Objectives are the types of test questions to expect

Objective: Explain what the scientific subdisciplines of motor control and motor learning study

What are the subdisciplines of exercise science:

-​ Anatomy

-​ Biomechanics

-​ Exercise Physiology

-​ Motor Development

-​ Motor control and motor learning

-​ Nutritional science

-​ Sports medicine

-​ Athletic Training

-​ Sports history

-​ Sports philosophy

-​ Sports psychology

-​ Sports sociology

-​ Pedagogy

Motor Control is how we control movement

In this class, motor means movement

Motor learning is how we help OTHERS improve their movement

How to improve athletes:

Assessment - observation and video or data/stats

Instruction and feedback - tell them how to do better

Practice and drilling or simulations and training aids

Psychological such as goal setting, visualization, praise

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Differences between

-​ Motor skills

-​ Skills

-​ Skilled

-​ Skillful

-​ Skill sets

-​ Create attentional cueing

-​ Programs and spatial anchors

-​ Motor Skill

Some form of skill or ability that is done with proficiency and can be distinguished from other

various skills

-​ Skill can be used differently by:

-​ Skill/Skilled/Skillful

-​ Voluntary or goal oriented and improvable. Think of a motor skill as a skills where the

quality movement and is th #1 determinant of success ORRRR Many activities are not
 skills and are based on a “skill set”. Ability is also different from the word skill. DO NOT

use the word ability when defining skill

-​ The 3 Motor Skill proficiency criteria

The maximum performance with a very minimal expenditure of energy as well as doing it in a

very short time (not very many ways to word that one so sorry if it sounds like the book)

-​ Efficient

-​ Faster

-​ Certainty/accuracy/consistency

-​ Motor performance can require one, two, or all three of these

Conditioning is improving fitness

-​ Targets minimal energy expenditure or minimum time

-​ Working out your endurance or power or strength

-​ This can be part of practice time and is sometimes separate from weightlifting

Practicing

-​ Targets maximum certainty and accuracy

-​ Reps and refinement to improve technique as well as decision making

-​ NOT just when everyone gets together for practice time

 -​ Spatial Anchors

Most important moments (3-5) in the performance of a skill

For tennis it can be tall, relaxed, and balanced

Get the details and turn it into a language and then refine from there

-​ Ready position - easiest to teach and probably important, possibly essential

-​ Finish - relatively easy and to teach using a freeze

-​ Points in the middle - when significant change occurs this is probably difficult to change

but is the most important influence on performance

Good cueing

-​ Don’t do one wrinkle at a time, get the broad strokes and then go back and get the

wrinkles

Determining Spatial Anchors

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Skill classifications

You’ll be able to identify and explain specific motor skills using the skill classifications for task

organization (2) and environmental predictability (2)

Task Organization and the three related skill classifications.

 -​ Organization of the task - We need it to be discrete (has beginning and an end and is

short), serial (series of discrete to make a more complex action), or continuous (doesn’t

have a clear beginning or end).

-​ Importance of the cognitive elements - How important each piece is in relation to the task

-​ Environmental Predictability - Open vs Closed environment. The Environment is about

the setting and predictability can control their movements. Closed you can control it.

Open you can’t control it and you adapt to demands.

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1-29-25

You will be able to describe the stages of motor learning and related practical recommendation

And describe the difference between explicit and implicit learning

Motor learning vs. motor performance

-​ Performance is essentially how we see their attempt at motor skill and is directly

observable and measurable.

-​ Learning is the internal reflection and changes that takes place for someone. We need to

make sure it is an objective improvement. Assuming improvement between two

performances is due to learning could be wrong. 10 errors with a ton of touches on a great

team vs 4 errors on a bad team with fewer touches.

The three stages of motor learning - you can be at any level for any skill within a pool of skills.

Think dribbling in basketball vs between the legs

-​ Cognitive -Attempt to understand verbally, self talk is high and attention is demanding.

Improvement is easy and significant. Performance changes, how much they’re thinking

changes, coordination gets better, efficiency gets better, confidence is higher, Improving

someone with muscle memory is harder (explicit)

-​ Associative -refine movements and putting things together. Attention is less demanding,

performance feels less rushed, decision making easier. (implicit)

-​ Autonomous - movements are automatic and require minimum conscious effort,

confident, smooth, effortless, adaptable, creative, improvement is very difficult to see and

make. (implicit)

Implicit vs. Explicit learning

-​ Implicit - They are watching what they are learning

-​ Explicit - Thinking about what they’re learning

-​ Thinking is good but watching is better aka observing is better

-​ 11,000,000 bits of unconscious implicit data we can do a lot

-​ 14-60 bits conscious explicit data We can’t remember a whole lot

How should practice and instruction differ?

