Dr. Maraj presented information on Motor Behavior that is especially pertinent to the technical events of Track & Field from the beginning to the international level athlete and coach. He focused on what he described as the major emerging topics, those critical in coaches' development and coaching science (sport science), Motor Development, Motor Learning and Motor Control. All of these topics are included under the heading of Motor Behavior in sport and coaching science, and he urged that coaches must elevate their level of education, not just for a specific event, but in terms of the science of coaching - no matter what event area!
MOTOR BEHAVIOR
Within this discussion of Motor Behavior their are two important participants: the athlete and the coach, and both must improve their respective skills in relation to motor behavior. Athletes' skills include development, learning, control and acquisition. Coaching skills are important, but perhaps more important are thinking skills! There are several different areas within which a coach must be able to think and comprehend:
Areas of research have typically been independent and not directly related to practical situations or have not provided information for coaches. Therefore, we need more motor behavior - biomechanics - coaching science ties, and coaches must provide input to affect research in these areas. We do not need scientists simply telling coaches what to do! There is a great need for important questions from both sides. Coaches must be able to speak and understand the "language" of sport sciences in order to do this. Also, habit and tradition have often overshadowed coaching science improvements (i.e. coaches tend to do what they have always done or stick to what they learned when they began coaching).motor behavior
exercise physiology
sports psychology
biomechanics
coaching science!
Motor Behavior can be simply defined as the study of movement. It is an old discipline, but not one in the forefront for enhancing aspects of coaching. It includes the areas of:
Coaching books discuss motor learning, but the other two need clarification.motor development
motor learning
motor control
MOTOR DEVELOPMENT
Motor Development has been focused primarily on child development and historically understudied in terms of athletics. It is an important consideration for keeping children interested in the long term. Motor Development can be defined as, "continuous age related changes associated with movements from simple unorganized skills to complex motor actions." Motor Development data mainly comes from child research, but it is applicable to Track & Field skills in that novice athletes move from simple to complex movements in their development. The development of athletes refers to development of the body and the body's systems (a new area of research!). Think of all the systems necessary for even a simple task like running - control of musculature, Central Nervous System (CNS) control, and vestibular system (ear) control for balance. Athletes develop at different rates, and these systems act as rate controllers! An example would be that some infants walk at nine months and others at sixteen months; there are different rates of system development. This is vital to understand as a coach, because it is not just that they (infants or young athletes) are not capable of acting, but that their body systems may not be developed enough for certain skills to function at certain levels.
Theoretical Basis of Skill Development -
In development of skill levels, initially the understanding of the specific event and its skill demands is critical; as increased development occurs this is less important. That does not mean, however, that training and skill development should be focused on the specific demands of an event when youth are just beginning to learn about Track & Field. Researchers understand the nature of populations and their actions to be - on a theoretical level - that familiarity with many skills is much better for general long term skill development than getting familiar with only one skill - especially with young athletes! Developmentally, youth have more neuro-plascticity than later (this is the same with language). From a longitudinal study in Belgium, results showed that those identified early and tracked through rigid specialization did not develop into high skill level athletes later! Another important related issue is the need to keep young athletes involved in Track & Field. Enjoyment and a general understanding of the sport is key in retaining participation from youth at later age levels, when more developed skills can be realized with more developed systems. It is clear from studies and simple observation that the dropout rate in Track & Field and any sport is directly related to the level of fun! The more fun - the more athletes continue!
Practical Applications of Skill Development -
Coaches should encourage fun and basic development by utilizing a variety of running, jumping, and throwing exercises and games of a general and broad type. In terms of strength and jumping skills, athletes should use their own body weight for activities. Heavy weights and loaded jumping are detrimental to safe structural growth and development. At the end of the long bones are sensitive growth plates; if these are damaged during development, growth and development, as well as normal bone maturity, may be retarded.
In this respect, Body Scaling for events is also
critical. This means matching implements for the size of athletes, such
as lighter shots and discs for younger athletes, and lower hurdlers at closer
distances appropriate to athletes' sizes. Be creative and adjust and gradually
increase sizes and distance to allow for development. This will also make
it easier to avoid injury and discouragement. Coaches should key on development
of the body's systems for coordinated, integrated action - not all athletes
can be lumped together, but the challenge is to make it fair and balanced for
all while retaining basic features to allow for development.
MOTOR LEARNING
All body systems are developed and integrated into what we call "ability." Take the best looking form athlete; he or she still must learn to acquire new skills to go to the next level of refinement. Throws, jumps and hurdles are very skills oriented - so how do athletes come to acquire a skill? The answer lies in Motor Learning. Motor Learning is defined as, "a relatively permanent change in motor behavior as a result of practice or experience." This understanding of motor learning has been around for over a century, but it still resides mainly in academia and has not filtered much into the coaching community.
