Following the insights from Frans Bosch, you can use external focus to become a professional soccer player. This article shows examples of how external focus is used in sports and how they can aid you to become a professional soccer player.
What Is External Focus
External focus is to concentrate on items that are away or separate from the body. One consistent finding is that external focus is a more efficient way of learning skills for athletes than internal focus. While internal focus concentrates on your own body, external focus on outside items. When you shoot a ball, do you focus on keeping your body straight? When you focus on your body posture, you practice internal focus. If you kick a ball and focus on the spot you want to kick a ball at, you are practicing external focus. There are many levels of both internal and external focusses, but in general, it is classified as
- focus on inside the body; internal focus
- focus on outside the body; external focus
Examples Of External Focus
Have you ever tried to balance on a rope or even on one leg? Do you have a better balance when you focus on your body or when you focus on a foreign object? When you focus on an outside object, your balance is better. One reason why an external focus could be better is the shift of focus. By focussing on an outside object, you let your body work without interference. This way your body can work naturally. Some examples of external focus showing better results than internal focus in sports
- Basketball players show more accuracy when they focus on the basket instead of on their wrist action
- Dart players that focus on dartboard have better movement efficiency than when focussing on body movements
- Focus on outside height makes you jump higher than when the focus is on your own muscles to jump high
- Baseball players that focus on the batt instead of on the hands found better results
- Golfers that focus on the pendulum swing of the golf club instead of the arm movement show more improvement
How About Soccer And External Focus
As with other sports, soccer can learn from external focus. Almost all athletic movements can be improved by external focus. This includes jumps, tackles, and kicking. This type of training can be started at a young age.
How Coloured Shoes Can Improve Your Soccer Skills
One novel way to get attention towards the external is by changing soccer boots. One study found that children wearing coloured shoes improved significantly more in passing, controlling, shooting and overall management than kids wearing black shoes.
The shoes were designed in a particular order to get the focus on the shoes. Below you can see the shoes, you might notice,
- red color for inside foot
- yellow color for outside
- blue for laces
- white for toes
The students with colored shoes were told to perform soccer actions with different colors. This made the focus shift from on their feet and legs onto the shoes. This external focus likely caused improved skills amongst the colored shoe children.
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