Movement

Mark Crabtree, Director of Sports Performance Chicago Bulls/White Sox Training Academy wrote and asked me to comment on the following: “I was wondering if you could comment on how much of your coaching is explanation to the athlete what you want them to do, such as talking about the correct form and technique before doing the drill. VS- coaching them on technique while the drill is being performed.”

Mark, this is a pet peeve of mine. We can tell them and explain it all they and most of the time they won’t get it. Too many times as coaches we try to hard to orchestrate and make everything perfect. The learner has no idea of what perfect is. They get frustrated and we get frustrated when they can’t get it. It took me a long time to figure this out. Let the athlete feel their way through things. Give them some general cues and then let them explore the movement. If it is practical show them video (at normal speed) of outstanding performers. Don’t break it down; let them feel the rhythm and the timing of the whole action. Project it life size if possible. As coaches we definitely talk to much (I think we like to hear the sound of our voice and make sure people think we are doing something). Remember there are three styles of learning auditory, visual and kinesthetic. We get stuck in the auditory. Athletes need to also see and feel.

The body is very intelligent. I have found that id you put it in position it will figure a way to do things. For example in teaching acceleration mechanics, a simple drop and go exercise without much explanation can move an athlete significantly on the learning curve Why? Because you are taking advantage of the body’s natural stumble reflex. Unless there is some neurological deficiency it is impossible to do wrong. It is only when try to verbal y tell it to do something that things go haywire.

Give the athlete movement problems to solve that will enable them to discover movement skills in a “play like” environment. “… one goal of functional training is to practice movements in order to make them automatic. Second, even though accomplished athletes may have little idea of what they focus on during skill execution, at some conscious or subconscious level they are focusing on relevant cues. For this reason, Singer et al advocated that skilled motor performance can be best achieved if learners adopt a nonawareness type strategy. Nonawareness refers to a lack of attention placed on the activity while it is in progress, but learners are instructed to preplan the movement and focus on a specific situational cue. “(Ives, Jeffrey C. and Shelley, Greg A. (2003) “Psychophysics in Functional Strength and Training: Review and Implementation Framework.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Vol. 17 #1 p180) Nonawareness means having the athlete focus on solving a particular movement task rather than focusing on how they should move “correctly.” Movement is natural; by making it conscious there is a high risk of making it robotic.

To make it natural it is necessary to have well designed progressions that elicit good patterns of movement without having the athlete think about it. Motor learning is hierarchical therefore build on from simple to complex.