I’ve realized that my success at these three sports supports the General Motor Ability Hypothesis. In lecture, we learned that there was an early notion that claimed there are several different motor abilities that exist in an individual that are closely related and can be characterized in terms of a single, global motor ability. This hypothesis is what was typically used to explain the “all-around athlete”. Although there have been several studies conducted during the 50s and beyond that have debunked this hypothesis, it seems that this notion has carried on. High school coaches tend to believe that when an athlete is successful at one sport, they will excel at a several other sports due to the “single, global motor ability” that these sports share. 

An explanation to the challenge I encountered was presented in the lecture on memory systems. The two major memory systems are Declarative Memory and Procedural Memory. Declarative Memory includes Semantic Memory, which is the memory of facts and general knowledge, and Episodic Memory, which consists of memories of personally experienced events along with their temporal association in subjective time. Procedural Memory, on the other hand, consists of the non-conscious or automatic memories of how to perform skills. Beilock and Carr’s study on expert and novice golfers uncovered that novices depend on Declarative Memory, while experts struggle to access Declarative Memory and tend to depend on their Procedural Memory. Alike to the expert golfer, I was unable to tap into my Declarative Memory to explain skills that were highly practiced and ingrained in my mind. To help me regain these memories, I needed to put myself in the student’s shoes, slowly perform the skill, and redevelop the Declarative Memory necessary to verbally teach the basic skills. 

In lecture, we learned that augmented feedback can have a negative effect on athletes if it is erroneous, presented concurrently with performance, or presented after every practice trial. I can remember an experience with a past coach in which correctional augmented feedback was provided after each attempt of learning a back-twist tumbling pass. Not only was the feedback discouraging, but it became very confusing and useless. I found that my high school gymnastics coach had more effective strategies of Augmented Feedback. She often let me practice the skill and waited to give feedback until I requested feedback. This strategy is known as “self-selected frequency” of Augmented Feedback. In addition, she typically used the “sandwich approach” when providing feedback on a new skill. She did this by starting with a quick comment of what I did right, letting me know what I did wrong, then finishing with a motivational statement. Utilizing these two strategies helped me grow as a gymnast and kept me motivated to keep trying. 

That year, the biggest problem I was having was not using the correct form to spring over the bar. I was much too impatient and did not let my body fully rotate back to be completely upside-down before I threw the pole. After watching videos of elite vaulters and slow-motion videos of my vaults, I was told to picture myself rocking all the way back and executing the correct form. This is an example of Internal Imagery, which refers to a person imagining being inside of his/her body while performing a skill and experiencing the sensations of the actual situation. At first, I felt rather silly performing this type of practice. After becoming more comfortable with it, I began every track practice with 10 minutes of mental imagery. Studies have shown that neuromotor pathways are likely being activated during mental practice and that the functional anatomy of the brain overlaps with the anatomy involved in controlling motor performance. I find it fascinating that these factors may have contributed to the success of mental imagery during my pole-vaulting season. To my amazement, I was able to reach a new personal record by the end of the season. From that point on, Mental Practice has become a great tool to help me reach my performance goals. 

You may wonder, “how is it possible to break a dive into its individual components?”. This is not exactly an easy task for the coach. In order to practice components of the complex back-twist dive, my coach needed to make a set of “drills” that were focused on each step of the dive. The drill that focused on the first part of the dive involved focusing on only my arms and my head. I was told to lay on my back (on a mat on the pool deck) with both of my arms in the air. Then, I would drop one arm to my side and quickly turn my head in that direction. This would create enough momentum to roll me over in a full rotation back to my back. Additional drills that focused on using my whole body were trampoline drills. The trampoline drills allowed me to repetitively practice the individual components of the dive and get my body used to the feeling of twisting. These drills combined segmentation with simplification to help me have a clearer understanding of how to perform this quick and complex task.