Take me out to the ball game.
No, seriously.
Put a bat in my hand and let me go face to face with a ninety-five mile per hour fast ball.
Just don’t watch when I pee my pants.
I can’t hit a ninety-five mile per hour fast ball. Hell, I probably can’t even hit one at eighty. My body wasn’t “taught” how to locate and swing at objects flying at speeds undetectable by anyone with a midi-chlorian count less than 20,000.
WHERE WOULD YOU BEGIN?
If I had any ambition of hitting a fastball, I’d have to start slow. Very slow. And I’m not quite sure the “slow ball” is in the MLB repertoire.
To put things in perspective, however, most major leaguers probably started at the furthest end of “slow” with teeball.
Anytime you learn something new, it almost always happens slowly from a movement standpoint. Slow affords thinking time. Looking back to my barbell row woes, I find it no coincidence that isometric contractions were involved. You can focus on things better when there are no moving parts.
It’s not uncommon for rookie (albeit advanced in the grand scheme of things) baseball players to lose their swing. When it happens, they don’t resort to facing faster pitches to get back in the groove. Motor patterning and learning should start slow. And I’m not talking “slow and steady wins the race” kind of slow; I’m talking “slow so you can think about what the hell you’re doing” slow.
When you’re up against something unpredictable that requires a fast reaction, the end result is all instincts. There’s no thinking involved. Stuff just happens.
Teeball eliminates the complicated variable in the equation to foster learning. Kids at that level barely know how to swing, let alone swing at a ball with an unpredictable flight path fly by their face.
Once the swing—the more controllable variable—is learned, complexity is added. Speed of movement then gradually increases over time. So speed is the last step, really. Yet no one cares about the slow stuff.
“How can I use my glutes more on a vertical jump?”
Worry about how to use your glutes in something simple and slow before worrying about something complex or remotely fast.
This brings up an interesting learning curve:
- Simple slow.
- Fast simple.
- Slow fancy.
- Fast fancy.
HOW TO START MOTOR PROGRAMMING
If I were to measure up to the ninety-five hour fastball, I’d first learn how to swing like a baseball player. (My softball swing just wouldn’t cut it.) Yes, this would probably involve a tee.
Learning the “true” baseball swing is like activation work. It’s the relatively simple first step. At this point, it’s all about feel. To progress into faster, more complex movements you have to feel the movement.
Speed increases difficulty because it eliminates feel. There’s no time to think. Baseball players, golfers, javelin throwers—anyone that engages in a violent activity—get to a point where they don’t think. They just do. The moment they think, they lose. They rely on feel. But it’s not the same kind of feel that the beginning stages are focused on. There’s no “activation.” It’s all instinct. All unconscious feel.
The baseball swing is driven from the hips. But no baseball player thinks about “squeezing the glutes” or “firing the rotators.” Those cues are fine at the rudimentary level, but once you get to the fast fancy stuff, you don’t have control.
YOU CAN’T THINK WHEN THINGS ARE FAST
Thinking about much of anything ruins speed and pureness. Being “in the zone” is a complete lack of conscious thought. And being “in the zone” is never a bad thing.
Repatterning—hopefully—enables the potential for a “zone.” You want the slow and simple stuff to be “enough” for your body to use the same pathways without consciousness. It’s like moving to a new house and accidentally driving to your old house on your way home from work one day. It’s all about rpetition over time. And doing a few repetitions of activation exercises here and there won’t quite cut it.
“It takes 500 hours to invoke a motor pattern before it becomes unconscious. It takes 25-30 thousand reps to break a bad motor pattern.”
- Buddy Morris
WHY PATTERNING IS DIFFICULT
Few people enjoy hammering away continuous seconds and countless repetitions with basic movements day after day. There’s no tangible reward. Your biceps don’t grow. It takes a long time. It’s not glamorous. It’s tiresome. It’s really just not all that fun. But you need it.
Your body has been evolving and blossoming over your lifespan. Even if you’re only fourteen years old, that’s still fourteen years of “driving to the same house.” Think about:
- How many steps you’ve walked up in down in the past week. Now multiply that by 52. Now multiply that by your age.
