Tag Archive for: Motor Learning

James Marshall

Coaching across the spectrum of styles

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??There are many different styles of coaching. A coach might be direct, quiet, or use guided discovery. Coaches might be stronger with some styles than others and they may revert to that style by default. Athletes might learn better with a one style or another. And some tasks also demand a certain style: explaining where the fire exits are using a free exploration style before you start coaching a new group will simply waste time. A direct style is best suited for this. Where the style of the coach, athlete, and task line up match, good things can happen. Where they don’t, conflict or disappointment may result.

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Martin Bingisser

HMMR Podcast Episode 237: Attentional focus (with Kevin Becker)

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A succesful coach doesn’t just know the sport, they can communicate it. That often means helping athletes focus their attention in the right way on the right things. This is thought of as the art of coaching, but there is a science behind the art. Kevin Becker is a leading researcher in the area and our latest HMMR Classroom lesson explains the science of cueing, feedback, focus, and more. He joins this week’s podcast to give an introduction to the topic. Read more

Martin Bingisser

The value of controlled chaos

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Different types of coaches frame training in different ways. Skills coaches often think in terms of time: a 20-minute block spent on passing and 10-minutes on defensive positioning. Strength coaches, on the other hand, tend to frame training in sets and reps. Each frame has its place in training, but depending on the task one can be better than the other. Read more

Martin Bingisser

May 2020 in review: changing direction

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Few sports are played in one direction. How fast you can change direction and move in multiple directions is often the different maker. In May our site theme was changing direction and agility. We put together 1 new video, 2 podcasts, and 9 articles from 12 contributors exploring how athletes change direction, how to train for that, and more.

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Martin Bingisser

HMMR Podcast Episode 224: Anatomy of Agility (with Frans Bosch)

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Frans Bosch has made coaches rethink how how we approach strength and conditioning. Rather than thinking just about muscles and strength, strength and conditioning can be use to enhance motor learning and coordination. His new book on agility comes out in June and we had the chance to sit down with him to discuss the topic. We cover the role of perception in agility, intrinsic learning through sport, groups of attractors, strategies to strengthen cocontractions, and the role of classical strength training.
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Martin Bingisser

Training talk with Rob Gray

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If you want to learn about skill acquisition, Rob Gray is your guy. His day job is as Associate Professor of Human Systems Engineering at Arizona State University, with a focus on researching perceptual-motor control in sports, driving, and aviation. But in addition, his passion is spreading that knowledge outside of academia. His Perception & Action Podcast is on my favorites list and helps translate the latest research in the field easy to digest nuggets of wisdom that coaches can use in training. Read more

Nick Lumley

What coaches can learn from Frans Bosch’s Anatomy of Agility

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Frans Bosch’s upcoming book Anatomy of Agility: Movement Analysis in Sport is the most comprehensive text I have seen on human movement and the underlying biological systems that regulate it. It expands on Bosch’s previous book Strength Training and Coordination: An Integrative Approach and goes into a huge amount of detail to explain how complex dynamical systems theory applies to the regulation of change of direction in field sports. Below I hope to explain the key takeaways in the book, where I struggled, and how it will impact my own approach as a strength and conditioning coach. Read more

Martin Bingisser

Frans Bosch on intrinsic learning and understanding attractors

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Yesterday we posted the first part of an interview with Frans Bosch in anticipation of his new book coming out next week: Anatomy of Agility: Movement Analysis in Sport (available for preorder in the HMMR Store). In that part we looked at role of perception in agility, how to eliminate errors, developing independent athletes, and quantifying progress. Below we continue to the conversation by taking a look at a few different topics: attractors of agility, connecting training to context, and how this impacts other general training concepts. Read more

Martin Bingisser

Frans Bosch on agility, perception, and understanding errors

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Agree with his methods or not, few coaches have forced us to rethink how we prepare athletes as Frans Bosch has over the last five years. The publication of Strength Training and Coordination: An Integrative Approach started a conversation about how motor learning concepts can be brought into the weight room. Read more

Martin Bingisser

February 2020 in review: skill acquisition

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Throughout February we took a look at skill acquisition, motor learning, and teaching technique. Below you’ll find all of our new content on the topic, including highlights from our archive that give some more insight on the area. Read more