Understanding Muscle Memory: Part 1

[don_budge]

Another specific point to work on with the backhand is the point of contact where the racquet meets the ball. One thing about the cone...I forgot but I am certain that you know. After every shot she has to go around the cone and immediately get ready for the next ball.

[stotty]

And self-practice and self-correction with some guidance may be the most underrated aspect of tennis.

Spot on. Coaches can point students in the right direction and hopefully coax out good things but, ultimately, the player makes him or herself. It comes down to hard work, determination, and love of the game to succeed. Love of the game should be the biggest motive.

[don_budge]

Yesterday, my daughter complained that everyone hits to her one handed backhand and that her backhand is the slowest. She told me she wanted to hit hand fed backhands and then she proceeded to rip them one after the other. I offered a little advice about how to bring them in.

90 backhands in about 20 minutes. Next time I will try again and then mix in a little free hitting to get her to adapt her footwork so that she can hit it in her strike zone as much as possible.

But her main intent was to no longer have the slowest backhand on the court.

Competition is a motivator but self-competition may be the biggest.

And self-practice and self-correction with some guidance may be the most underrated aspect of tennis.

In the end it is going to be all about her. You will have to ease yourself out of the equation because, the word somehow escaped you in the post, of self-motivation. If she can get herself so motivated as to go practice against a wall with the intent of purposely knocking it down with backhands in a years time. Now you have something.

Specifically, with your assistance. Set a cone in the middle of the baseline and make her move to the backhand and the focus is on how she sets her feet. Maybe in two or three positions. But at first have her set her feet so that the rear foot toe is in line with the front foot instep. Very specific. Start slowly in sets of five balls. Be really over the top in paying attention to the position of the feet. Work up the number of reps. Increase the speed. One hundred balls.

Same drill now focus on the rear end. Get your ass in position I implore the student. Sit down a bit and drive into the shot with the legs. Same repetition model.

Now...same drill but with the focus on the shoulder turn and setting of the racquet in the backswing. Same fastidiousness attention to detail. At the same time the feet are to work as in the drill before. Three fundamental positions for hitting a powerful backhand.

Now go to the original drill of just hitting backhands after drilling on the three specifics. Feel free to throw in your own hot spots. Don't forget the knifing slice backhand. It is not always about out-ripping your opponent. Try out thinking.

Practice until the cows come home. Tell her to focus on a years timeline. The backhand is not going to match the others overnight. Tilden talks of the courage to looking a year ahead to when the changes are going to be set in stone. Most of all...good luck and keep up the good work. Don't let the other guy...or gal...outwork you.

[arturohernandez]

Linear Algebra...Maximisation and Minimisation
The need for thoughtful and intelligent practice is as important an aspect as there is for the student. Maybe the most important of all. As Bill Tilden found out when he focused on improving his backhand so that he could overtake his chief rival in those golden years of sports. The point of taking a one hour lesson and how to break that down is an interesting one. What it should accomplish is to show the student how and what to work on in his own time. Let's face it...you can tell the student "you can do it!" as many times as you want but you cannot do it for them. So the student has to realize this too and understand that if the teacher gives you a one hour lesson that he needs to go out and work on that lesson until he has exhausted it. :

What a beautiful insight. Yes, a lesson is great but it is only to show us what we have to do on our own.

Yesterday, my daughter complained that everyone hits to her one handed backhand and that her backhand is the slowest. She told me she wanted to hit hand fed backhands and then she proceeded to rip them one after the other. I offered a little advice about how to bring them in.

90 backhands in about 20 minutes. Next time I will try again and then mix in a little free hitting to get her to adapt her footwork so that she can hit it in her strike zone as much as possible.

But her main intent was to no longer have the slowest backhand on the court.

Competition is a motivator but self-competition may be the biggest.

And self-practice and self-correction with some guidance may be the most underrated aspect of tennis.

[don_budge]

Linear Algebra...Maximisation and Minimisation

Let's discuss Archie Dan Smith's first article, "Understanding Muscle Memory: Part 1"

I have been following this discussion and have read your article a couple of times. This is a subject that I can really sink my teeth into at the present time and I have written on this in another thread. I am talking about resurrecting my golf game at the age of 65 after a ten year layoff.

I had only played a handful of times when I returned to my native Michigan and met my friend "The Ugly American" there. Three years ago I played a few rounds with him and played uncannily well on a couple of occasions and thought to myself..."this is an easy game". Big mistake. It always is to get too complacent. The next year back I played miserably and the rust was really showing. This year I started back on the trail with deadly earnest and even started working with a professional to begin to sort out my thoughts about just what the heck I was going to do in preparing to get over the ball and what to do once I was over it. I had to get organised in my brain. Again...I played rather well in spots.

