Zooming In and Out: Training Attention in Sport
This graphic from Nideffer (1976) illustrates the different attentional styles required in sport. Elite athletes can seamlessly switch between these different styles dependant on the demands of the situation. An example of this might be a football player who is assessing the pattern of opposition defenders in front of her (wide-external) in order to make a decision, switches to a narrow-external focus of attention when the ball is at her feet. Approaching the goal, she might visualise where she will shoot (a quick shift to wide-internal) and then switches back to a narrow-external and fires the ball into the back of the net.
Another example might be an Esports player, who has to switch between a virtual environment in front of him and the actual environment around him, whilst switching between narrow, wide, internal and external within both virtual and actual environments. Being able to take in cues from the real-life environment (teammates and coaches and block distractions such as time pressure and noise) whilst maintaining focus on external cues from the virtual environment in front of him, processing, analysing and planning from both... is quite a skill indeed.
Learning to quickly identify relevant and irrelevant information is essential in sport in order to quickly shift our attention and sift out unnecessary cognitive load. If we can reduce distractions, this switching process becomes a lot faster and efficient.
Both this shifting process and blocking out distractions can be trained and should be trained for sports that require fast decision-making. Below are some tips for improving your ability to switch between attentional styles and block out distractions:
Make a list of relevant and irrelevant information that you will be exposed to in competition.
Give yourself permission to focus only on the relevant items on that list
Use verbal and non-verbal cues to prompt switching e.g. “focus” or “head up”
Practice ‘zooming in’ and ‘zooming out’ during training to get used to switching between taking on environmental cues and performing the needed action.
Refocusing after being distracted is like doing a mental rep, the more we do, the better and stronger our attention can get
Feel free to get in touch for more information on how to implement this yourself or to help any athletes you work with to develop their attentional skills.