Eastern Connecticut State University

WILLIMANTIC — In August, two Eastern Connecticut State University students traveled to Daytona Beach, Florida, for the 2018 Athlete Development Research Symposium. They presented their research: “The Effect of External Dissociation of Attention on the Duration of a Plank to Maximum Exhaustion, Performed by Male Collegiate Soccer Players.”

Jason Staub ‘18 of Portland was one of the students who presented the research. Staub’s major is sport and leisure management and business administration.

The ADRS highlights innovative, practical and timely interdisciplinary research on athlete development. Bridging the academy and professional practice, it fosters a robust and enlightening exchange of ideas, strategies and tools.

The students’ research was initiated during their research methods course and was recreated with refined methodology for the conference.

During exercise, it is common for individuals to use music as an external dissociative strategy to divert their attention away from the exercise task, resulting in a lower rating of perceived exertion and increased task duration. The ability to dissociate attention away from an exercise task is somewhat dependent on exercise intensity; as exercise intensity increases, focus tends to shift to an internal associative strategy. Using music during exercise has been found to increase the intensity threshold that marks this shift, according to the university.