Top Baseball players will hit, catch and throw far better than the average Joe, but these skills don't just come from a superior set of physical attributes. Woven into the fabric these exceptional skills are underlying cognitive mosaics, supplementing a player’s physical prowess.
Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical.
- Yogi Berra
Elite players must have that rare capacity to completely coordinate their physical and mental processing skills seamlessly.
For example, top batters have lightening-speed reaction times, skillfully picking up the spin on a curveball pitch processing that, deciding what action to take and to react by swinging, passing, bunting, running etc. All within 1/100th of 1 second!
Players who make decisive spilt second decisions have small but critical advantages because hesitation is often the difference between a hit and a strike.
Players also need pinpoint concentration skills - not just when keeping their eye on the ball, but in screening out all that’s going on around them - excitable crowds, shouts from players and fans, field distractions, a recent losing streak, etc.
Anticipation and prediction are also key in helping them hit the ball, especially when distinguishing tiny differences – from the curve of a ball to the speed of a pitch. Their superior hand-eye coordination helps as well.
Great players react to visual and sound cues much faster than average players. The majority of elite players test at better than 20/20 on vision tests. They also require a good deal of emotional control in stressful situations and especially when pressure builds up to crunch moments in a game.
Put simply, the speed of some of the things that happen in a baseball means that players require lots of mental preparation to keep on top of their game and to maximize their full potential.
Brain Training
Brain training seems to significantly help baseball batters. In a recent study players subjected to online brain training significantly improved their vision, reduced game strikeouts and garnered better batter results. The study’s lead author Professor Aron Seitz said. “Players reported seeing the ball better, greater peripheral vision and an ability to distinguish lower-contrast objects.”
On a side note, one important conclusion from the study, was that perceptual / brain training not only has positive results for athletes optimizing their visual skills, but also for anyone with poor vision to engage better in everyday tasks.
- Dr. Lenny Kristal