As a tactical athlete you want to train for sensory chaos, this is called habituation training.
Habituation is desensitizing your brain to sensory inputs so that your performance isn’t negatively impacted under conditions of sensory chaos.
Because you perform in the most extreme and unpredictable conditions, training this skill is vital.
I strip habituation training down into 4 components – the 4 systems for situational awareness.
- Visual inputs
- Auditory inputs
- Vestibular inputs
- Somatosensory inputs
We want to train habituation with a systematic overload program.
My approach looks like this:
- Begin with a specific scenario and perform in the most controlled environment possible. The speed and precision of this performance sets the bar.
- Identify the likely sensory demands of the execution, AKA what are the components of chaos likely to occur? What are the visual, auditory, vestibular, and somatosensory variables?
- Add each variable in graded isolation and compare execution speed and precision to baseline.
- Train any component that has the greatest negative impact on performance- do they slow down with a lot of auditory stimulus? Does their precision suffer with increased visual demands?
- Combine all conditions of chaos. This is where you want to have a highly stimulating condition having little to no impact on your speed and precision of execution as compared to a controlled environment.
Few will train this capability to their potential. But those who do are not only setting themselves apart in terms of readiness but can paralyze their opponent by bringing sensory chaos to them.