What factors allow you to teach an athlete to acquire a skill well? There are some important research-based ideas which comprise motor learning, including the theory of Stages of Learning (Fitts, 1964). There are three stages of learning in acquiring a new skill, and coaches must recognize what stage an athlete has achieved when constructing skill acquisition training.
Stages of Learning -
1. The Cognitive Level - The athlete is thinking about what has to be done when executing the skill, and the skill is characterized by very rigid, mechanical movement.
2. The Associative Level - In this level, the skill is less rigid and characterized by better integration of movement.
3. The Autonomous Level - The skill is virtually automatic at this stage, without thought or rigidity, and movement is fully integrated.
Thus, one way to look at the goal of skill acquisition is to think less!
Coaches can easily recognize these stages, but how can one influence them? One important factor is Practice Organization: the means by which one can facilitate this acquisition by the athlete.
Practice Organization -
Blocked practice vs. random practice produce different effects for skill acquisition and should be understood by coaches. Blocked practice means that you spend a certain block of time to practice Skill "A" for say, 100 times, skill "B" for 100 times, etc. Random practice means doing a few repetitions of Skill "A" , then a few of "B", then "C", then "A", etc. (varied circuits are an example of this - ed. note). When coaches randomize it, athletes retain the skill in a much better way! In theory, repetition of blocked skill takes over and cognitively the feedback is not as effective; to vary the skills in random fashion requires more cognitive and neuro-physiological feedback. Here is the most difficult part: even though the skill often looks better at the time of blocked practice, it is not learned as effectively or retained at that level for as long as it would through random practice (Shea and Morgan, 1979).
Part - Whole Approach -
There is a great deal of debate by coaches on whether to utilize a Whole skill approach to teaching skill acquisition, a Part method, or a combination of the two. Coaches must use their judgement for what is best. The throws and vault may be able to be broken down at times, but only with the understanding that full integration must be the eventual goal. In this respect, the Whole - Part - Whole method may work best. Coaches must remember an important rule of skill acquisition: The Specificity of Learning hypothesis states that one needs to practice under exact conditions of what must be done, so part learning may not be as pertinent to skill development! This is now being more rigorously tested in labs and field studies.
Feedback -
Feedback is information! Feedback is what are one gives back to athletes in terms of information, both during and after practice or competitions. This is the biggest travesty of the Motor Behavior field, when there is no information given to coaches to give back to athletes. What will coaches give them then! Feedback is very well researched in motor learning, but this is one area that has not come back to coaches.
There are many questions that are vital for coaches dealing with skill development. One obvious one is whether instant feedback will facilitate the learning of a skill? Intuitively one might say yes, but it is not that simple. How often should a coach give information? Research suggests that feedback on every trial is not as beneficial as feedback every four to five times (Schmidt, 1988)! The notion that more is better is not shown to be correct in lab skills. The reason is that athletes become dependent on information from coaches rather than relying on what they themselves are doing. Not only do they fail to learn their own bodies and intuition, but they become dependent on coaching feedback and cannot do it without it during competitions, when it may not be available!
How much information is necessary is another good question. The answer depends on the individual athlete, their understanding of the event, and avoidance of information overload. The biggest problem with feedback is that coaches have a hard time keeping their mouths shut! Human beings cannot interpret a large volume of information in a short period of time! With respect to this, simple cues are useful. However, when one focuses on one particular aspect, one can lose sight of other aspects of skill integration. The degree of feedback and use of specific or general cues becomes a subjective thing.
What kind of information is useful? This question cuts to the crux of coaching! There are two kinds of information: qualitative and quantitative.
Qualitative: This is descriptive feedback on the nature of the quality in the skill; even general qualitative feedback can be good. This type of feedback is related to:
This feedback can differ from the coaches meaning to the athletes understanding, and from athlete to athlete, so be aware.movement characteristics
form
fluidity
smoothness
efficiency
Quantitative: This is numeric or measurable or positional information of a specific or general nature. It relates to:
It is also important to give quantitative feedback in simple lingo for most athletes; a coach should avoid using information such as, "your angular acceleration was 10 radians per second squared!"force application - amount and direction
linear and angular acceleration
linear and angular velocity (not often available with any precision)
angle of takeoff
projection angles & incidence, etc.
