BENDIGO researchers are plumbing the depths of footballers' minds in work that could give players a decisive edge during the game's crunch moments.
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The La Trobe University research might prove critical in a sport where players have to constantly make quick, clear decisions about tactical plays, tagging and moving in physically complex ways.
Mental fatigue remains a somewhat under-researched element of Australian rules football, despite a huge body of research on the toll physical tiredness takes.
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However, scientists studying other sports like basketball, cricket and soccer have focused on the ways mental fatigue complicates players abilities to react to changes and search the field to plan their next move.
La Trobe's Bendigo study is understood to be the first to look at a game which is arguably more cognitively demanding since players constantly "tag" opponents in both a physical and verbal shadow game.
Twenty-five community-level players were brought in to perform the kind of skills that the AFL subjects its budding draft hopefuls to, in between bombarding them with tests designed to trigger mental fatigue.
What researchers found
The tests revealed that mentally fatigued players could not run as long during endurance tests.
They also showed that players' goal kicking accuracy dropped mentally fatigued, at least when they lined up for set shots.
Lead researcher Nivan Weerakkody said mental fatigue did not appear to affect tasks like jumping, agility and sprinting.
"We think that's because those tests seem to fit into this category of very short duration, maximal strength, anaerobic tasks," he said.
"Goal-kicking, for example, is probably going to take 70 seconds to complete because a player has got to run through a check-list of things to get the accuracy right."
Dr Weerakkody said more research was needed to discover exactly what was going on, though.
Fellow La Trobe researcher Carolyn Taylor said the team was now figuring out how they might test their findings during actual games.
"You'd have to look at breaks and what people do prior to the game, too," she said.
What it means for your next game of footy
It remains unclear how rotations onto and off of the interchange bench might affect people's mental fatigue during competition.
It also remains unclear how a team's best players - who may be on the field longer but also be more accustomed to performing under extra mental pressure - react in the heady mix of game-time adrenaline and fatigue.
Yet researchers say tests so far may have implications for the way coaches manage players during quarter and half time breaks.
"One of the strategies that comes to mind is coaches not talking too much during those breaks - i.e avoiding giving too many instructions or big speeches - because the players then have to concentrate a lot more," Dr Taylor said.
Coaches and players might also want to think about game-day routines, Dr Weerakkody said.
"That might be meditation, relaxing, 'mental rehearsals' or any strategy you can use to cut down on mental fatigue both before and during games," he said.
Perhaps too, clubs might want to impose new rules over who is allowed into locker rooms at half time, and not just at the amateur level where non-playing members might want to give their two cents and advice.
"But even at the professional level, the media is becoming more and more invasive. The cameras follow players down the run as far as they possibly can, which must be very intrusive," Dr Taylor said.
She wondered whether the cameras increased the cognitive burden on elite athletes.
"We don't know yet, but it will be interesting to find out."
The research is expected to be published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport.