Because tomorrow is my first day…excited to share that I’ve joined the
@OrlandoMagic
as a sport scientist (performance and development). Excited to finish my PhD and head down to Orlando. Tons of people to thank, but most importantly, Dr. Wulf for her guidance!
Earlier today, I successfully defended my dissertation. There are many people to thank. Specifically, Dr. Gaby Wulf, my committee members, and to Dr. Richard Magill, who each have played an integral role in this journey. Onwards!
#sportscience
#motorlearning
Sport Scientists:
-attend every practice
-build a relationship with players, coaching, sports med, high performance, front office
-build good, purposeful and communicative data models/KPIs
-understand skill acquisition, biomechanics, AND mental performance. Do not silo yourself.
Couldn't make commencement today, but I graduated!
What a journey - PhD in Motor Control and Learning!
p.s. If any student/professional ever wants to talk shop, I've linked my calendly below.
#sportscience
#motorlearning
Fundamental skills don’t exist.
Skills are used abilities.
Skills are contextual abilities.
Contextual abilities are capacities.
Skills don’t have ‘basics’.
Skills have timescales.
Efficiency is learned timescales.
Motor learning 🤝 Sport science
Couple things on verbal feedback:
-Reducing feedback frequency enhances learning
-Delaying feedback is beneficial (error estimation)
-Concurrent feedback is not effective
-Asking learners to estimate their errors is effective
"He has some slightly unorthodox methods — including something coaches call differential training, which involves changing the demands, environment and equipment to add variability and destabilise players. Providing them with different problems to solve..
For coaches and clinicians interested in autonomy...
❌It’s not “how can I motivate others”
✅but rather, “how can I create conditions within which others will motivate themselves?”
Sport Scientists:
📈Data should be clear, measurable, & actionable.
👀Understand what is useful vs not
🚨Evidence AND opinion, not just one
🗣 Sport Science is a conversation. So have it.
💪 Athlete management systems need to include motor learning
💯Everything can be quantified
Excited to see this one in final print! I've always been intrigued by how words can elicit distance. Dr. Wulf has been so supportive through this process. Stay tuned for more!
Also happy to get some volleyball literature out there!
In addition to my current role, I’ve also joined the faculty at
@UMKines
where I’ll be part of the Human Performance and Sport Science Center.
The doctoral program was recently ranked
#1
in the country.
💪
“Skill” and “drill” are not the same. You never drill a skill - you drill a motor pattern. Likewise, you never engage in skill with a drill because a motor pattern within skill is never a “pattern” - (a repeated design) (1580’s).
#coachdevelopment
Sport scientists:
📝 A notebook and pen(cil) is still a piece of important technology.
📈 all collected data is not relevant data
🧠 read an article everyday (have a database and plan of what you read and how it will help you/athletes or understand your research better!)
Stop using the word, “drill.”
A drill is defined as executing prescribed movements. It comes from the early 1600s describing military exercise, but is an extension of pre-determined agreed upon procedures.
… and three years later ‼️
that’s a wrap Las Vegas! Excited to start this journey to Orlando and be officially join the
@OrlandoMagic
as a Performance and Development Scientist. Stay tuned for PhD defense information later this semester!
Fun fact, I set aside some of my GA Stipend for book(s) every month. My grandfather who inspired me to pursue a PhD had a full separate library attached to their house in India that my father built.
Here’s to this months order! Excited to dig in.
Started my PhD three years ago trying to understand how attention effected movement variability. Bridging together both motor learning and biomechanics is a lot of fun. Two years ago, I started my final PhD project (covid delay). I just completed all analysis. Stay tuned 😊
It's critical to understand several theoretical constructs (i.e., social cognitive) in order to understand motor learning as a whole. Here are some. More than happy to send papers.
Starting year 2 in the NBA and one thing I’ve learned is that the motor learning literature is about 10% whereas building relationship is the other 90%. The latter drives the former. This perspective has challenged my own research but also should challenge the field.
PhD students:
It gets hard. At times you want to give up. Your passion for the topic goes up and down. You feel like you always need more guidance. A project takes months and a desk rejection takes seconds…
It’s OK to take two steps back and three steps forward! 😉🎯
#phdchat
The idea of using blocked practice to enhance confidence is not well evidenced. Confidence is a product of feel and action more so than outcome. It is also different for each individual. Understanding mental skills through an ecological lens may help as well.
