Conception et validation d'un protocole d'entraînement pour réduire l'impact d'une tâche perceptivo-cognitive sur la performance motrice

Abstract

Elite sports require both a first-class physical condition and valuable cognitive attention (anticipation capacities, vision of the game, focus …) for an athlete. In a game situation, an athlete’s cognitive resources are divided between motor control and thinking (position of the objective, other player’s position and opponent’s position are information the athlete has to take in). This division can impair motor control. 3D-MOT (Multiple Object Tracking in 3D) is a cognitive task used to imitate the cognitive load athletes experience in an in-game situation. Ten elite hockey players took part in the study (five in the experimental group and five in the control group). Five 3D-MOT training sessions were done and a focus on the effects of such a training protocol on their motor control’s impairment was done. Two specific sessions (before and after the cognitive training) were dedicated to gather hockey players’ motion using reflective markers with a Vicon camera system. The players had to proceed to different puck’s handling (simple, with a decision taking, with MOT, with MOT and a decision taking). Simple 3D-MOT or combined with decision taking had a decreasing effect on stickhandling capacities (angular velocities and puck’s average speed were all reduced). A significant improvement of the MOT scores was observed on the experimental group (+41.6%, p<0.01). The experimental group showed improvement on stickhandling, they were quicker and Under cognitive pressure post training. Simple 3D-MOT’S or combined 3D-MOT’s impact was less critical than it was pre-training. Such differences highlight the fact that the experimental group had the ability to proceed to significantly faster movements. The results proved that a cognitive training can lower the effects of a cognitive load on motor control thus providing the possibility for trained athletes to handle faster and as-precise movements.

Date	28 Nov 2016
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	David Labbé (Supervisor) & Jocelyn Faubert (Co-supervisor)