-​ Verbal-Cognitive

SIMPLE instruction (demonstrations) with simple exploration and opportunities. Simple with

limited feedback. Don’t talk too much and don’t fix every wrinkle. ESPECIALLY with kids and

beginners

-​ Associative

Focused instruction, drills with multiple skills and or decision making involved. More focused

feedback is involved.

-​ Autonomous/Automatic

Assessment and data driven instruction, drills that are demanding and complex, precise and

possibly frequent feedback. Usually athletes are bored in practice, keep them motivated and

demanded

Situation based approach

-​ Learning that emphasizes the situation in which the person is in and the place in which

they are in

Locomotor vs. Postural vs. Manipulative (not tested on in class)

-​ Locomotor - Transports the body from one point to another

 -​ Postural - Focus on maintaining body stability

-​ Manipulative - Involve interaction with objects and require coordination or fine control

Practical - Applicable,realistic, relatable, professional practice

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You will be able to:

Describe the three memory systems, their relative duration, and their relative capacity

Describe behavioral strategies that significantly contribute to the retention of information in long

term memory

Short-Term Sensory Store (STSS): A brief storage system that holds sensory information for less

than a second before it fades unless attended to.

Short-Term Memory (STM): A temporary storage system that holds a limited amount of

information (5-9 items) for about 20-30 seconds unless worked through again. It’s essentially

going to be slightly longer than STSS but not by much - Can remember about 7 things +/- 2

simple things.

Long-Term Memory (LTM): A permanent storage system with unlimited capacity that retains

knowledge and motor skills indefinitely. This can sometimes fade but is usually accessed again

quickly when you start doing the process again

 -​ At the physiological level, memories are basically strong synaptic connections. Learning

is the creation and strengthening and modification of synaptic connections. The process

of memorizing is similar to building muscle mass.

-​ Virtually the number of connections POSSIBLE in your brain is NEAR infinite but there

is a cap. We have 100 billion neurons and each one has hundreds of thousands of

synapses.

How can we improve STM to LTM - Things can affect the physiological influence but the

biggest things are:

-​ retrieval practice aka recalling things (self quiz/flash cards, ask questions)

-​ Chunking (use outlines, acronyms, spread info out over time [need to know])

-​ Visual (pictures, demonstrations, videos, bigger tends to be better)

-​ Relate Information (to prior knowledge, to previous experiences, and make info

meaningful and feasible)

-​ ACTIVE learning (Kinesthetic - get people to do things and even unrelated movements)

(Cognitive - get people to think and recall questions work, but so do questions from the

upper level of Bloom's Taxonomy)

COMBINE strategies and they will be even more useful

Stories are a powerful form of memory and they involve multiple strategies

-​ —---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You will be able to describe the four types of “information” processing

Describe production units

Describe movement output chunking

Is multitasking effective?

What most people think is multi-tasking is really just rapid task switching. People will FEEL

more productive but studies will show CONSISTENTLY people are less efficient and less

effective when we do rapid task switching

Four types of information processing

Sequential - slow one at a time like having one lane on a road

Parallel - Like having multiple lanes on a road, multiple things at once

Automatic - Implicit

Controlled - explicit

Is multitasking effective

NO multitasking is NOT effective if it is sequential processing

SORT OF if it’s performers in the autonomous stage for at least one task and the need for

performance is low

YES if we are in parallel processing and doing largely independent tasks

Parallel is possible when it requires different production units. Production units like apps or

systems of the brain which are responsible for different tasks. We are born with some like vision

or simple movement but we have to learn the rest through practice and application

Beginners are less fluid because they require concentration more and are using sequential

processing

Movement output chunking

-​ With training you can start to combine apps and add a car carrier to your single lane.

There are limits here but you can start to do more complex things

-​ Neurons that fire together, wire together

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2-12-25

You will be able to differentiate the terms abilities and skills

Identify and provide examples of abilities and skills

Abilities - Genetic traits and nature and are “largely” unaffected by practice (HEIGHT is not an

ability though) (fast is kind of but don’t write that) A volleyball player born with more hand eye

coordination or a guitarist with more finger dexterity. Fast twitch to slow twitch ratio

Skills - Training and influenced by practice (nurture)

When we call someone “athletic” we talk about a soupy mixture of abilities and skills. When we

talk about Michael Phelps we see his skills that he trained but we don’t visually see the genetics

at play too. Skills are visible and abilities are often unseen

There’s a lot of overlap in both camps but the line is drawn at where?

Evolution of abilities theories?

