9 Ways To Maximise Your Swimming Training
The process by which athletes learn and develop new movement skills is called Motor Skill Learning. Every movement, regardless of complexity is a skill, from standing up to throwing a Javelin. Motor Skill Learning has a number of key principles that can help progress a coach’s ability to teach their athletes the desired movement skills to excel in their sport, not just swimming.
The Principles of Motor Skill Learning
Principle of Interest: The learning of the skill hinges on the student’s attitude towards learning. If they aren’t interested in learning the skill, they likely won’t.
Principle of Practice: Practice is essential for learning to take place, the learner must be given the opportunity and time to rehearse the skill.
Principle of Distributed Practice: Consider the structure of practice. Breaking up practice into short periods with time in between often results in superior motor learning than long sessions of massed practice.
Principle of Skill Specificity: One motor skill is different to another. Performing one motor skill is independent of the competency of another motor skill.
Principle of Whole-Part Learning: Motor skills can be broken down into ‘simple’ or ‘complex’. Coaches must identify if it is more effective and efficient to teach the motor skill as a whole or break it down into key components.
Principle of Transfer: The more a motor skill resembles another, the greater the likelihood of transfer between the two. Conditions during practice must match the environment in which the motor skill will be used in.
Principle of Skill Improvement: Each motor skill progresses from least mature to most mature, along a continuum. The progress is dependent on each individual and a host of variables such as nature, nurture, coach skill etc.
Principle of Feedback: The type of feedback is critical and when it is delivered as well as the complexity of the task. Complex tasks may require concurrent (real-time) feedback to prevent cognitive overload, whereas a simple task may require terminal feedback (after the motor skill practice).
Principle of Variable Practice: Blocked practice yeilds high short term results but poorer retention, whereas variable practice improvement longterm learning and higher retention of the motor skill. Read our full article on Blocks vs Variable Pracitce here.
To master a new motor skill, or improve one, the coach must be aware and use these key underlying principles of Motor Skill Learning to ensure that each of their athletes is coached in the most effective and efficient way possible.