What is motor learning in sports?

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Motor learning can be defined as – a relatively permanent improvement in performance as a result of practice or experience. The relatively permanent feature of motor learning is a small but important detail. As it highlights that we cannot assess how much learning has taken place until after practice has finished.

How to measure motor learning

The figure below shows example data from a classical motor learning paradigm. We have time running along the x-axis and we are measuring improvement in performance as we move up the y-axis.

Let us image we have a 18 year-old learning to throw a bean bag underarm into a basket placed 5 metres away with their non-dominant hand. They have 100 practice throws and we give them a point for each successful throw. The chart below plots their score in blocks of 10 throws and points scored.

The blue area represents our practice phase, to begin with a learner will perform poorly at a new task, but they quickly make progress. As they increase in their ability we see a decrease in the speed at which they improve – this diminishing return in practice performance is commonplace in motor learning studies.

However, crucially, during this blue phase we still don’t know how much motor learning has taken place. As we need to assess if this is a relatively permanent change in performance as a function of practice.

On the righthand side we have a retention and transfer test. A retention test repeats the same task and hour, 24 hours or possibly 7 days after practice. Their score in this test is our measure of motor learning.

Our example data shows that retention scores are rarely as high as the peak during practice performance. Another interesting motor learning test is a transfer test. This measures a learner’s ability to transfer their learning to a similar, but slightly different task. In the example above we could move the target 1 metre closer or further away.

Why should we care about measuring motor learning?

Most coaches and athletes measure their ability based on practice performance. The example above tells us that this isn’t the true measure of how much learning has taken place, we should care more about athletes’ abilities to retain and transfer their skill. Consider the following example:

• Practice: Percentage of scored penalties in a football training session
• Retention: Percentage of scored penalties in next week’s training
• Transfer: Percentage of scored penalties in cup final after 120 minutes play

The example above highlights that athletes’ ability to retain and transfer their skill is more valuable than their practice performance. As highlighted in our example data, practice performance is not always indicative of motor learning.

This is a critical lesson to learn as a coach and sport scientist.

What factors affect motor learning

There is strong evidence to suggest that the following factors can accelerate or reduce the amount of motor learning in sport and rehabilitation settings:

• Practice volume
• Practice variability
• Practice difficultly
• Practice distribution (Massed & distributed practice)
• Volumes and type of feedback
• Focus of attention

As an athlete or coach, it is well worth learning about these concepts and considering how they apply to your own training.

Motor learning theory

Over the past century there have been many attempts to theorise the process of motor learning. Most theories successfully capture key aspects of the journey, but none have perfectly answered the complicated question of how we learn skilled movements.

Stages of motor learning

The most famous motor learning theory is Fitts and Posner’s (1967) stages of motor learning. The stages of motor learning theory highlights the information processing and attentional demands of motor learning.

Read our full article on the Cognitive, Associative & Autonomous stages of learning

To begin with, movement requires a lot of conscious control and thought. Through practice the movements become more fluid and can be performed with less conscious control. This transition allows the performer to focus their attention elsewhere, such as where their opponent is placed, or deciding their next move.

Although the stages of learning theory captures some aspects of how we learn movements, it doesn’t provide all the answers.

Other motor learning theories

Gentile’s two stage model of motor learning

Gentile’s two stage theory of motor learning places the performer’s goal at the centre of learning. In the first stage the learner is getting the idea of the movement. They establish a basic coordination pattern that meets the task demands.

In this first stage they also start to learn which cues from their environment are important for performing the task, known as ‘regulatory’ and ‘non-regulatory’ cues. Once this first stage has been completed they begin to shift their learning to create more advanced performance.

During the second stage the performer’s goal are described as fixation or diversification (task dependent). Some tasks, such as gymnastics may require the movement to become more fixed, with less variance in movement seen as a positive.

Other tasks, such as dribbling in Football (and other open skills), require sportsmen and women to be able to adapt their movement in order to be successful, as multiple ways of dribbling (movement patterns) are often useful.

Gentile’s theory considers that different motor tasks have different goals and this shapes motor learning and coordination.

Bernstein’s freezing and freeing degrees of freedom

Nikolai Bernstein was an exceptional scientist. He realised that a key problem in motor learning was understanding how the body controlled the multiple degrees of freedom that it has available.

We have ~600 muscles spanning across ~200 joints. Understanding how the central nervous system selects and control the degrees of freedom for any movement is still a key question in motor learning.

Imagine if you have a separate steering wheel for each wheel of your car whilst driving? Now extrapolate that concept to the numbers we have above and you can see how challenging movement must be from a control persepctive.

Bernstein proposed that in early stages of learning performers freeze their joints (degrees of freedom), simplifying the control process.

As learners invest in practice they begin to free their degrees of freedom to improve their performance.

Bernstein regarded this freezing and freeing degrees of freedom as a key component of motor learning.

Motor learning vs motor control

Motor control is the study of how we control movement and produce useful coordinated responses. Whereas, motor learning is the study of how our control of movement changes via practice and experience.

As you may imagine there is considerable overlap between these areas, as theories of motor control need to be able to explain how control changes with learning. The reverse is also true – any motor learning theory needs to begin with a robust understanding of how we control movement.

Summarising motor learning

As coaches, scientists and athletes we are all interested in improving performance. Motor learning theory sits at the heart of improving performance. No theory to date is perfect, however each does capture something useful that helps us understand how we learn movement.

If you can underpin your training with theory from motor learning you will likely be able to understand why a specific training is useful and be able to refine your practice structure.

A key point to take way from this article is that practice performance does not represent true learning. We can only measure motor learning after practice using retention and transfer tests.