"Dialed In" Goalie Reaction Balls

Reaction Ball for training and pre-game warmups. Similar to a racquetball, they bounce high and fast and are easy to catch bare-handed. With a positive affirmation, "Dialed In" on the ball, you are training your hand-eye coordination and building a stronger mental game at the same time.

SOLD IN PACKS OF 3. ONE FOR YOUR HOCKEY BAG, ONE FOR YOUR GYM BAG, AND ONE FOR AT HOME..

Serves two purposes.

1. Catching, tracking, coordination.
   
2. The positive affirmation term, "Dialed In" works the same as number 2, but they add an extra layer of building confidence by seeing these words over and over.

The Science behind it:

Reaction time is the time difference between a stimulus and a response to that stimulus. Defined by the American Psychological Association, “the time that elapses between the onset or presentation of a stimulus and the occurrence of a specific response to that stimulus.” https://dictionary.apa.org/reaction-time

As goalies, think about the time it takes to react to a shot, or a pass to a new player that is ready to one-time the puck. The faster our reaction time, the more likely we are to make the save.

We are trying to improve our cognitive processing, our brain’s ability to detect, process, and respond to information. By consistently identifying the bounce off the wall, and for some of you even the text on the ball, we are training our brain to process and react to constantly changing information.

It’s important to also train a specific skill. The more we do a movement pattern, the more we strengthen those neurons of the Central Nervous System (CNS), so they become more efficient. Seeing and catching a ball bouncing off a wall is highly related to catching a puck coming at you on the ice (not perfect, but close).

This is also a perfect way to improve your hand-eye coordination, defined as the way that one's hands and sight work together to be able to do things that require speed and accuracy (such as catching or hitting a ball). Definition from Webster Merriam Dictionary.

You’re consistently training your ability to coordinate what your eyes see and how your body reacts.

This is why you see NHL goalies doing reaction drills before games.

Science behind positive affirmations: There is MRI evidence suggesting that certain neural pathways are increased when people practice self-affirmation tasks (Cascio et al., 2016). If you want to be super specific, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex—involved in positive valuation and self-related information processing—becomes more active when we consider our personal values (Falk et al., 2015; Cascio et al., 2016). - https://positivepsychology.com/daily-affirmations/#science

A study in the 1980’s popularized “self-affirmation theory”, which is basically how people respond to information that threatens their self-concept or self-identity. So by repeating these affirmations about ourselves, we’re able to maintain self-integrity by repeating these positive beliefs about ourselves.

Study about positive affirmations and how they work on the brain: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814782/

The more you tell yourself something, the more you believe it. Tell yourself you’re a winner, you’re capable, you can achieve anything, and you’ll start to believe it and act that way. That is the power of self-affirmations. 

Seeing "dialed in" on the reaction ball every time you use it will reinforce that you are in fact, "dialed in", increasing your confidence and leading to better performance on the ice.

As you now know, using the "Dialed In" reaction balls on a regular basis and before games will:

Improve your hand-eye coordination and tracking ability.

Train the movement pattern of catching an object like a puck.

Strengthen your cognitive abilities by identifying and processing information.

Build your confidence and self-belief.

Made out of a soft, racquetball type material, these reaction balls bounce fast but are easy on the hands when you catch them. Sold in packs of 3, you can keep one at home, one in your hockey bag, and one in your gym bag. Now you can improve your glove hand and mental strength all in one exercise.