hind brain vs. fore brain

In the weightlifting encyclopedia a similar topic is covered. The term used is overlearning. Drechsler recommmends that techniques be practiced, not just until the movement/ skill is learnt, and can be displayed with perfect technique, but should be practiced until overlearning takes place. This means that the movement is so ingrained that it can be repeated (with perfect technique) under even the most stressful situations, because it is automatic. I will post more details after I refer to the book.

Originally posted by Sharmer
DCW 23 , i would embarrassed too if i was arguing sprinting is a hindbrain activity.

You have not provided a structured critism of the view that i expressed, your response has no relevance to the proposition that i made.

I am not interesting in arguing with the absence of facts, as you are.

Goodluck !

I already provided this to you earlier.

“Careful analyses of the motor disturbances so induced led Flourens (1824; see Dow and Moruzzi 1958) to conclude that the cerebellum is neither an initiator nor an actuator, but instead serves as a coordinator of movements. An animal with a damaged cerebellum still initiates and executes movement, but only in a clumsy manner.”

In light of this, what role do you think the cerebellum plays with regard to sprinting and how do you think this role evolves?

DCW23 , your post doenst provide any evidence to suggest that sprinting is a hindbrain activity.

The cerebullum does have a role in co-ordinating movements, however it works in conjunction with the forebrain, where the primary motor cortex is.

I just addressed this question again with a neurophysiologist , and in summary the hindbrain works in conjunction with the forebrain which then sends neural impulses along the corticospinal tract.

Another issue is that the hindbrain has no direct connection with motor neurons.

Lets assume that sprinting is a hindbrain activity, given that the cerebullum has not direct connection with motor units, how will muscles recieve afferant nerve impulses?

As a example Charlie says concentrating on moving your hand at the start begins the process of a good start, so does this mean you use a forebrain activity to start a hindbrain activity?

Amos, the forebrain and the the hindbrain are not sperate systems. They work in conjunction, the hindbrain finds errors in movements and this information is sent to the forebrain>ascending corctiospinal tract>motor units.

Agree with me or not, you wan the shift to go that way if you want to be fast.

Clemson

The shift is not from fore to hindbrain activity, what does change with automated performance is the rates that information is exchanged. e.g the neural impulses between the forebrain and hindbrain travel much more faster, as do the nerve impulses ascending down the corticospinal tract.

How do you train for faster neural impulses in the brain?

I’ll get to that question later:

Jeez, I don’t know why I do this… but, here is a summary of the role of the Cerebellum:…

"In general terms, the function of the Cerebellum is; to compare intent and performance with regard to muscular activity and movement; to ensure that the movement is accurate and coordinated; and moves with appropriate force and direction. It operates entirely at a subconscious level.

Error Control
By comparing intent and performance, the Cerebellum ensures that a movement goes where it is supposed to go, at a proper rate and with a force appropriate to the resistance being overcome. Such an action usually involves initial strong contraction of one set of muscles and subsequent contraction of Antagonist Muscles to control the movement.

…the Purkinje Cells exert a waxing and waning inhibitory effect on the Deep Nuclei that have been excited by Cerebral Cortical and Peripheral information and in this manner refine and control the movement.

Damping
Most body movements are pendular in nature, with a movement in one direction opposed by a force applied in the opposite direction. There is thus a tendency for a back and forth motion to occur, called Tremor. The Cerebellum cancels or damps this tendency, for smooth movements.

Prediction
By comparing information received from Eyes, body parts and Cerebrum, the Cerebellum calculates when a motion should be slowed and ultimately stopped.

Progression
If a movement is to be accurate and purposeful, particular groups of muscles must be made to contract in a particular order. This function, called Progression, is also handled by the Cerebellum. "

What I found very interesting was a recent study by Ashe that found that the cerebellum doesn’t actually contribute to learning basic motor skills, rather it works to refine the performance of a skill. Think about how this relates to sprint training and increased performance. Think of how this relates to us terming sprinting as a “hind brain activity”. Yes, its colloquial, but its termed that way so that Joe Average can differentiate the aquisition of a basic skill and contrast is to the mechanism used in perfecting a skill. Bringing this back to its most simplistic (and dare I say relevant) level, we are illustating the subconcious nature of high performance sprinting. Basically, if you are thinking about it, your cerebellum is not doing its job and your motor cortex is not sharing its workload.

Originally posted by Sharmer

The cerebullum does have a role in co-ordinating movements, however it works in conjunction with the forebrain, where the primary motor cortex is.

I just addressed this question again with a neurophysiologist , and in summary the hindbrain works in conjunction with the forebrain which then sends neural impulses along the corticospinal tract.

Another issue is that the hindbrain has no direct connection with motor neurons.

Lets assume that sprinting is a hindbrain activity, given that the cerebullum has not direct connection with motor units, how will muscles recieve afferant nerve impulses?

It would seem that there is a simbiotic relationship between the hindbrain and forebrain.

Sharmer, do you have any articles or links on this subject?

Sorry scarface, i dont have any PDF files or full text articles on the neurophysiology of motor learning. My understanding of the somatosensory system came from a unit of motor learning i did when doing undergraduate physiology:

When i find those course notes, i’ll provide you with a referance list which should direct you in the right area.