Bill Tilden wrote a chapter on this subject back in or around 1925 in his epic book about the game of tennis called "Match Play and the Spin of the Ball". In this chapter he lays out the method in which he over the course of a winter transformed his comparatively weak predominately slice backhand into a offensive drive with topspin. This chapter has always made an impression on me much as your article is a sound initial volley on what it means to practice intelligently and with purpose. One can go at it willy-nilly I suppose but at a certain point in time one realizes that time is of the essence. Recently I met a 73 year old British fellow here in Sweden who is a two handicap so it leads me to believe that I have at least eight years in which to accomplish my goal of improving on my once two handicap and shooting my age. The sooner the better.

I have often written that I learned more about teaching tennis from playing and teaching golf then I did from playing tennis. That is because golf is very technique specific. The dependence upon a repeatable powerful swing in combination with deft touch on short balls makes the game a full spectrum of a variety of shots that must be practiced until they are etched in stone so to say. It's a lot of work.

So I read your stuff with great interest and would like to just offer a couple of things that I have learned in my "resurrection". First of all let me say that I never learned to play golf as a child. In fact I took my first golf lesson on my fortieth birthday. Learning a skill set like golf is a full plate when you are older and do not possess the skill athletically that you once did. You have to take a cerebral approach as well as philosophical. I must admit that I have a ton more golf books in my library than tennis books. So it was a real task to take up something so late in life for the first time and now to do it a second time is even more fascinating. The thing is...of course my body has eroded and in decline. But that is relative too. I am in quite good condition for my age so I have the luxury of a couple of things. Number one...I have the time. Number two...I have adequate resources even though it seems that I have to answer to my wife every time I make a golf related purchase. Number three...is the key, I am smarter and wiser. I have not only gained in experience but I am even more analytical the second time around as I try to devise ways to minimise my time and maximise my effort.

If I am going to for example hit 100 balls and am trying to work on the full swing for example. I try to break it down into four or five swing thoughts. Then in intervals I will try to work on a specific swing shot for five, ten or twenty balls. Then I will switch to the next swing thought for the same interval and so forth until I have practiced the swing concentrating on each individual thought. Thoughts might be set up position...which is a key in tennis as well. Foot placement. Backswing preparation as well as initialising the backswing might be another. Position at the top of the backswing is another key position in the golf swing...and the same can be said for tennis. After practising and exhausting the individual swing thoughts I try to practice with just one thought. Keying in on the one thought that seems to provide the biggest dividend in the swing. At the same time one can sort of be conscious of the other swing thoughts with each swing. The feedback is easier to interpret if you are aware of each individual nuance you have been working with. Then I start to work on the short game and dissect the little and smaller swing into various components and work on them in much the same fashion.

The need for thoughtful and intelligent practice is as important an aspect as there is for the student. Maybe the most important of all. As Bill Tilden found out when he focused on improving his backhand so that he could overtake his chief rival in those golden years of sports. The point of taking a one hour lesson and how to break that down is an interesting one. What it should accomplish is to show the student how and what to work on in his own time. Let's face it...you can tell the student "you can do it!" as many times as you want but you cannot do it for them. So the student has to realize this too and understand that if the teacher gives you a one hour lesson that he needs to go out and work on that lesson until he has exhausted it.

I say to myself..."nobody is going to outwork me". I mean it. I'm serious about it. When I make a purchase and the boss is giving me the third degree about it I am ready. I make a note of telling her how much I have worked at what I am doing. In this way I am getting the best bang for the buck. I have really enjoyed the conversation that your article motivated.

[arturohernandez]

Great stuff archiedan! Goes along with the “Talent Code” by Dan Coyle and his 10,000 reps theory to use neuroplasticity in the brain to lay down myelin to make new neural networks. So called “deep practice” requires enough reps to have the new myelin replace the old neural pathways. But, as you say, you have to hit and lock in CORRECT reps. However, correct feel and correct effectiveness don’t always match. If I want to lock in truly CORRECT strokes, then I think the most cost effective way is to get QUALITY feedback on my reps from a coach, videotape or a device that gives me speed/spin ratios on each rep while I practice. I can’t always tell when I hit a “heavy” groundstroke unless someone tells me which of my reps looked or felt heavy on their racket. So, .....quality feedback to get correct reps quicker and locked in on one stroke before moving to another stroke? Like Arturo, I have several mediocre strokes temporarily forced underground, just waiting to resurrect themselves during a point or game under pressure!

