Why Stick IQ

Stick IQ for field hockey and it's cousin indoor hockey, is an electronic, neuroadaptive training device used to help establish neuromuscular pathways to enhance performance. Said another way, it helps players with concentration, reaction time, eye-hand coordination, hand speed, and stick skills. 

“Perfect practice makes perfect,” that’s what the head coach of USA's women's national field hockey team, Vonnie Gros (pronounced Grow) said to the players on the two Olympic hockey teams she coached. It speaks to the truth that ‘just practicing’ is NOT enough. 

And you can’t just play in games to get better either. The reality is that in some games, because of the size of the competition space, some players make very few decisions, execute only a few skills, and will have to make even fewer control actions. In another game, the same player might have an opportunity to score the winning goal in the final seconds of the championship game. All they have to do is dribble this way and that to get past the last two desperate defenders. Control actions are high on the list of required skills because the size of the playing space when you're up against a defender is relatively small, and the speed with which the athletes have to execute those skills is extraordinarily fast. 

Players don’t develop the skills to dribble at high speeds only by playing in games. High-level control skills are developed during practices focused on creating the neuromuscular pathways essential for skill execution at a high rate of speed.

There are three key factors that determine how much skill we gain from practice. They are:

        Repetition – Repeating high-speed control actions

        Realism – Degree to which those actions replicate gameplay

        Competition – An activity that triggers an athlete’s warrior response

Stick IQ and its gamification activities, skill challenges/games, help athletes in each of the fundamentals to improve.

REPETITION: Practicing on Stick IQ offers the athlete the opportunity to execute hundreds of high-speed control repetitions within short periods of time. Being able to move the stick from one side of the ball/puck to the other, and properly control the stick so that the ball/puck moves in the desired direction, at the pace required, doesn't need practicing -- it requires perfect practice and a lot of it! Stick IQ forces the athlete to take these actions in gamified situations – they must be performed under the challenge of a countdown clock and their performance is displayed on a "never lies" scoreboard.

REALISM: Playing in hockey games isn’t only about repeatedly performing technical skills. Skills need to be performed while the player is faced with the pressures of playing against other athletes who are trying to score the most points in the allotted time. With Stick IQ, ball and puck control actions must be performed with precision and with the challenge of a countdown clock. If the athlete makes a mistake, there is immediate feedback.  The athlete must reach the target before the opportunity disappears and if they lose control on Stick IQ, their performance suffers just as it would in a real game.

COMPETITION: The timed and scored games an athlete can play on Stick IQ elicit an immediate competitive response. Even before the idea of competing against their friends or teammates is introduced, most athletes get their first Stick IQ score and their inner warrior responds by saying, “I can do better.”  Soon the athlete will be setting goals for each of the skill challenges that come with Stick IQ.

What type of athlete are you? We’ve all heard about players who are great in practice but don’t perform well in games and the players who don’t put in the effort they should in practice despite how well they excel in games. Those, of course, are the outliers. Most athletes thrive in games because they work hard in practice. Most athletes want to work hard in practice because they want to do well in games. Still, the competitive nature of playing a sport against an opponent is difficult to replicate in practice (how many times have you heard athletes say that practice was boring)? It’s usually worse with off-field activities such as those provided by most training aids – athletes will do them because they should but not usually because of internal motivation. 

Gamification systems, such as Stick IQ, are different. They provide instant feedback and challenge an athlete’s inner warrior to do better. Athletes can share their scores with coaches and teammates and so performances on multiple skill challenges can be compared.

Stick IQ is unrivaled as a training aid for hockey athletes and teams because it provides repetition, realism, and competition.

With Stick IQ, intrinsic motivation is critical to each athlete’s engagement and is tied to their long-term success and personal goal setting.