While stimulating the brain cells over the discussion re age and VO2 max, I re read a lot of my neurology books and journal publications.
I will try to summarize some basics about motor learning, how it is stored.
Motor control is our ability to move in space.
Motor learning is the study of the acquisition and or modification of movement.
While motor control focuses on understanding the control of movement already acquired (learning swimming technique), motor learning focuses on understanding the acquisition or modification of movement (refining technique.) Motor learning involves more than motor process. It involves learning new strategies for sensing as well as moving (e.g. the feel of the water) Thus, like motor control, emerges from a complex of perception-cognition-action process. This process of motor learning can be described as the search for a task that emerges from the interaction of the individual with the task and the environment. Procedural learning refers to learning tasks that can be performed automatically. This develops slowly through repetition of an act over many trials, and is expressed through improved performance of the task that was practiced. During motor skill acquisition, repeating a movement continuously under varying circumstances (eg drills) would typically lead to procedural learning.
There are several theories related to Skilled Learning. Basically, after a person learns a movement 4 things are stored in memory. A) the initial movement conditions, such as position and amount of force, sequence of joints. B) the parameters used in the generalized motor program. C) the outcome of the movement in terms on knowledge of results and d) the sensory consequences of the movement.
There are several factors involved in the consideration of movement training.
1. Feed back. There are 2 kinds. A) Intrinsic e.g. coming from the sensory systems as a result of the normal production of movement. This includes visual information as to the accuracy of the movement, as well as somatosensory information concerning the position of the limbs as one is moving. The person is able to tell say a coach how this movement feels. B) Extrinsic feedback is when another person asks the person to adjust the movement.
2. Feed forward. This occurs at a different level in the brain. It is when a person can draw on a past motor memory to reproduce that movement. If you ask a person to move their arms like they were swinging a baseball bat, then if they have done that movement they will be able to feed forward and reproduce the movement.
3. The brain does not process in a linear hierarchical manner. Processing is serial, parallel and multi-modal
4. Aspects of movement are ‘hardwired’. Synergies are coded in the brain through the ‘hardwiring of the groups of neurons. This is how the brain controls multiple degrees of freedom of the joints rapidly and efficiently. Simply put, neurons that fore together, wire together. For example when a person has a stoke and needs to re learn how to walk, they can through the process of feed forward and the pathways and muscle memory areas draw on that to gain movement back.
5. All movement relies on the sensory information in a “feedback” and a “feed forward” way. Feed back is especially important for the learning of a new movement. Movements are coded in the nervous system related to context and task.
I have lots more including the differences between Kinesthesia, proprioception and body awareness all important in this learning process.
However I think that this helps to illustrate why a person who has learnt to swim and has achieved a good skill level by swimming as a young person has the ability to swim well as an adult. I agree that the conditioning and training effects may not be there, but with training this will return to a degree, perhaps not quite to the same level. But that depends on the individual.
The individual’s overall state of being influences the nervous system’s ability to learn.
That is why late bloomers can learn and train and achieve.
Just my thoughts!
I appreciate this discussion.
In triathlon we see that the corss over effects from other sports are generally limited but do exist.
Confining the experience to swimming; most of us are familiar with the idea that working on one's fly or backstroke will help the freestlye. Or breastroke or whatever. I also tend to believe that the benefit of many of our pool toys are in the kinesthetic awareness and proprioreception area. In the pull we have swimming with fists, sculling, paddles and normal sculling all included as part of many folks' workouts at some time or another. I think much of the benefit of these things is the presentation of new sensations. These new experiences seem to help us make better sense of the old ones.
You can say the same about the use of pull bouys, fins, drag suits, just about any piece of equipment we use. They all partially fall under a broad umbrella of what we can call motor learning. I went to a seminar recently that talked about this very issue.
The idea of how much we concentrate when working out reminds me of a recent article about associators (those who are intently aware of their bodies when competing and dissociators - those whose mind goes elsewhere. Some study showed that the triathletes at the highest levels tended to be associators - keenly aware of what is going on at all times.
In my own case, it changes by stroke! I'm an associator in freestyle, dissociator in backstroke and ***. Fly is kind of a different animal alltogether.
I am also not suprised to hear stories of young people trained in one sport good at anopther. But what that points to is a bit up in the air. Is it that they have trained in one sport or is it that they are good athletes with naturally high kinesthtic awareness and proprioreception. I don't know that answer but wouldn't be surprised to find out either way.
I appreciate this discussion.
In triathlon we see that the corss over effects from other sports are generally limited but do exist.
Confining the experience to swimming; most of us are familiar with the idea that working on one's fly or backstroke will help the freestlye. Or breastroke or whatever. I also tend to believe that the benefit of many of our pool toys are in the kinesthetic awareness and proprioreception area. In the pull we have swimming with fists, sculling, paddles and normal sculling all included as part of many folks' workouts at some time or another. I think much of the benefit of these things is the presentation of new sensations. These new experiences seem to help us make better sense of the old ones.
You can say the same about the use of pull bouys, fins, drag suits, just about any piece of equipment we use. They all partially fall under a broad umbrella of what we can call motor learning. I went to a seminar recently that talked about this very issue.
The idea of how much we concentrate when working out reminds me of a recent article about associators (those who are intently aware of their bodies when competing and dissociators - those whose mind goes elsewhere. Some study showed that the triathletes at the highest levels tended to be associators - keenly aware of what is going on at all times.
In my own case, it changes by stroke! I'm an associator in freestyle, dissociator in backstroke and ***. Fly is kind of a different animal alltogether.
I am also not suprised to hear stories of young people trained in one sport good at anopther. But what that points to is a bit up in the air. Is it that they have trained in one sport or is it that they are good athletes with naturally high kinesthtic awareness and proprioreception. I don't know that answer but wouldn't be surprised to find out either way.