Nideffer (1976) quadrant of attention is another critical attribute to overall skill periodization. For example, in a game week or in general, a pre-season, season, post-season.
Good video:
When talking about skill acquisition, learning is not something done TO the individual but something done BY the individual. This perspective is critical to HOW you coach.
Been studying coach wooden’s methodologies for some time
- practice in 5-10 min segments
- alternate heavy and light drills
- demonstrations by veteran players
- a library of all practice plans, with hours blocked off in morning to design that day’s practice.
You can have technique, but no skill
Technique - physical movement patterns associated with any given activity (context free, fixed action pattern).
Skill - Relates to using the technique in the environment for which it is intended.
Slight, but important difference!
The more I study coaching, and more specifically the relationship between motor learning, biomechanics, and volleyball (novice to more skilled), the more I realize that:
1) Coaches are not really educated in motor learning
2) There is a lot room to grow for this sport in the US
Excellent paper by
@JoClubbSportSci
,
@DrSianAllen
and team. Reminds me of the shift from KPI's to KDI's (key development indicators) that I've often use within the player development space.
Definitely a recommended read!
Player development is (approximated)
10% science
90% relationship
This is an emotional transaction, not just better practice design.
Motor learning 🤝 Sport science
Development has often been considered as something in which skills are “refined” (narrowed) or “perfected.”
It’s the exact opposite.
Development is something in which skills are “broadened” or “amorphous”
Motor learning 🤝 Player development
If I could teach a motor skill learning course over a semester, here are major (big rocks) topics to cover. If it’s for coach education or a clinical program, it would be over multiple semesters or more focused topics with both “what” and “how” components.
You never actually “repeat” movement (unsure where this came from). There is always a level of variance. Whether or not this variance is enough for learning is the actual question. We don’t learn by “repetition” but the differences in repetition.
#sportscience
#motorlearning
Overheard an NBA “shooting coach” say that anyone can retrain muscle memory. True, but last time I checked, muscles didn’t have independent memory. You’re retraining the plastic nature of the CNS. How you do that is with for example, attention, variability, etc
We often think of training load (external) with things like GPS and this is considered a way to understand injury risk. However, we fail to study things like challenge point and from a motor learning lens, there's a whole untaped area for investigation.
“Effective questioning depends largely upon the psychological climate established by the teacher. If pupils are afraid to participate or contradict the teacher, little reflective or critical thinking can be expected." - Hollingsworth, 1982
My grandfather taught me that knowing history is the only way you understand the present. It’s taken me some time to get some of these books (<1950s not pictured), alongside some original writings (not pictured).Did you know William Wundt first studied perceptual processes!?
Thanks for all the love. Excited to bring motor learning to the forefront of professional sport all while engaging in more research with some of the best athletes in the world.
Because tomorrow is my first day…excited to share that I’ve joined the
@OrlandoMagic
as a sport scientist (performance and development). Excited to finish my PhD and head down to Orlando. Tons of people to thank, but most importantly, Dr. Wulf for her guidance!
Effective Feedback:
✅focuses on critical aspects of the task( similar to intrinsic)
✅informational or motivational
✅transitional
✅results in an external focus
✅provides autonomy
✅short
✅low frequency
✅highlights success more
✅considers body language/tone
First day of class! Excited to teach at the home of the college football national champs!
We’ve got some great students. Please inquire if you’re looking for interns.
Coach education needs to start with the questions,
“what is practice?”
“why practice?”
rather than start by providing tools or rationales to enhance/optimize practice.
I’m glad this paper was published. This is the new high performance model if not already.
Motor control 🤝 Sport science
Motor Control: A Conceptual Framework for Rehabilitation
In my personal opinion, all coaches and clinicians should be familiar with the constraints led approach as well as the optimal theory.
Designing practice with the environment in mind while satisfying ones psychological and attentional needs is what we need to shift too.
Feedback is instructive.
1. “Nice serve” - no information
Player, “thanks”
2. “Nice serve, loved the way you pushed the ball to the end line.”
(Action verb)
Player, “hmm, I focused on the end line on my third step, speed felt comfortable and I contacted the ball faster.”
You don't 'train the brain' or do "cognitive training." You acquire "skill" which by definition is the power to discern, which again by definition is to perceive or recognize something. By acquiring skill, you develop aspects of cognition.
Excited to put this together for our community and others interested in career paths within Kinesiology. More information later this week! Save the date!
