ITEE Innovation Expo 2008 : Project Details

Biofeedback Techniques for Training UQ Rugby Players

Biofeedback is a technique that has been used in the medical industry for more than 30 years. In recent years there has been a push to use it to enhance the performance of sporting teams. Italian soccer team AC Milan has been experimenting with the techniques, and it is claimed to be their secret weapon that powered them to victory over Manchester United, taking them to the Champions League Football final.

There are two major steps in biofeedback – (i) exploring the physiological response of the subjects to discover a pattern associated with a predefined event of interest, and, (ii) the training of the subjects, through “feedback techniques” to reproduce desired events at will. This study focuses on step (i) of biofeedback, with the focus on UQ rugby players and how their brainwaves and heart rate reacts during key moments in a game.

9 Players were hooked up to EEG and ECG machines and asked to watch a 20minute segment of a match they participated in. Long term benefits of the study include the possibility of this technique being developed in future years to help rugby players control their emotions more within a game, block out distractions and operate closer to their peak mental performance.