The scientific approach to skills the likes of Lampard, Xavi, Messi, and De Jong!

The best cognitive training tool comes from the best scientific minds!

Inspiration
January 8, 2021

Be Your Best is based on pioneering scientific research that has identified key cognitive and perceptual drivers of football performance on an elite level.


This research has been conducted over the span of 20 years collectively, with the best scientific minds within the field of sports psychology. However, we'll let you in on a not-so-little-secret: it's not only the best scientific minds that set this research apart, it's also how the research was carried out. 


One of our co-founders, Professor Geir Jordet, explains: 

"Research in the past on cognitive performance indicators like scanning and perception has been limited in gaining knowledge about how elite, professional players employ scanning behaviours in actual real-world games. And research has tended to rely on only a small number of observations."

And that's the main difference right there! The scientific research that is the basis for our training software looks at the world's very best footballers in real-world situations - under pressure and with high stakes!

Prof. Jordet et. al.'s most recent research paper for example, presents a huge amount of research observations. Did you know that over the course of one season, Prof. Jordet and his team observed, taped and analysed 9,574 individual ball possessions from Premier and Champions League matches?!

Learning from the best, to help you become your best

During the 2017/2018 season they observed 27 elite players over the course of 21 matches. An impressive feat to say the least! No one has gathered data on this large scale before, related to these concepts. 


And what were the results of the 2017/2018 season study? That scanning - and its different elements - can positively affect your performance on the pitch. And that the frequency of scanning was also linked to specific situations and pitch location, as you can see from the figure below. Here the attacking direction is from left to right.

Colour map showing median scan frequency in terms of player position on the football pitch.
From the article: Scanning, Contextual Factors, and Association With Performance in English Premier League Footballers: An Investigation Across a Season (Jordet et.al., 2020)


Cognitive skills are linked to elite level match performance! That's why we have designed The Be Your Best Trainer to effectively train those exact performance drivers - scan, decide, act - over and over again. All to help you become the best! 


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