- How many times you’ve gotten in and out of a car today. Now multiply that by 7. Now by 52. Now by your age.
- How many times you’ve squatted, deadlifted, or done any kind of exercising.
- How many times you’ve played a sport.
- How many hours you’ve sat watching television.
It adds up.
Perhaps the saddest part is that patterning doesn’t hold forever. Major league baseball players sometimes get sent down to the minors to “find their swing.” These are guys have been playing ball since they were five, and they still lose their patterning.
The minor league slows everything down. The competition isn’t as good. Pitches don’t come as fast. There’s more time to think.
It’s like starting over.
Even more surprising than losing a swing is how much work it takes to maintain one. Considering that baseball players take batting practice before every game, and there are 162 games every season, they’re hacking at the ball a lot. So even at the highest level, it takes daily work to keep consistent with a craft.
WHAT WE CAN ASSUME ABOUT PATTERNING
We can learn a lot from baseball players about learning skills, specifically learning motor patterns:
- The process starts with conscious thought.
- The process starts slow.
- The goal is primarily to do slow things so much that they become as mundane and “regular” as driving to your house.
- You don’t have a say in fast. Fast is fast. Fat happens from accumulating slow and hoping for the best.
- Regression is normal and manageable.
- Upon regression, dial down the speed and seek simplicity.
- It takes a lot of work to maintain what you have. You’re never quite “home free.”
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I’ve done enough talking. How would YOU incorporate this information into fixing up a barbell row? Increasing athleticism? Powering a squat from the glutes?
Be sure to check back next week for an actual sample of how I would reprogram the glutes. Afraid of missing it? Sign-up to my newsletter by throwing your name/e-mail in either the box below this post or at the box at top of the screen. Only the good stuff hits your inbox. I promise.
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photo credit: Patrick Hoesly
Another timely article, Anthony. Want to talk ‘Motor Patterning’? How about ‘Re-Motor Programming?
For me, I’m fortunate enough to have established a sound base in two of the most (skill) demanding movements in strength sports, the snatch and the clean and jerk. Regarding your primary point and the importance of an almost systematic strategy or progression in motor programming…amen to that! Your example of the baseball player, particularly with respect to the swing is as you suggest, analogous to a number of athletic movements; ones demanding an absolute commitment to functional, sport specific, motor programming.
I can’t tell you how many wanna-be Olympic lifters I’ve seen who through no fault of their own, have acquired terrible ‘motor patterns’, mainly thanks to rushed instructions that are commonly dolled out in large group settings and by instructors that in some instances, have no business instructing (Olympic lifting). Talk about having to unlearn AND then relearn skills; who’s got that kind of time or patience for that matter?
Brute force and raw strength can only get you so far in when it comes to the snatch in particular. Didn’t take the (slow) time learn and feel the ‘motor patterns’ involved in that one? Good luck with that wall that’s not too far off in the future. It’s as much finesse, timing and absolute speed when talking about a (relatively heavy) snatch with brute force and raw strength both taking a back seat. It may look simple and easy to perform correctly to some but for those who have mastered the lift, they know its far from pedestrian as its complexity demands a proper programming or as you discuss here, patterning.
Awesome reply here, Daluke. Thanks for your insights. Appreciate them as always, and feel for your snatch example.
Great article, Anthony. Currently, i’m reprogramming my squats and it sucks. I even had to do it for my barbell glute bridge some time ago. Your article served a great reminder to me because I was starting to get off track with my squat reprogramming. Thankfully, it’s one of those cases of regression, but I did “have it” once and I will get it .
For the glute bridge, I found a posterior pelvic tilt at a low weight with slow reps and isometric contractions at the top really helped. For squats, and I’ll be doing this soon, I’ve
light weight with a band wrapped around the legs may help since it wants to internally
rotate and adduct the legs so the external rotators really fire.
Thanks for the reply, Matt. I’m personally not a fan of the band around the legs in a squat, but good luck!
Hi Anthony, timely article. Just came back from my physical therapist, who told me AGAIN that my back pain came back because my glutes, especially the right one is not firing. Here I am a frickin’ trainer who goes around getting people to work on their movement patterns first and I forgot that motor reprogramming takes a long time to take root. So its back to glute strengthening….
