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Dealing with stagnation. Who's more frustrated?
Help coach, I'm not getting any better!
Figure 1: Hypothetical 'Power Law of Practice' curve
Another concept that I, as a coach, have been aware of is the concept of diminishing returns. As athletes become more accomplished, and continue to work hard, their capacity to learn large amounts of new information decreases leaving the feeling that less learning is actually taking place. And, that performance follows suit. I have had to discuss with novice and intermediate level athletes why they seem to have reached a plateau in their development (advanced athletes, mine anyway, understand that they are reaching their full capacity). What I have come to learn is, that is a concept identified by Newell and Rosenbloom (1981) they call the power law of practice.
Basically stated, there is a direct correlation between the time necessary to learn a task and the number of trials devoted to learning said task.
For example, when teaching someone to throw a shot put for the first time, it is imperative that they learn how to set their feet correctly and how to hold the ball so they can maximize distance in the landing area. Then, they need to learn how to transfer energy through their body to get the most amount of power for the release. Finally, they need to learn how to recover so as to keep from performing an illegal move that would cause a foul, and subsequently receive no measurement.
In the beginning, while these movements will seem foreign and difficult to coordinate, the athlete will be able to see a fair amount of progress. We see this on the left side of Figure 1. And, the more they practice those positions, the easier they will become, in time. Once our thrower develops into a highly capable competitor with more and more practice, the amount of learning decreases, as does significant increases in performance, when everything else is equal (e.g.: physical stature, mental toughness, etc.). This would be seen more in the center and right side of Figure 1.
Newell and Rosenbloom (1981) go on to suggest that mechanisms exist that retard learning as an individual gets further from the onset of the initial instruction. They identify four types of "exhaustion" that can affect learning:
So, how does a coach offset the affects of learning exhaustion? Creatively breaking down foundational drills and implementing them logically in smaller chunks will allow the youth athlete to understand the process. Additionally, waiting for the proper execution of basic movements before introducing more advanced movements and drills, will afford a better ability to execute both basic and advanced movements in the short-term and long-term respectively.
Basically stated, there is a direct correlation between the time necessary to learn a task and the number of trials devoted to learning said task.
For example, when teaching someone to throw a shot put for the first time, it is imperative that they learn how to set their feet correctly and how to hold the ball so they can maximize distance in the landing area. Then, they need to learn how to transfer energy through their body to get the most amount of power for the release. Finally, they need to learn how to recover so as to keep from performing an illegal move that would cause a foul, and subsequently receive no measurement.
In the beginning, while these movements will seem foreign and difficult to coordinate, the athlete will be able to see a fair amount of progress. We see this on the left side of Figure 1. And, the more they practice those positions, the easier they will become, in time. Once our thrower develops into a highly capable competitor with more and more practice, the amount of learning decreases, as does significant increases in performance, when everything else is equal (e.g.: physical stature, mental toughness, etc.). This would be seen more in the center and right side of Figure 1.
Newell and Rosenbloom (1981) go on to suggest that mechanisms exist that retard learning as an individual gets further from the onset of the initial instruction. They identify four types of "exhaustion" that can affect learning:
- Search exhaustion- having fewer constructs available for instruction as each construct is employed. The use of each construct also takes time, slowing the learning process.
- Time exhaustion- incorporating more information into the learning process will further reduce the attempted-proficiency time available for all previous knowledge acquired.
- Effectiveness exhaustion- improvement strategies used early in the learning process may prove to be more effective than later in the process.
- Applicability exhaustion- incorrectly utilizing specific-purpose learning when a situation requires general purpose learning.
So, how does a coach offset the affects of learning exhaustion? Creatively breaking down foundational drills and implementing them logically in smaller chunks will allow the youth athlete to understand the process. Additionally, waiting for the proper execution of basic movements before introducing more advanced movements and drills, will afford a better ability to execute both basic and advanced movements in the short-term and long-term respectively.