ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Movement Science
This article is part of the Research TopicOptimizing Player Health, Recovery, and Performance in Basketball -Volume IIIView all articles
Cognitive-Coordination Training: Impact on Sport-Specific Physical Fitness and Technical Skill of Adolescent Basketball Athletes
Provisionally accepted
- SCapital University of Physical Education And Sports, Beijing, China
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Background: Coordination ability is crucial for athletic performance, particularly in basketball, which demands rapid decision-making under high cognitive load. However, few studies have examined systematic training that integrates cognitive and coordination components. This study investigated the effects of a 12-week Cognitive-Coordination Training (CCT) program on sport specific physical fitness and technical skills in adolescent basketball players. Methods: Thirty-two sub-elite basketball players were randomly assigned to an experimental group (EG, n=16) or control group (CG, n=16). The EG performed three 30-minute CCT sessions weekly, embedded within the regular warm-up routine—replacing part but not all of it—while the CG followed standard training. Both groups completed pre-and post-tests of sport specific fitness (SR, AJT, DJR, SJTP) and technical skills (FDL, MPR, HSD). Results: No significant pre-intervention differences were found. After 12 weeks, the EG showed significantly greater improvements than the CG across all tests (p<0.001). Within group analysis revealed significant gains in all measures for the EG (p<0.001), while the CG showed smaller improvements in only four tests and in the overall mean score. Conclusion: The 12-week Cognitive-Coordination Training, embedded within the warm-up phase, effectively enhanced sport specific fitness and technical performance in sub-elite youth basketball players. By integrating cognitive processing with motor coordination, this approach offers a practical and theoretically grounded method for optimizing athletic performance and complements traditional basketball training models.
Keywords: cognitive-coordination, coordination ability training, athletes' coordination ability, Basketball training, cognitive-basketball
Received: 20 Jul 2025; Accepted: 30 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Fu, Li and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Quan Fu
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