The Great Debate: Genes vs. Practice
What matters more: genetics or practice? Ryan Fell sheds some light on the great debate…
How your eyes get you in the zone
A basketball player hurriedly squares up a jump shot, a hockey goalie tracks an opponent careening towards them; a soccer player pounces on a loose ball—in all these and many more, “quiet eye” plays a significant role in the elite athletes’ ability to move in just the right way in relation to their environment. Quiet […]
How Important is Deliberate Practice?
Expert performance isn’t always explained by practice alone. But practice does matter. The question is, how much?
Could a Stress Ball Cure Choking? – The Science of Choking Part 2
Since a shift from right-to-left hemisphere brain activity causes athletes to become overly conscious of how they’re moving and thus to choke, maybe increasing brain activity in the right-hemisphere would hedge against this shift?…
Don’t think, move! – The Science of Choking
Athletes are often defined by singular moments. While it takes years of dedication to reach the Olympics or professional ranks, legacies often turn on a series of key chances to succeed…
Best Practice for Motor Imagery — a Review
We all know mental practice is important… but how do we get the most from it?
Choosing to Move, Moving to Learn
A simple, yet very effective strategy to enhance motor learning and performance: choices!
6 Facts Explaining Athletes Enhanced Action-Prediction
The old adage ‘skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been’ is more often used as a metaphor for business these days, but consider it literally and you’re left with a very tantalizing scientific question…
Practicing in your head works… but it’s different!
How is it that we can learn a movement skill without actually practicing it physically?
Pokémon Go: our Movement, our Future
You’re on the internet, so you’re aware of Pokémon Go. Quite simply, if aliens had been surveiling our cities’ by video only for the past 20 years, its release would cause them to go back to the drawing board trying to understand our movement patterns, and how they relate to the computers we carry around in our pockets…
Bad Practice? Good Work — You’re Probably Learning More Than You Think
One of the more surprising results from research on learning is that practicing in a way that makes you better today, doesn’t necessarily make you better tomorrow. In fact, you’ll learn more and retain what you’ve learnt longer if you practice in a way that causes more mistakes…
Getting a Feel For It
Your sink breaks on a holiday and you consult YouTube for help. You’re gathered around a TV with a group of friends, intently watching your favorite sports team. You’ve just started a retail job, and you watch intently as your supervisor demonstrates just how the register works.
What links these scenarios? In each—just beneath your conscious awareness—your brain is conducting what neuroscientists call a ‘motor simulation’ of the movements you’re observing
Why Study Movement?
Why study something so basic, like our ability to move? I’d argue it’s not just an esoteric curiosity of ours (though according to our about page, we may be a bit biased). That understanding our ability to control and learn movement is one of the most fundamental scientific questions of modern neuroscience…