Mediocore strokes forced underground. Funny, because I think of it like PTSD. Literally, some event triggers a "traumatic" motor response.

I agree that lots of practice can help to lock in a stroke. But then circumstances can bring old "motor" memories back. The earliest learned skills are persistent. If they did not stick around, we would forget how to ride a bike or how to use a hammer. But as soon as we see one, our body knows exactly what to do with it.

One of my favorite articles by Dan Coyle appeared a while back in the NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/sports/playmagazine/04play-talent.html

There is a section in that article about a famous Russian coach, Larisa Preobrazhenskaya.

Her school of thought was around technique. She demanded perfect technique in her kids and started without a ball.

So I am wondering how we might incorporate visualization and off court stroke training. This can help to retrain a stroke with less exhaustion.

Extreme practice helps but I think it is most effective for a beginner. Once a stroke is established, it becomes harder to change and requires a longer horizon to get it to become automatic.

Then it requires retraining under pressure and in other circumstances. Eventually, we would use something like new environmental cues to help us keep the "new" stroke overground.

Is the "motor" memory extreme practice approach better for an entirely new stroke?

[ten1050]

Hello Dr. Smith,

This is an outstanding article on how to improve a person's tennis game by reconfiguring the brain. Your article reminded me of the PBS series "The Brain by David Eagleman." Eagleman did not like the term muscle memory, instead he described the act of skill improvement as brain reconfiguration. I believe, however, that both of you are saying essentially the same thing. That by intense deliberate practice one can improve any skill be it rock climbing or hitting a backhand down the line. After reading your article, I went out and hit 500 backhands down the line. I had never done this before. I sensed that if I were to do this 4 times a week for the next three weeks, I would see some real improvement. Thank you for this outstanding article, I am looking forward to reading your e-book.

Sincerely,

Norman Ashbrooke

[doctorhl]

Great stuff archiedan! Goes along with the “Talent Code” by Dan Coyle and his 10,000 reps theory to use neuroplasticity in the brain to lay down myelin to make new neural networks. So called “deep practice” requires enough reps to have the new myelin replace the old neural pathways. But, as you say, you have to hit and lock in CORRECT reps. However, correct feel and correct effectiveness don’t always match. If I want to lock in truly CORRECT strokes, then I think the most cost effective way is to get QUALITY feedback on my reps from a coach, videotape or a device that gives me speed/spin ratios on each rep while I practice. I can’t always tell when I hit a “heavy” groundstroke unless someone tells me which of my reps looked or felt heavy on their racket. So, .....quality feedback to get correct reps quicker and locked in on one stroke before moving to another stroke? Like Arturo, I have several mediocre strokes temporarily forced underground, just waiting to resurrect themselves during a point or game under pressure!

[arturohernandez]

Again, thank you for your interest!


Hopefully this helps to better understand my proposals. I might suggest to reread the article in this month’s issue. It should make more sense.



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I just did and it does! Make more sense. I am glad I came around. I look forward to reading the next one.

[archiedan]

Again, thank you for your interest!

In response to the above comment, I think you’re doing great in understanding the concepts I am making.

Note that although I plan to enable a free download of an electronic copy of my book in a few months, you can read more about my proposed Muscle Memory Practice (MMP) in ResearchGate. (Note: I could not get this to link correctly, but I will work on that.)

Although this Muscle Memory summary in ResearchGate is a fairly comprehensive review (and technical and heavily referenced), my book (“Muscle Memory and Imagery: Better Tennis”) has other material that should be of interest and useful to improve your tennis game (IMHO) to any level of tennis player.

A few points below:

1. Interference and decay - I considered “Decay” as something that happens over the long term. I think of “Interference” as a very short-term ‘thing’. In trying to learn a new skill and/or in refining an existing skill, interference is the thing to worry about.

2. Old muscle memory paths do not go away, so you must form new paths that become the ‘preferred’ paths. This happens through consolidation (really equates with establishing muscle memory). So the questions are how to maximize consolidation in the most efficient/fastest manner, and one that leads to permanent results? I review this in detail in the book. What we all want, are “permanent results” after we improve, especially if the ‘effort’ of meaningful improvement only took a couple of weeks of about an hour a day (4-5 times in a week) for a single period of 2-3 weeks. Is there evidence to support this? Yes! It has been found that additional training after improvement occurs leads to better long term retention. Imagine around 8-10 hours (over two weeks, or better yet 12-15 hours spread out over 3 weeks - see book for details) leading to long term meaningful improvement in you tennis game for months to years!

