Effects Of Different Kinds Of Attentional Focus On Countermovement Jump Performance

Background: Coaches and researchers have been interested in the influence of attention focus on sports performance and the speed of motor skill acquisition of different games and tests.Among these tests,the literature review on the effects of different types of attention focus instruction on jump performance shows that:compared with internal focus,subjects have better jump performance when they receive external focus.However,previous researchers did not elaborate the basis for the selection and classification of the attention focus.They also did not elaborate the basis for the selection of evaluation indicators of vertical jumps.Also the reasons of the effect of different attention focus were not very detailed in the previous studies.In this study,according to the direction and width of the attention focus,the cues are divided to three kinds,including: internal narrow focus(IF),external narrow focus(EF1)and external wide focus(EF2)originally.This study is going to research the effects of these three cues on the movement result and movement efficiency of counter movement jump(CMJ).Meanwhile,this study plans to do the manipulate check of subjects’ attention feedback under different attentional focus by the method of question & answer.The purpose of this study is to give the coaches the reference of cues choice in the practice.Methods:In this study,9 excellent male athletes and coaches with 2-5 years of professional S&C training experience were recruited as the subjects.These subjects were familiar with the cues,test requirements and movement standards counter movement jump.On the test day,each subject tested CMJ of two rounds in the morning and afternoon.During the first round,the subjects tested three sets and 4 reps in each set with the cues’ order of IF,EF1 and EF2.In the afternoon,the order of the cues was like this: EF2,EF1 and IF with the same process as the morning’s rountine.The data of jump height,concentric phase time,peak force,peak power,mean force,mean power,impulse and rate of force development were collected.Firstly,the data were analyzed by one-way repeated measurement ANOVA within the group,and if there were significant differences(p < 0.05),the post hoc comparisons were measured,the absolute value of Cohen’s D was calculated to compare the effect size between the data.Meanwhile,the percentage of the consistency between the attentional focus and the feedback was calculated to study the influence of different types of attentional focus instructions(IF,EF1,EF2)on the performance of CMJ.Result:(1)The jump height and impulse of EF2 are higher than those of EF and EF1(p<0.05).(2)There was no significant difference in peak force,peak power,mean force and mean power when subjects were under IF,EF1,EF2(p>0.05).(3)The concentric phase time of EF2 is longer than that of IF and EF1(p<0.05).The rate of force development of EF2 is lower than that of IF and IF1(p<0.05).(4)Under EF2,there is the best consistency between the instruction and feedback among these three types of attentional focus.Conclusion and practical advice:(1)Besides the direction of attentional focus,the CMJ performance is also influenced by the width of attentional focus.(2)The direction and width of external wide focus are highly coincident,which improved the level of the movement automation to improve the jump height,concentric phase time and impulse of CMJ.(3)Narrow focus of IF and EF1 highlight the processing of single instruction to lower the level of movement automation with the reduction of rand of motion of movement to improve the rate of force development of CMJ.In S&C practice,when training and testing the related CMJ sessions:(1)Coaches can use the external wide focus cues to improve the athletes’ movement results and movement efficiency,including: jump height,concentric phase time and rate of force development.(2)Coaches can design and use narrow focus instructions according to the athletes’ weak phase,such as the eccentric phase,isometric phase,concentric phase to optimize the athletes’ sports skills.(3)When choosing and designing attentional focus instructions,coaches should fully consider the amount of information contained in the instruction.and the number of information points of one instruction should be less than 3.(4)Coaches can use the classification methods of internal narrow focus,external narrow focus and external wide focus to choose and design instructions.