Why professional athletes need a prolonged period of warm-up and other peculiarities of human motor learning
Abstract
Professional athletes involved in sports that require the execution of fine motor skills must practice for a considerable length of time before competing in an event. Why is such practice necessary? Is it merely to warm-up the muscles, tendons, and ligaments, or does the athlete's sensorimotor network need to be constantly recalibrated? In this article, the authors present a point of view in which the human sensorimotor system is characterized by: (a) a high noise level and (b) a high learning rate at the synaptic level (which, because of the noise, does not equate to a high learning rate at the behavioral level). They argue that many heuristics of human skill learning, including the need for a prolonged period of warm-up in experts, follow from these assumptions.
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More complex neural network formulations of internal model learning can exhibit savings despite extensive washout.
“For example, more complex neural network formulations of internal model learning can exhibit savings despite extensive washout (Ajemian et al., 2010), owing to redundancies in how a particular internal model can be represented.”
From Rethinking motor learning and savings in adaptation paradigms: model-free memory for successful actions combines with internal models (2011) · cites this paper as Ajemian et al., 2010
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- Authors
- Ajemian, R., D’Ausilio, A., Moorman, H., & Bizzi, E.
- Affiliations
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research (US)
- Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Motor Behavior
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2010-01
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 381-388
- ISSN
- 0022-2895 (ISSN-L)
- 1940-1027
- OpenAlex
- W1968967114
- Semantic Scholar
- c35deeea262c68122539725867a449a7480b9938
- Cited by
- 61
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 2 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 0.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Motor Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Research Information System University of Ferrara (University of Ferrara) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Sport Psychology and Performance
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation › Sports and Physical Education Research
- Keywords
- motor learning, warm-up, professional athletes, sensorimotor system, synaptic noise, learning rate, skill acquisition, sensorimotor recalibration, fine motor skills
- MeSH terms
- Association Learning, Cerebral Cortex, Computer Simulation, Humans, Models, Neurological, Motor Skills, Movement, Muscles, Practice, Psychological, Psychomotor Performance, Systems Theory, Task Performance and Analysis, Athletic Performance, Athletes, Neurofeedback
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