3. Consistent with the article in this month’s “Tennisplayer”, you must continue hitting after the improvement occurs because additional training that has little effect on performance can lead to substantial improvements in long-term retention. In other words, like the example of 250 shots in the article, repetition by hitting it right is how you increase the odds of hitting better (your ‘better shot’) during the match. The more ‘hitting it right’, the less the odds of hitting it poorly (it really does seem like common sense after you think about it), and the longer it stays with you. One of my favorite quotes from the book is
Don’t practice until you hit it right
Practice until you can’t hit it wrong!
Then, as per my proposed muscle memory theory, after you are hitting the ‘better’ improved shot, keep hitting it another several days so it stays with you for months or years



4. Has anyone used this ‘stuff’? Well it certainly helped me quickly. I had seemed to stall out with taking lessons, going to clinics, hitting against ball machine, and playing 3-4 times a week. The usual routine to improve just did not seem to be getting me anywhere. But MMP changed, that and I got meaningfully better. Also, I have been emailed and messaged from some others who have really tested my hypothesis. It seems to work well! Hopefully the details will follow in a future article. However, having said that, I must note that a few anecdotal reports means nothing scientifically, but it is certainly something to seriously thoughtfully consider. Hopefully the future will bring some real studies to test my proposals.

5. I did read the “Mechanics and Magicians” article. It is absolutely GREAT! Me, I have to take a “Mechanic” approach because I am so severely lacking in genetic athletic ability (literally the bottom 5%), small size, slow, old, etc.

6. Think again about the 250 strokes example from this month’s article. Now think about the usual tennis lesson or practice (whether club player or pro). The usual routine is 15 minutes for forehands, then 15 minutes for backhands, then 15 minutes of volleys, then 15 minutes for serves. Then maybe mix it up (yes ‘variable practice’ works - results over the years have proven this). However, thinking in terms of muscle memory, what have you really accomplished? Yes you probably did hit a few ‘better than normal’ shots, but mostly you probably reinforced your ‘usual’ shots (the ones you are trying to improve). If only, say 15%, of your practice shots are ‘better than usual’, and the rest are poor to mediocre, then how likely are you to hit better in the tournament match tomorrow??? Again, it just seems like common sense. Further, if you read the research about muscle memory, you realize there may be a better way to “Better Tennis”!

A question I propose from the book: Question to ask every practice…If you practice to improve, after every practice, ask yourself this:

Did I merely reinforce my existing muscle memory for my usual mediocre shot?
Or
Did my practice further improve my muscle memory for the better shot?


Hopefully this helps to better understand my proposals. I might suggest to reread the article in this month’s issue. It should make more sense.



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[arturohernandez]

Thank you for the kind comments. A few points on my proposed, Muscle Memory Practice (MMP):

1. MMP includes any change of technique you are trying to make. That is why one of the reasons for lessons from a pro (and video) are so important
2. MMP includes “Deliberate practice” - It especially requires challenging yourself. That is, strive for what you cannot consistently perform. You must practice a skill at a more challenging level, whether it is more spin, more angled, more power, etc, all with more accuracy. This also ‘helps’ remove the possible element of boredom from hitting against a ball machine or receiving feeds from the coach.
3. MMP requires repetition, but what kind of repetition or practice? Variable? Massed? Distributed? Actually it includes all this, especially “Massed” AND “Distributed”! It is “massed” practice over a brief brief time period of 2-3 weeks (three weeks is best but I strongly believe you will see changes after 1 1/2 weeks if you follow the prescribed approach).
4. Remember, if you learn or even practice two patterns back to back that it may cause you to forget the first. Yes there is literature to support this. It is key! (See next month’s article). That would include not ‘hitting around’ after practice or playing a match that night (yes, difficult I know but try for at least 1 1/2 weeks and see if you become a believer). This is one reason why so many people find tennis lessons don't result in real change, and struggle with changing their technique or shots
5. MMP is also “Learner-adapted practice”. In this, practice changes as a result of performance outcomes (something all coaches do but literature seldom addresses). This means that learning can be optimized by adapting task difficulty to the player’s consistency (but first get consistency). For example, if one can hit at least 2-3 sets of 20 (or 15 etc) FH CC in a row from a ball machine feed of 100 balls on a consistent basis, then the pro needs to make the practice more difficult by moving the targets to a more angled cross court, or more power, or spin, or hitting a slower/faster fed ball, approach and hit a ball in mid-court, etc. But importantly, ALL ON ONLY THE CROSS COURT FH.

FREE!!!

Although I would like to become a millionaire in terms of book sales, I sincerely believe the message of my book is way more important than making a few dollars. Therefore, I will work out a future date with John Yandell to where you can download a FREE Ebook copy of my book. This can be arranged via Amazon Books. Note, I am not sure how well this works overseas.

