see if effects are seen in individuals with higher sporting skill.