Successful Motor Skill Acquisition
Motor skill mastery is essential; it is where elite athletes’ performance becomes automatic, where cognitive processing demands are minimal, and athletes can attend to and process other information, such as the position of defensive players or game strategy. It is the point where the athlete can respond and not think, where they can “play fast”, and where they can enter a state of flow. The “it” factor is when the athlete can quickly enter and stay in flow. The flow creates a bond between the athlete and the sport. The acquisition of motor skills takes place in three distinct stages. It is paramount coaches understand, implement, and progress each stage.
The process of motor skill learning dates to 1964, when Fitts & Posner discovered the very first stage to acquiring a new skill was cognitive learning. This stage is characterized by the athlete’s overall understanding of the skill; for successful completion, the athlete must determine the objective of the skill and begin to process the environmental factors. The art and skill of coaching is very important during this stage. Traditional training environments might include a workout program that bases each session’s success solely on how fatigued the athlete is upon completion, or more commonly, a group setting that is insistent on cramming as many drills as possible into an hour. This may be effective if the goal is weight loss, or basic conditioning; however, if the overall goal of the program is to return the trainee to the field, a better, more skilled athlete, then a tremendous amount of teaching is involved during this stage. Success needs to be based on the athlete’s understanding of the skill and how it may apply in given situations.
Coaching is crucial; coaches need to effectively communicate why they are giving specific instructions, and what happens if a skill is performed incorrectly. Athletes may hear “shin angles need to match” during acceleration, but if they don’t understand why it is important for force application, foot placement, and therefore speed, it may not be learned, and it definitely will not be learned properly. This does not mean a coach should use big words and fancy terms to impress and teach the athlete, in fact, quite the opposite. Albert Einstein said, “if you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t know it well enough yourself.” Knowledge, practice and experience are priceless. To gain the athlete’s trust and increase understanding, a coach needs to interact with them, show genuine interest in them, and simply and efficiently communicate with the athlete.
Once the athlete has a foundational understanding of the skill at hand, the associative stage of motor learning takes place. The key characteristic in this stage is that the athlete begins to develop refined movement of the skill through practice. For successful completion, the learner must start to identify the various stimuli that can occur and begin to focus on the “how to” of the movement rather than the “what to do”. The associative stage is what most coaching certifications address and where most coaches inherently stay. However, through knowledge and experience—not YouTube—the coach must now implement meaningful drills ensuring they are executed properly. Practice does not always make perfect, only perfect practice can make perfect. Athletes can easily learn skills incorrectly, which then becomes even harder to change. This means that (as addressed in my previous article, Movement is THE Skill to Master), coaches must still be extremely vigilant in correcting movement patterns during drills and taking the time to teach.
The importance of coaching begins to shift from visual and verbal cueing to more proprioceptive feedback. Coaches begin to talk through what an athlete feels when drills are performed both correctly and incorrectly. The most important goal is to have athletes “feel” and identify when movements or skills are performed correctly or incorrectly and why. If an athlete can begin to be their own coach on the practice or playing field, then the athlete is well on his/her way to acquiring the skill.
The final stage to motor skill acquisition is the autonomous stage. This stage is characterized by the athlete’s ability to perform the skill with minimal thinking involved. For successful completion of this stage, the athlete must be able to take what he/she has learned in a controlled training environment, and implement it in multiple environments, one of which being the sport itself. This stage is when a coach and athlete fine-tune their goals. Coaches advance drills from the associative stage and begin to add in variability to increase adaption. However, if an athlete gets to this stage too early, he/she winds up only reinforcing improper movement patterns, that can become detrimental to the athlete’s health and performance. The goal for achieving an autonomous skill is to allow the athlete to move quicker, faster, and better, with less cognitive involvement—to be in the flow while playing the game. This allows for the ability to process other on-field information and make better in-game decisions without sacrificing movement quality, speed, or performance.
Coaching in the autonomous stage requires more psychology than it does sport knowledge. Any coach can make changes in an athlete—although not all changes are good—it takes a special coach to make progress within a one-percent range. Thinking outside the box and pushing boundaries is the only way to progress the autonomous stage. An athlete needs to be uncomfortable to adapt, an athlete needs a reason to adapt.
If the stages of motor skill acquisition are completed correctly, the athlete will enjoy training and enjoy the sport even more. No more forcing the athlete to train against his/her will and the athlete will begin to develop other great life habits, such as discipline, and daily positive mental attitudes, such as self-esteem. The athlete will become more coachable and begin to show the “it” factor. Coaches are key influencers on an athlete’s life, and athlete’s influence a coach’s life. Motor skill acquisition is a process, building relationships is a process, loving a sport is for life. Never forget, there was a player before a coach, and a kid before a player…sports allow athletes to be kids longer.