Okay, I get it. So it is adhering to the idea of interference. The memory literature has a lot of work on decay vs. interference. Do memories fade with time or do they get written over by newly learned things? So what you suggest is that there is a form of interference between strokes when trying to make a change.

I think I understand and have worked a lot with this approach on my serve. There have been periods were I only serve with a basket and play no points.
As soon as I played points the old serve would come back. It took a long time for the serve to finally "resolve" itself.

So, is your idea that the old stroke is kind of built into the whole game? Almost as if every other shot "reminds" us of the forehand (in your example). If that is the case, then working just on that stroke will create a new memory. But my experience with the serve and the memory literature would suggest that we could get "flashbacks."

This is kind of the idea with PTSD. My sense is that establishing new muscle memory will still lead to occasional "butting in" of the old memory. Then we would have to reinitiate the exclusive cycle of one stroke.

Then back to mixing it up. Then back to exclusive practice.

Eventually, the flashback would get smaller and smaller.

Today, on my serve, I can feel it when I toss the ball. My serving arm will get stiff and then I will stop the serve. Then I have developed a set of physical cues to trigger the new serve. It is especially severe in tournaments or on game or set points. Here I literally loosen my arm completely and abandon control of my serve. It is a very odd feeling but if I abandon control of my serve, it is better. So I have a set of cues and feelings that help keep the new serve afloat.

But the old serve is in there lurking. It existed for more than ten years so it always wants to come back especially under stress when I want to guarantee that a second serve will go in. My trick is to hit a lot of spin and create an image of the serve being way above me head. My old serve had a falling elbow and was very tight and stiff.

Are those later steps passed the first stage you are describing?

I find this whole thing fascinating because it is literally as if my body has a mind of its own.

Any thoughts?

[archiedan]

Thank you for the kind comments. A few points on my proposed, Muscle Memory Practice (MMP):

1. MMP includes any change of technique you are trying to make. That is why one of the reasons for lessons from a pro (and video) are so important
2. MMP includes “Deliberate practice” - It especially requires challenging yourself. That is, strive for what you cannot consistently perform. You must practice a skill at a more challenging level, whether it is more spin, more angled, more power, etc, all with more accuracy. This also ‘helps’ remove the possible element of boredom from hitting against a ball machine or receiving feeds from the coach.
3. MMP requires repetition, but what kind of repetition or practice? Variable? Massed? Distributed? Actually it includes all this, especially “Massed” AND “Distributed”! It is “massed” practice over a brief brief time period of 2-3 weeks (three weeks is best but I strongly believe you will see changes after 1 1/2 weeks if you follow the prescribed approach).
4. Remember, if you learn or even practice two patterns back to back that it may cause you to forget the first. Yes there is literature to support this. It is key! (See next month’s article). That would include not ‘hitting around’ after practice or playing a match that night (yes, difficult I know but try for at least 1 1/2 weeks and see if you become a believer). This is one reason why so many people find tennis lessons don't result in real change, and struggle with changing their technique or shots
5. MMP is also “Learner-adapted practice”. In this, practice changes as a result of performance outcomes (something all coaches do but literature seldom addresses). This means that learning can be optimized by adapting task difficulty to the player’s consistency (but first get consistency). For example, if one can hit at least 2-3 sets of 20 (or 15 etc) FH CC in a row from a ball machine feed of 100 balls on a consistent basis, then the pro needs to make the practice more difficult by moving the targets to a more angled cross court, or more power, or spin, or hitting a slower/faster fed ball, approach and hit a ball in mid-court, etc. But importantly, ALL ON ONLY THE CROSS COURT FH.

FREE!!!

Although I would like to become a millionaire in terms of book sales, I sincerely believe the message of my book is way more important than making a few dollars. Therefore, I will work out a future date with John Yandell to where you can download a FREE Ebook copy of my book. This can be arranged via Amazon Books. Note, I am not sure how well this works overseas.

[arturohernandez]

Muscle memory is very tenacious. I have noticed I can do plenty of shadow swings, but the moment the environment changes and you are on the court in a game situation, the old muscle memory takes over.

Very true. I can feel that too. It’s almost like PTSD or dejavu. Suddenly out of nowhere a game situation will trigger it.

[don_budge]

Hi Arturo!
"Mechanics and Magicians"
Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

Magicians and Mechanics...

https://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/forum/tennisplayer/2411-understanding-mechanics-and-magicians

[gzhpcu]

Muscle memory is very tenacious. I have noticed I can do plenty of shadow swings, but the moment the environment changes and you are on the court in a game situation, the old muscle memory takes over.