-​ One “general” athletic ability with McCloy - Balance it not even ONE ability. It’s a series

of abilities and skills.

-​ Henry - THOUSANDS of abilities was our next guess - abilities for every particular skill

is not intuitive

-​ Fleishman - dozens of groups of abilities

Why might it be important to see how much ability someone has and why is assessing so

difficult?

-​ For multi-sport athletes we’ll look at explosive strength, aiming, hand/eye, reaction time,

etc to see common abilities and how good they are

-​ Indication of potential

-​ Modification of expectations

-​ It’s hard to do since it takes either time or money

-​ VERY difficult to separate skills from ability

Certain things assess abilities better than others. For example when assessing reaction time

ABILITY what is better? We need to strip as many skills away

-​ 20 hard hit balls at a tennis player and counting how many they volley back over the net?

(Needs skill and too many variables)

-​ OR Throwing 10 balls over the tennis players head while they are facing a wall and

counting how many they catch off the wall with their hands (Needs a skill still)

-​ OR Same as the above catching but it has velcro pads to take the catching out. (not a

BAD attempt but not the best)

-​ OR an online reaction time test (ZERO skill to it so it’s the best for reaction time)

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2-14-25

You will be able to describe helpful behaviors related to ability theory and describe helpful

attitudes related to ability theory

Practical Implications:

Design drills and activities that improve skills and not abilities

-​ Aka ladder drills make you good at ladder drills. Not your sport

-​ For an O-line d-line you need to them to do game like scenarios

-​ Aka is it improving the ability at your drill (the skill of ladders) or is it improving your

skill for gametime

-​ Usefulness is determined on how similar it is to performance demands

Be aware of what you are assessing and ESPECIALLY in tryouts - either assess abilities or

assess skills

-​ For elite levels ability assessment is helpful for determining long term potential but it

CAN be used in addition to skill assessment

Develop Realistic attitudes and especially the following

-​ Think “abilities are overrated” - they are really only one factor of performance. Skill,

conditioning, decision making, psychological factors usually matter more. ALMOST all

performers can achieve a high level. You may not have as high of a peak but you aren’t

completely lost.

-​ Think early performance is a POOR predictor of ultimate performance. The importance

of abilities and skills is that the importance often changes as different levels of

competition are achieved.

-​ Parents - involve youngsters in a NUMBER of activities and don’t specialize - guide

them towards the activities suited to their abilities - soften expectations and don’t

compare to others even at the same levels

-​ COACHES - Have a no cut policy in youth sports to create a pipeline of developed

players. ACCEPT WHERE THEY ARE but TEACH TEACH TEACH

Is the word athletic actually useful? No, not really for a teacher or professional or coach . It

really depends on ability sets and how helpful they are for different activities

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2-19-25

After exam 1 I got an 81 so I’m very happy with that

You will be able to:

List and describe the information and processing stages

List the six most useful sources of sensory information for motor skill performance

Describe the two visionary systems

Describe practical recommendations related to vision and stimulus identification

Three information processing stages:

Stimulus Identification (sensory)

Response Selection (decision)

Response Programming (preparing for action)

IN THEORY these are linear and sequential but in reality these are ongoing and interwoven and

relatively complex

We don’t stop running during the steeplechase while we ID, select, and prepare

TWO GENERAL types of sensory and perceptual information related to stimulus identification

and motor performance in particular

-​ Interoception - senses INSIDE the body (balance, vestibular sensing, muscle tension and

limb load, proprioception, kinesthesis)

 -​ Exteroception - Senses outside your body (Vision, hearing, touch, pressure, smell, taste

etc)

Wetness is temperature and touch - you can trick the brain into thinking something is wet

Kinesthesis - sense of your body position in space (the golden word) and this comes from senses

including vision, balance, muscle tension, acceleration)

Two vision systems

Focal and Ambient vision

Focal - identifies what and your primary focus (requires thinking and is controlled)

Ambient - Where and surroundings (peripheral) (faster and automatic)

BOTH need light but focal needs more

First piece of information processing is:

Stimulus processing - Process what is happening around you

Response selection - decision making

Response Programming - preparation for the action and opening your app for your skill and

setting HOW you want to use it

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Reaction Time

You will be able to describe the variable that influence reaction time

And define reaction time and its relation information processing speed
Hick’s Law: the number of stimulus responses and alternatives increase the time it takes to react.

Aka more choices = longer reaction time

Variables that increase reaction time:

1)​ Number of responses available (hick’s law)

2)​ Number of decisions (sequential processing)

3)​ S-R Compatibility

4)​ Movement Complexity

5)​ Training

6)​ Anticipation - beneficial but the cost can be high if wrong

7)​ Psychology

Are IP stages parallel or sequential?