"Error Control
By comparing intent and performance, the Cerebellum ensures that a movement goes where it is supposed to go, at a proper rate and with a force appropriate to the resistance being overcome. Such an action usually involves initial strong contraction of one set of muscles and subsequent contraction of Antagonist Muscles to control the movement. " DCW23

The above statement is open to debate with strong counter arguements however since we trying to have a applied knowledge of the theory i wont follow that path.

Lets go back to a more pertinent question: the role of the cerebellum in improving sprinting: is faster sprinting associated with higher activity in the hindbrain; i dont think this is a question we can answer on the basis technology doesnt allow us to measure the firing patterns of neurons in the brain during sprinting.

I think the most relevant question to this discussion board is what characterises automated performance verse the cogitive performance .eg Joe average verse Carl Lewis.

Common sense and research coincide with this; a criteria for automated performance is high consistency and the skill itself is peformaned with little or no conscious effort. In contrast Joe average ( beginer) is inconsistant and has a focus is on what to do.

Most athletes would be in the middle stage, the motor stage or associative stage. Where the emphasis is on how to do the skill.

If the ultimate goal is automated performance then the question must be arised why is most coaching based on conscious thought or the motor stage of learning. ??

I did review early research from 1932 to current on the essential components of motor learning. In brief, the best advise i could give is not to over coach on the basis that excessive verbal instruction can undermine learning.

Essentially if you want a automated performance then training practises should be based on the same premiss.
This means that verbal instruction if feasible should be avoided, most of the feedback relating to performance is generated within the individuals from of their own error detection.

In practise, if a athlete can hit the exact goals of the practise then they should be close to automated performance. eg if the goal is to hit the following times in practise 11.0 in the 100m , 22.6 in the 200, 34.8 in the 300m. And if, these times can be achieved close to the exact tenth, then the performaner should be able to reproduce automated competition performance on the basis that their retrievel of the motor plan is very strong.

The emphasis is eliminating conscious effort…usually that will create errors such as bruny’s run in 1999.

Originally posted by Sharmer
Sorry scarface, i dont have any PDF files or full text articles on the neurophysiology of motor learning. My understanding of the somatosensory system came from a unit of motor learning i did when doing undergraduate physiology:

When i find those course notes, i’ll provide you with a referance list which should direct you in the right area.

Ok…Thanks!

Originally posted by Sharmer
Essentially if you want a automated performance then training practises should be based on the same premiss.
This means that verbal instruction if feasible should be avoided, most of the feedback relating to performance is generated within the individuals from of their own error detection.

Change “avoided” to minimised and I think you are starting to understand what we are talking about.

No disrespect Sharmer, but is English your second language? I know from experience how hard it is to fully comprehend translated texts. I also work with many people with English as their second language and understand that the English language is particularly difficult because there are so many words that mean “almost” the same thing but, depending on their context can mean the opposite. I am wondering if this may be what is happening on the forum with you?

DCW,
I have a test for you that will clear this whole thing up…
(1) Go out on the track
(2) see if you can still run
if you can then sprinting “must be hind brain” as you forebrain will have been destroyed from banging your head against the brick wall that is Sharmers thought process.
AJ:P

aj, your a comedian :clap: well done

DCW23, most of my posts are not based on texts, since they are interpretation of research.

A mis-interpretation of the posts i have made is not the issue. I think the real issue, is a confrontation of the core beliefs that many hold that are clearly contradicted by current science.

Hey, if we all were all to scrutinise the use of grammar on here then we would never be able to get a point across. I will admit that i do use short hand like most scientist and this may be overkill for some readers, in order to resolve i will use try be more detailed with my responses. And hopefully we will all be on the same page then.

In terms of using the word " avoided" , i intentionally used this word. The two statements are listed below.

verbal instruction should be avoided, if feasible

verbal instruction should be minimised, if feasble

Statement one is distinct from the second. In the first statement it is clear that verbal instruction should not occur, whilst in statement two, the argument allows for flexibility with the use of verbal instruction.

However that was not the point that i was trying to convey. I will state it again. Verbal instruction does pose numerous potential problems to the learner which delays motor learning. Research carried out on the relative effectiveness of instruction, shows that verbal instruction presents two certain problems.

  1. words are relatively crude, imprecice way of describing the subtle aspects of movement.

  2. the learners attentional demands are exceed with verbal instruction.

There are no sure answers on how to teach a skill, only options, 1) verbal instruction, 2) modeling or observational learning. The later is much better option

Originally posted by Sharmer

  1. words are relatively crude,

Only when used by you Sharmer :smiley:

Crude in the sense they do not convey meaningful instruction to a learner.

Not all athletes think and learn the same. I have read a little about NLP (neural linguistsic programming) and believe that if a coach has a basic understanding of NLP he/she can increase their coaching efficiency, or speed up the learning curve of the athlete. How does each person process information? Are they visual, verbal, tactile?

Carson can you give more info on neural linguistsic programming?

Originally posted by Sharmer
Crude in the sense they do not convey meaningful instruction to a learner.

Vic,

I was taking the piss. Steady on.

Amos,

I learned about it in a coaching context from one of Ian King´s books, I believe it was `how to teach strength training exercises´.

There are tons of books out there dealing with NLP. Sales people try to use it as well. Many try to abuse it.

Do an internet search.