If you're an instructor for motor learning, we've put together some resources for you. Great virtual labs courtesy of Dr. Carlsen and Dr. Maslovat, the P/A podcast by
@ShakeyWaits
, the skill acquisition blog by
@TimBuszard
and team, and more!
Just because one is proficient in the skill doesn’t mean they are proficient in the technique.
Just because one is proficient in the technique, doesn’t mean they are proficient in the skill.
Technique doesn’t drive skill.
Skill drives technique.
Achieving higher levels of skill is less to do with an optimal technique but more to do with developing control over the body’s abundant degrees of freedom.
An optimal technique may paradoxically constrain the motor system more.
Skill learning can learn a lot from strength and conditioning.
Can we periodize contextual interference? (Paper on the way 👀)
Can we quantify drill duration/reps/rest?
Can we have activation and cool down “sessions”?
According to Peggy, wearing a mask is akin to wearing a turban in the Sikh religion.
@sikh_coalition
@SikhProf
Care to let her know why it’s not the same?
Something to consider when discussing challenge point is not just the design of practice or the psychological underpinning, but from a sport science perspective, functional task difficulty is a correlate of strain and load magnitude (force/energy storage) as well.
Really nice article on the art vs. science of coaching. Another reason why understanding motor behavior through a social-cognitive-affective lens is key!
Systems approach is really insightful in the realm of player development. Really enjoyed this book! If anyone in pro sport likes to chat player development in systems thinking, DM is open! So much to still learn in this space.
Small sided games are so powerful. However the implementation of them is often misinterpreted. Their integration in sport science is critical!
How small-sided and conditioned games enhance acquisition of movement and decision-making skills
I think it’s time to shift to utilizing movement variability (differential learning in my opinion) for high performance/injury risk.
Injury risk is a systems based issue not just a mechanical one.
Really hope PTs/ATs etc get exposed to this science!
Here's our latest work on attentional focus and functional variability in highly skilled (volleyball) athletes using the UCM methodology in
@JSportsSci
. Big thanks to this great team! Feel free to DM for a PDF copy.
50 free copies -
Contrary to popular belief, it is sometimes ok to do blocked practice. Nonetheless, an important factor is to distinguish between learning and performance.
Don’t constrain a drill so a player has to do something, that makes it predetermined. That isn’t sport.That defeats the purpose. Constrain the drill so the player has options to do this or that depending on some stimuli. That’s sport and learning. That’s transferable.
If you're interested in conscious control and how it can affect motor performance -
Theory of reinvestment (Masters and Maxwell, 2008)
Constrained Action (Wulf, 2013)
Goal-Action Coupling (Wulf and Lewthwaite, 2016)
Explicit monitoring theory (Beilock and Carr, 2001)
“Coaching Philosophy” is just a race towards exclusivity. Often times, it’s the combination of several different methodologies that make philosophies thrive. Coach education should likely get away from this ill defined concept of having a coaching philosophy.
Skill acquisition/ Motor learning friends!
What’s one paper that has influenced your research/practice the most? This can be of any type (theory, review, meta, experimental, etc)
Yes, you can only post one!!
Talent development, long-term athlete development, and player development are not the same thing. However the integration of all three in a systematic way (decades of research in all three areas to support) will aid in developing a robust player development initiative.
What feedback actually makes a difference? (Thread)
❌Avoid the feedback sandwich (positive, negative, positive)
Ex. “I really like how you’re staying ready on defense. But you’re still a second late on getting to the spot. Keep working, I think you can be great.”
Excited to hear I was awarded a graduate student research award to do some on court volleyball research related to motor learning using some cool technology! Stay tuned! ...my first funding award!
Definitely worth all the time spent on writing that grant!
Proofs are exciting!
Really enjoyed putting this together with two great individuals. Utilizing an external focus is hard, especially after injury. We tried to clarify some things. Stay tuned!
As I write my dissertation on attention and the development of skilled performance, I find myself going back to basic biological systems. Differential learning seems to be the only thing that makes sense at this point…it is the future of learning and performance.
Being the only PhD student under the advisor, how to handle multiple projects (3); manuscripts, teaching load, and classes? All the while balancing life and hobbies? What’s worked for you?
@AcademicChatter
Skill acquisition tip if you’re working in applied sport - start with why.
Why you’re doing specific “drills”
How can those activities scale in terms of periodization (when)?
What can make them more representative?
What is measurable for learning?
…more!