SI - Mostly parallel and automatic and is highly integrated

RS - Conscious and decision making is sequential and this is why RT can be slowed with more

options and more decisions and response incompatibility

RP - Mostly sequential and this is why MOC is so helpful and in sports fakes with bottleneck

PRP

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Motor programs you will be able to:

Describe what a motor program is and describe what three lines of evidence indicating the

presence of motor programs

You will describe what characteristics of an open loop processing is in skills

The term muscle memory can be useful but there are some problems: Motor skills are not stored

in the muscles. They're In the brain and are psychomotors.

Are motor skills stored in memory like information?

-​ Not everything is an app, it might just be a synapse connection

-​ So KIND OF both types of memories involve synaptic development due to reps

-​ HOWEVER different types of memory are stored differently

-​ Semantic or Declarative - Use it or you lose it and is very weak because it is so explicit

-​ Episodic - Memory of events and it is strong. Usually implicit and explicit

-​ Procedural - Very strong and is done through motor skills like riding a bike. These are

apps and production units

What is a motor program?

-​ ONE theory about response programming

-​ More accurate to describe the common concept of muscle memory

-​ USEFUL but insufficient

Motor Programs From Synaptic Perspective

-​ Limited usefulness for most professionals

-​ We use biomechanical perspective which has the most practical usefulness such as limbs

and joints used and relative force and timing etc

Three lines of evidence of motor programs

-​ Reaction Time - movement complexity increases RT (simple move and simple thought is

fastest) Organization is going on and there is psychomotor skills response programming

-​ Deafferentation - Learned skills are still relatively effective without sensory feedback

-​ Blocked Limb Studies - EMG (Electromyography reads electric activity in muscles)

readouts are similar. If we keep someone from doing an activity it will still show the

same electric pathways as if they were doing it. Aka there’s communication coming from

the brain to the site.

“Open Loop” Executive or planner -> Effector or doer (Plan it out and then react and then move)

-​ In open loop processing, sensory feedback has minimal impact.

-​ Preplanned set of instructions in long term memory, there’s an app, and is retrieved into

short term memory

-​ No adjustments are made. Think a serve in a tennis match

-​ Fast and no real decisions are made

-​ Requires little to no attention and is a conscious processing

-​ Much more consistent

Skills Open loop are useful for:

-​ Quick and forceful movements

-​ Stable and predictable movements (closed environment)

 -​ Movements require a high level of coordination

Central Process Generator

-​ It’s a motor program that is pre-loaded aka a pre-loaded app

-​ Walking - we have this idea at birth and want to do it. We just have a lack of motor

development at birth

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2-26-25

You will be able to describe problems with the motor program theory

Describe the generalized motor program theory and how GMPs are different from MPs

Identify parameters in specific motor skills

Motor Programs for skills

-​ Better at efficiency, speed, consistency, and less attention will be needed

-​ The double edge sword is consistency in a groove vs in a rut

Two major problems in the theory of motor program model

-​ Novelty - Where do NEW programs come from?

-​ Hard to explain on how storage works - Have to store every new thing and do we have an

“infinite” amount for every movement

Solved with the generalized motor program theory

Generalized Motor Programs are similar to apps and tools and appliances and they serve a

specific function. Like Microsoft word. Then we can have smaller documents inside Word.

Think it wouldn’t make sense to download Word every time you wanted to write a file

One motor program for hitting a ball but different files for a bunt vs a full swing vs a pop fly etc

-​ Generalized is a motor program with parts that are easily modified

-​ A “pattern” that can be improvised around

-​ Invariant Features - Things that DON'T change (structure) (serve in tennis)

-​ Surface Features - flexible and has some change (a forehand in tennis)

How can motor skill performance be easily modified

Surface Features

-​ Sequencing (for some serial skills)

-​ Equipment (golf clubs, bike gear, string tension)

-​ Parameters (Most important Surface Feature to understand and appreciate) which are the

big three which is direction, speed, amplitude (No force because it is a combo of speed

and amplitude)

Direction could be aiming for accuracy or angle or the end goal

Amplitude could be range of motion and distance

GMP is recalled from memory and the parameters are pretty set (parameterization)

Parameterization is NOT like muscle memory and requires more than just reps to get good at

