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Age: Reaction times tend to slow down with age [127].
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Gender: Males generally have quicker reaction times than females [127].
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Experience: Athletes who are more experienced at a particular skill tend to be quicker than less experienced athletes [128].
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Errors: Accusing athletes of making an error slows down their ability to process information [129].
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Stress: Punishing or simply making an athlete feel anxious about a performance increases reaction time [130].
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Fitness: Fitter athletes generally react quicker than unfit athletes [131,132].
Improving response time The illustration below provides an overview of the factors that have been shown to improve response times [131,132]. Coaches will need to consider how these factors can be developed when planning their own training sessions.
Detecting cues
Experience
Attentional focus
Warming up (mentally and physically)
Concentration
Controlling anxiety
Coaching tip: Make sessions as exciting as possible as this makes them more memorable which may increase the probability that the information will make it to the long-term memory where it can be recalled and used to enhance the decision-making process.
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