I use the study* this picture comes from a lot in my work. Basically participants in the study had the brain region responsible for finger muscle control scanned and then: group 1 did nothing, group 2 practiced playing a simple 5 finger piece of music on the piano for 2 hours a day for five days and group 3 *thought* about playing the same piece of music on the piano for the same amount of time. At the end of the study each group was rescanned and by and large the brain change for those who thought about playing the piano was the same as for those who actually played it. The study shows that, in essence, thinking and doing are the same for the brain - a similiarish study that looked at muscle mass showed the thinkers put on 30% of the muscle mass that the doers achieved! So what? Well it used to be said that we become what we habitually do, but it seems to be more accurate to say that we become what we habitually think. This can help explain why visualisation is such a powerful tool for improving performance. So, when it comes to paddling, make sure you are habitually thinking about the right things! And yes, the findings of this study do extend beyond paddling..... *J Neurophysiol. 1995 Sep;74(3):1037-45. Modulation of muscle responses evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation during the acquisition of new fine motor skills. Pascual-Leone A, Nguyet D, Cohen LG, Brasil-Neto JP, Cammarota A, Hallett M.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 10:22:10 +0000
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