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You will be able to describe what relative timing is and approximate the relative timing of a

specific motor skill

Relative Timing

-​ Ratio of time that the action takes up or percentages of time for a part that a whole

movement take up

-​ Book calls it fundamental timing structure

-​ Coaches call this rhythm

-​ IT IS NOT MOVEMENT TIME OR SPEED

We determine movement parts by using spatial anchors

-​ 3 spatial anchors means 2 movement phases

-​ 4 anchors means 3 movement phases

-​ Spatial anchor 1 is your starting position so that is why we subtract one

Relative Timing is an invariant feature

-​ Movement time or speed is a parameter that is easily adjusted

-​ HOWEVER if the total movement time is 25% longer the time for each part should also

be 25% longer. Aka it stays consistent (think the slinky from class)

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You will be able to describe characteristics of closed processing in motor performance and

identify closed loop processing in specific motor skills

Dynamical Systems

-​ Motor program theory that explains spontaneous flexibility especially with continuous

skills in open environments

-​ CANNOT explain blocked limb studies

Motor Skill Performance involves

-​ Planning (relative timing is included)

-​ Flexibility in planning

-​ Closed loop processing OR flexibility in execution

OPEN loop processing (there is no loop)

-​ Executive planner that goes to an effector (doer)

-​ Everything is pre planned there is little thinking

-​ There is a comparator or evaluator there that gives the executive feedforward and the

effector feedback

-​ Comparator to the executive planner gives performance adjustments

-​ Much more real time adjustment

CLOSED loop processing

-​ DEPENDS on continuous feedback to adjust the process

-​ Requires more attention

-​ Slower

-​ More control through adjustments

When can we make changes during skill performance?

-​ Those with a very short time before the target, it’s difficult or near impossible. Think

clapping with someone

-​ Those with a very long time before the target most can change

-​ Aka it’s playing on reaction time and minimum time to process and react

Closed loop is not useful for:

-​ Brief or discrete skills

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Reflexive Modifications

Name and describe the four reflexive modifications

Identify and provide examples of the four reflexive modifications

First theory is that we have a memory for procedures and it is pretty rigid but there are problems

with that

The second one is Generalized motor program theory adds parameters and some flexibility

The dynamical systems theory is that there HAS to have some flexibility in movements - there is

stuff being made up and done on the fly. The muscle memory and skills are there but the

parameters are changing a lot

Reflexive Modifications

M1 - Closed loop processing at the genetic level - True instinctive reflexes that can’t be stopped

-​ 30 to 50 ms and is monosynaptic to the spinal cord. This is NOT affected by reaction

time

-​ Involuntary and no flexibility (rarely a concern for professionals)

M2 - Skilled performers make quick, subtle, unconscious refinements and APPEARS to be

instinctual but the body does not have a genetic set for that information and not born with it

-​ 60-80 ms and are polysynaptic to the lower or mid brain - not conscious decisions

-​ Involuntary and a benefit from extensive training

M3 - Conscious decision making during performance

-​ CONSCIOUS and goes to the frontal cortex during performance

-​ 120-150 ms and is by far the slowest

-​ Voluntary, controlled response, easily improved with training

Reflexive Modifications

Triggered reactions

-​ An adult grasp reflex (wineglass falling effect just give it a squeeze)

-​ 80-120 ms to midbrain

-​ Not initially voluntary (technically learned) but conscious

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After exam 2, I did okay but need to work on examples of different pieces of the info
You will be able to describe and provide examples of different types of transfer and describe

specificity of learning

Transfer of learning

-​ Influence of prior experience on performance

Near - Greater influence - Percussion instrument to percussion instrument

Far - lesser influence - drums making you better at the flute (understand music)

Negative - counterproductive influence - Prior experience eats the performance - a softball

pitcher trying to learn to serve in tennis

No transfer - no influence - Drums making you better at cooking

These are basically “it’s like when you” types of prior experiences to establish understanding

However this can create misunderstanding and this is mostly useful when used briefly an

negative transfer is monitored and addressed if necessary

Prior Experiences

-​ Other skills and activities

-​ Practice, workouts, rehab - MOST IMPORTANT TO APPRECIATE

Law of Specificity - You improve what you train - design practice that is realistic as feasible -

practicing ladders you get better at ladders

When is realism useful for learning?

-​ Game sense, decision making - put them in games

-​ Pyramid with closed loop on top, parameterization in middle, muscle memory on bottom

All need realism except for muscle memory

When can unrealistic practice be useful or even necessary?

-​ Do one skill over and over and over again with someone who is learning a new skill or

changing it

-​ Aka a player who doesn’t know how to set, just do a game of all setting

-​ A pitcher changing their pitch

-​ For safety and warm up

-​ Conditioning or mental training

-​ Motor programs acquiring, consistency, and changing

-​ Only do those situations to practice those niche situations

Try to make unrealistic situations realistic so that there is good transfer