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Muscle memory

dill2345

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Jun 5, 2008
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I'm having trouble with getting my muscles to memorize algorithms.
Any tips or help please?
 

blgentry

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The term "muscle memory" is a misnomer. Your muscles can't "remember" anything. The brain drives those processes.

What's going on is that your subconscious mind observes and learns what you are doing, so that eventually you will have to think very little about what you are doing. This is just a technicality, but I wanted to point it out, as I see a number of people using this term and seemingly believing that the muscles themselves do this.

That said, the general rule in sports psychology is that it takes 5 to 7 days for information to get to your subconscious. So what you were working on very hard, last week, is just now getting to where it needs to be. I suspect you are expecting things to happen faster than they should. Just keep practicing and it will become ingrained in your subconscious "muscle memory". IMHO, you need hundreds of repetitions to ingrain algorithms.

It's interesting, funny, and irritating all at the same time: I find that when I start thinking about my algorithms, I almost universally screw them up. If I just let them happen and concentrate on being precise, they work.

Brian.
 

Cesium

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Muscle memory is all about repetition. Practice algorithms alot and they will become auto ("muscle memory" is actually just performance without thought). Once you can perform the alg perfectly you will need to practice applying it to a situation as a seperate skill, which basically means solving alot of cubes.

So there is no trick or magic, just practice.

(I'm a physical therapist, motor learning (muscle memory) is my job)
 

pjk

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That said, the general rule in sports psychology is that it takes 5 to 7 days for information to get to your subconscious.
Doesn't that greatly depend on how much you do it? I find myself getting stuff into my "muscle memory" faster when I do it more. For example, if I want to learn a quick alg, I will do it like 15 times when I first learn it, take a couple hour break, do it 15 times more, take a break until I am ready to go to bed, do it 15 times more. Then by the time I wake up in the morning, it is into my muscle memory. I also find that when I get the alg in an actual solve, it helps speed up the "muscle memory" process.
 

Cesium

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That said, the general rule in sports psychology is that it takes 5 to 7 days for information to get to your subconscious.
Doesn't that greatly depend on how much you do it? I find myself getting stuff into my "muscle memory" faster when I do it more. For example, if I want to learn a quick alg, I will do it like 15 times when I first learn it, take a couple hour break, do it 15 times more, take a break until I am ready to go to bed, do it 15 times more. Then by the time I wake up in the morning, it is into my muscle memory. I also find that when I get the alg in an actual solve, it helps speed up the "muscle memory" process.

That 5-7 days stuff does not apply to learning movements. Psychology does not deal with physical movements.

A skill is never divided from the situation where it is needed so learning the move sequence is one part and quick recognition of where its needed is another. Thats why the situation (or trigger) helps the process, it triggers off the move sequence in the brain, reinforceing its value. A successful execution will enhance the memory of the move sequence because it has proven to be beneficial.

So your protocol of 15 reps divided up in the day, practice before sleep (best time for learning movements) and then coupling it with the actual solve would be considered best practice for quickly learning movements. You can do alot more then 15 though, the more the better at a time. They don't take long so 100 isn't really unrealistic.
 

blgentry

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@ pjk: I got that figure from a teacher in a billiards course that I took. He claimed great knowledge of sports psychology. His course materials were very sophisticated and he demonstrated an incredible knowledge of the techniques and theory of billiards. If you're familiar with the game, Allison Fischer uses his materials when she teaches courses.

@ Cesium: I disagree with your premise. Call it "performance psychology" if you prefer that term. Your mind is most certainly involved in all movements that your body makes, be it gross motor skills or fine motor skills. The conscious mind is not always involved, but the subconscious most certainly is.

Brian.
 

Cesium

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Psychology is not everything that happens in the brain. It takes less then5 days to get auto at an algorithm. There disproved your theory. Motor control (happens in the brain) does not equal psychology or else I can call myself a psychologist too.

I am not quoting third person.
 

Feanaro

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My muscles can "learn" moves as soon as I can do the algorithms blindfolded. I'll learn the move, practice it so it is fast, then repeat until I can do it without looking. So it takes about an hour. Then I just walk around the house doing the algorithm over and over.
 

blgentry

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@Cesium: I'm not going to get into a debate with you. Sports Psychology is a legitimate field of study and work. It's not a term I coined or made up.

