otor learning is the study of how people acquire skills through practice.
There’s a massive gap though from what this science says and the way that we coach.
The mission of Train Ugly is to change that. So today we are going to talk about block vs. random practice and how to apply scientifically proven principles to improve the effectiveness of practice.
So there are a few motor learning term we need to understand as we work through this essay.
Pactice Performance, Retention, Transfer
First, practice performance. These are the short term improvements you see during a particular drill or a particular day of practice. Real learning refers to the improvements we see the next day or during the actual game.
Motor learning scientists use the terms retention and transfer to describe this real learning. This is simple describing the amount of improvements we see during practice that show up the next day or show up during the game.
“I think one of the most important things that the motor learning science has come up with isn’t about how you look in practice but its how you perform later. Performance, which is always after practice by a day, a week or whatever, is best because you do things that have higher levels of retention. So that’s a pretty key word. Does it (practice) promote better retention? Because it’s not what they can do in practice it’s what they can do later on.” John Kessel – Director of Sports Development – USA Volleyball
So as coaches one of our main jobs should be to look at ways to maximize this retention and transfer so that the improvements we see in practice show up on game day.
What Is A Skill?
So there are a couple things we have to think about. First, what is a skill? Now if I asked that question to most coaches and if I were to ask myself the same question a couple months ago my answer would have been very technique focused. I would have talked about “doing”.
If I were talk about shooting a basketball I would talk about the follow through orbending my knees. If you talk to a golf coach about “What is the skill of hitting a drive?” They would talk about their hips and rhythm and all of these techniques based things.
I’m here to tell you that technique is super important. Very, very important if you’re trying to be a high level performer. In any sport technique is very, very important. But there is something we need to realize. This “doing” or technique part of a skill is only one third of the equation.
BLOCK vs. RANDOM PRACTICE
How to optimize your practice with motor learning
By Trevor Ragon, Founder Train Ugly
Featuring interviews with John Kessel – Director of Sports Development – USA Volleyball
and Tom Black – LMU/ USA Volleyball
Transcribed with permission – TRAINUGY.COM
and excerpt from interview with Trevor Ragan and The Baseball Observer
The Baseball Observer - Jan/ Feb 2017
M
38