How one puts all this together - the integration of feedback - is the key. This takes coaching to the next level! The ability to change athletes' motor behavior is a result of good integration of feedback, both qualitative to quantitative and quantitative to qualitative. How to translate this to the athlete is important so it is made meaningful in coaching situations.
MOTOR CONTROL
How does a coach deal with high level, skilled athletes who the coach wants to acquire even greater skill levels? This is done through Motor Control. Motor Control is defined as, "the mechanisms that give rise to coordination." This area has been researched as far back as the ancient Greeks. In modern times it has been limited in research to clinical populations. There are several factors in motor control, neuro-physiological and otherwise. Three areas that influence control and coordinative action are:
1. Degrees of Freedom - Whenever one moves, every joint in the body has certain planes about which they can move, for example shoulder variations in several planes. Degrees of freedom are defined as, "the number of planes about which any joint can move." This is vital to any understanding of coordinated movement. An athlete must limit degrees with respect to some highly coordinated skills. Bernstein asked how does one control the body when there are so many degrees of freedom for every joint? The answer comes with the concept of Freeing and Freezing Degrees of Freedom.Degrees of Freedom
Freeing and Freezing
Regulatory and Non-Regulatory Factors
2. Freeing Degrees of Freedom - If motion is desired in the sagittal plane, an athlete must free the joint to allow movement in the sagittal plane, but freeze the other planes of movement of that joint! This incorporates the principles of relaxation and tension in musculature - agonist and antagonist muscle groups. As an example, one can view a comparison of the form of different sprinters to look for those who successfully free and freeze degrees of freedom of joints by viewing stability of posture and the limbs! Coaches should look at pictures in the future from this point of view and make a determination of how successful freezing and freeing is in their athletes when they move!
3. Regulatory Factors - These can be defined as, "the physical factors that have a direct bearing on the physical performance of a skill." (Gentile, 1972) For example, arm carriage has a direct bearing in most events, as does the angle of the hip plane for posture in sprints, jumps and throws! Some major regulatory factors are:
What are the regulatory factors that govern an event and how are they best enhanced? That is the coaches' question and what coaches need to know! Coaches should know the technical aspects of their event, but should think of it in these terms of Motor Control, too.initiation of movement at start position
angle of release / takeoff
approach velocity / arm velocity in throws
posture or position at critical phases of event
4. Non-Regulatory Factors! As the performance level gets higher and higher, changes in regulatory factors will become very discreet, minute, and make tiny differences in performances, but non-regulatory factors need to be controlled, too. These are defined as, "factors outside of the physical performance which have an effect on performance!" (Gentile, 1972) For example, an athlete is ready, understands everything about the event and is prepared at the highest level. Everything is under control and then... IT HAPPENS! The weather is terrible, the crowd noise is distracting, the equipment fails or is different, the time schedule is changed at the last minute: all of these are factors that can affect performance. Even situational factors like fouls in jumps and throws or a hurdle flying into the lane affect performance in a non-regulatory way (they cannot be controlled!). Coaches must ask how specific non-regulatory factors affect performance parameters and avoid a sports psychology solution only. While all looks good for a long jumper, the velocity is down and foot placement is behind board, so what does a coach do to help an athlete before this situation arises, whether this is a regulatory problem with approach velocity or a non-regulatory problem with the track surface or a head wind.
Practical Applications of Motor Control -
Determine the effectiveness of drills in promoting coordination patterns seen in events (with non-regulatory factors built in to practice situations). Coaches must evaluate regulatory stimuli in practice and competitions, when working on skill development, and should use video and still frames to help with analysis (be careful with stills - they can be misleading unless the whole sequence is evaluated). Athletes also need to receive non-regulatory stimuli in practice sessions. This can be done by creating or utilizing non-regulatory situations such as different pit placement, practice in wet conditions, practice at different times of the day, approaches into the wind, hurdle runs and relay handoffs with other athletes in surrounding lanes, etc.
Vision and Kinesthesis are important aspects to learn how to control movements. Vision is obvious, but kinesthesis is more subtle, and means how athletes feel internally when performing a skill or movement. Vision and spatial relationships are closely related, and kinesthesis includes temporal relationships as well as directional feedback from the athlete's own body. "That did not feel right," is a statement that coaches need to deal with from athletes! An example of this application to skill development would be to have hurdlers perform standing hurdle drills with their eyes closed to focus on kinesthesis; in other words, get them to feel the movements.
Conclusion
Coaches must be equipped educationally and intellectually to deal with these issues of motor behavior and development, and coaches and scientists must be able to ask each other for and exchange information with ease in order to enhance our understanding of motor behavior. This is what will allow coaches and athletes to be more effective in their development.