Well diagnosis one’s own problems is perhaps the most difficult of all. We tend to think we play by different rules.
I’m (once again) teaching myself how to power clean like a boss. This time I think some of the glute programming stuff i applied since your first post on it on your old blog long ago, has helped a lot. I just had the idea of trying to power a pistol squat through the glutes. Should be interesting. Also I really liked the upper chest programming stuff, can’t say I committed to it fully, but the small changes I made did feel like they had noticeable effect.
Awesome. Good stuff. Good luck on your power cleaning.
Nice article. It’s really digestible. It actually makes me think back to this Japanese game I would play. It was a brawler type game and I always found it curious how fast and automatic my actions were. I’ve played thousands of 15 minute matches with tons of characters, so I can see the nature of the topic somewhat. Here’s a link if you’re interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ixn_YxNKzs&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Oh and good to know I’m not the odd man out when it comes to the motor programming. I thought it was just me because I don’t look forward to it much!
I wonder how this applies to tricking. Drilling set-ups perhaps? Skillzat always encouraged drilling set-ups in his guides. It worked wonders for the butterfly set-up.
Just drilling in general, I think. The more repetition — provided it’s good repetition — the better.
To support your baseball approach, I select my favorite Baseball player of all time..Ken Griffey Jr… Why? He was a program based off of the tee. Programmed and reprogrammed over and over on a tee until his swing felt correct. After your 10,000 hours, You see the results one can achieve. Hall of Fame, ANTI-steroid major league Baseball player. I feel that I own a similar baseball field picture. oh thats right.
Good old 10,000 hour rule, eh?
thanks for great article. i can really relate to losing patterning playing bball. despite shooting 500 shots a day in season, form can regress. my tendancy is to speed up and this causes pressure and more and more misses. its almost too simple to be true but to slow down and keep it simple makes a lot of since.
andrew
Thanks, Andrew. Yeah, it can be paralleled in many ways.
I was doing some patterning this evening. What works well for me is a glute bridge with no weight, my feet slightly further out than normal (out from the hips), and my toes pointed towards the sky. I focus on a slow squeeze into a maximum contraction for 2-3 reps. I can still feel it an hour or so later.
Great article!
Yeah, those work great. You just have to make sure you transition it into upright movement at some point.
Hi Anthony
…great insight…
…good piece…
Wonderful article
This can be applied to so many areas of our lives…learning the guitar is what i can think of at the moment…you start by strumming the same chord umpteen number of times till it becomes ‘second nature’. Then you work on simple transitions, then string together a complete song
Kindred spirits, AM, I really like the way you look under the rock!
This post reminded me of this offering from Dan John:
“Here’s the million-dollar key to learning movements in the gym: Let the body teach the body what to do. Try to keep your brain out of it! Over-thinking a movement often leads to problems. Allow the elbows to glide down by touching the inner knees and good things will happen.
The more an athlete thinks, the more the athlete can find ways to screw things up. Don’t believe me? Join a basketball team and get into a crucial situation. Shoot a one-and-one with three seconds to go, down by two points, and get back to me later if you decided thinking was a good idea.”
I think he’s on to something! Lately I have been watching the Olympics and weightlifting. I can almost tell whether an athlete is going to nail the lift, or at least perform it in a technically sound manner, just by the way they approach the bar. It is almost like they are walking into their own instant replay of the successful lift that they just performed.
I have also noticed this when I watch pressurized field goal situations in American football. As the kicker sets up, if they are moving smoothly and precisely, their chances are good. If they are moving mechanically, and seemingly running through a checklist in their brain, step by step, I start sensing a miss.
Closer to home regarding my own muscle patterns. Sometimes when I am having a hard time getting into a squat groove..I just immediately do 10 full flexion explosive frog jumps, one into the other, like a panicky frog with a snake chasing it.
I just bypassed my pesky, over-thinking brain, and went straight to the CNS, and now when I squat it is smooth and effortless. I think it’s because the slowly learned correct groove is already in the computer, and I just had to quickly find it behind the other faulty patterns which still exist on the hard drive.
Great article!
Awesome insight, Derrick. Thanks for the reply!