We all know that in order to get better at
something you need to replicate it over and over again. Some experts have even
put a number of it and refer to 'the 1000 rep rule' when discussing skill
mastery.
I don't know whether the 1000 rep rule is in any
way accurate at all. I have neither counted nor have any intention of doing so,
but I suppose it demonstrates the point well enough. Doing anything 1000 times
is probably long enough to begin to engrain
the basic motor or cognitive skills necessary to repeat the same task
over and over again reliably.
Think back to a skill that you learned as a child.
A good example is riding a bike. You will have certainly fallen off a few times
(hopefully not 1000) before managing to get to grips with the balance required
to successfully stay upright for a meaningful amount of time.
The real problem is making sure you're practising
the right thing in the first place.
On one sunny afternoon during a PE lesson in
secondary school, I was told something that would make me look at learning in a
whole new light. The school had drafted in a chap who was in his late eighties
to coach us through an athletics session. Now, this would be absurd if it
wasn't for the fact that this particular octogenarian was a record breaking
senior sprinter! I've since heard the same teaching point thrown around a few
times but it never ceases to make me stop and think.
'Practise makes permanent'
It seems so simple a concept but is something that
I feel that we often overlook. When translated into a gym setting, these wise
words ring true in that the physical results that we achieve are a direct
product of what we practise.
Practise doesn't make perfect as we are never going
to achieve perfection. What we can be sure of is that whatever we practise will
become easily replicated and eventually a default setting. This is exactly what
we need if every rep of every set that we perform is executed precisely.
However, if we practise with the wrong technique I'm afraid that we'll just get
very good at doing things wrong.
Take a set of barbell squats, for example. Most of
us know by now that achieving full depth in the squat is essential in
maximising the benefits of the exercise, employing the musculature of the lower
body and back in a strong, balanced fashion. But what happens during the end of
most people's squat sets? Depth often becomes compromised and the last few
repetitions may hit 70% depth instead of the 100% for the preceding
repetitions. Do this for long enough and your body will be physically unable to
perform anything deeper than 70% depth for those last few reps because it hasn’t
been trained to do so.
Worse still is when a skill is performed
technically wrong, leading to faulty movement patterns that could increase the
incidence of injury. Again, the barbell squat can be used as an example.
Perhaps you've been squatting with incorrect foot position, breath timing or
barbell placement for a sustained period of time. You may have clocked up tens
of thousands of reps doing things this way. How easy do you think that would be
to rectify once you were made aware of the error of your ways? Well, you'll be
happy to hear that the boffins have come up with a number for that too.
Apparently you can expect to have to perform any given skill 3000 times to
remove a faulty technique.
The moral of the story here is to save yourself
time and just do things right from the very start!
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