My figure of 5 - 7 days is from my memory of my class. I might be mistaken: It could be less time. The main point is, it takes a significant amount of time for information to make it's way to your subconscious mind which is where all "automatic execution" comes from. So you can't expect "muscle memory" after a few hours. It's closer to "days" than hours.

Brian.
 

Cesium

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@Cesium: I'm not going to get into a debate with you. Sports Psychology is a legitimate field of study and work. It's not a term I coined or made up.

My figure of 5 - 7 days is from my memory of my class. I might be mistaken: It could be less time. The main point is, it takes a significant amount of time for information to make it's way to your subconscious mind which is where all "automatic execution" comes from. So you can't expect "muscle memory" after a few hours. It's closer to "days" than hours.

Brian.

Too late Brian, you are already in a debate. You can't just throw out a statement like that which is wrong and then expect to not debate it at all.

I don't question sports phsychology as a field of study, only your claims of it having something to do with learning movements, which it doesnt (directly).

You are not a sports psychologist. I am a physical therapist. My job is to teach people movements. I know what I'm saying, but in case you don't trust my word for it let me quote Motor Control by Shumway-cook and Wollacott.

Also, it seems everyone here thinks you can have algorithms in muscle memory within a day. That is ceratinly my experience and backed up by hard literature. I'll need a reference from you before we continue this debate.
 

blgentry

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I don't question sports phsychology as a field of study, only your claims of it having something to do with learning movements, which it doesnt (directly).

Well at least we agree on one point. But I think we're mincing words. Who cares what you call it. What do you think is responsible for "learning movements" ? Certainly you'd agree that the brain is involved. I hope you'd also agree that the subconscious is what's in control once those movements are "ingrained", "in muscle memory", "automatic", or whatever term you like.

If so, I'm not sure what we're arguing about.

You are not a sports psychologist. I am a physical therapist. My job is to teach people movements. I know what I'm saying, but in case you don't trust my word for it let me quote Motor Control by Shumway-cook and Wollacott.

If you want to quote something relevant about the time it takes to ingrain a physical movement, as we are discussing, I'd like to see it. If not, again, I don't know what we are "debating".

Also, it seems everyone here thinks you can have algorithms in muscle memory within a day. That is ceratinly my experience and backed up by hard literature. I'll need a reference from you before we continue this debate.

So you think a motion can be 100% "muscle memory" in 24 hours? You're right; I don't have any literature I can point to with time figures on this. Do you? But I must say, without seeing hard figures, I find it difficult to believe that one can learn something like a PLL, down to the subconscious level, in only a day. There's a difference between conscious, concentrated, high performance execution, and subconscious, non-concentrating, high performance execution. I'm sure you're aware of the difference.

Brian.
 

joey

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Umm.. I've learnt some algorithms withing several minutes. Then it has taken a little bit longer to get them 'fast', but thats because I look at different ways of execution.
 

Erik

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So I'm at school now and have nothing to do so I'm just posting (hopefully usefull) stuff
You can learn algorithms in a few number of ways.
1. move per move, very little connection and relation of those moves.
2. you only know the moves in their relation, this is what most cubers do. They have to execute the algorithm several times in order to be able to write it down after they've learned and used it.
3. what I do: you learn the algorithm in a matter of groups of moves. Like: first get out that pair, then do this fingertrick and then put that pair back in and connect this corner with that edge. This way you are able to write algorithms down, learn algorithms very quick and are able to execute them move for move, which is handy in feetsolving and such.
Enjoy.
 

vintage1800

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Jun 16, 2008
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The time taken for a motion to become instinctual is relative to the amount of repetitions completed whist focused. There have been scientific studies on this though the results have come out rather varied. The results vary between 1000 and 3000 repetitions in order for a movement to become purely instinctual. The beginnings of a habit can be formed within a little as 10 repetitions though. So somewhere between 10 and 3000, "muscle memory" starts to form and strengthens.
 
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