Showing posts with label Miscellaneous Topics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous Topics. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Message from Dr. Kao
It's been a crazy week. I gave mid-term examinations in two classes. I will be posting new material tomorrow, October 4, 2012.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Muscle Memory
I had another interesting discussion today with my students. The topic was the term "muscle memory". I want to share my thoughts on the topic with all of you. The most important thing you need to know is that muscle fibers have "no memory". If you pull out a muscle fiber and apply an electrical stimulus to it, you will see it contract. When you remove the electrical stimulus, it will relax. You can do this ten times, a hundred times, even a thousand times and every time it will do the same thing. That's all a muscle fiber does. There is nothing to memorize.
Learning requires a permanent change in the long-term memory of a motor program (i.e, the pattern and intensity of electrical signals to the muscles that create the movement). Motor programs are stored in long-term memory (LTM) and LTM is part of the brain. The problem is this: I hear people use the term "muscle memory" when they are talking about learning a motor program. This unfortunately leads to incorrect ideas about how we learn to perform movements. People believe all you need to do is move the body a few hundred times and the muscles will remember what to do. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Click on "read more" for an explanation of how movements are actually learned.
Learning requires a permanent change in the long-term memory of a motor program (i.e, the pattern and intensity of electrical signals to the muscles that create the movement). Motor programs are stored in long-term memory (LTM) and LTM is part of the brain. The problem is this: I hear people use the term "muscle memory" when they are talking about learning a motor program. This unfortunately leads to incorrect ideas about how we learn to perform movements. People believe all you need to do is move the body a few hundred times and the muscles will remember what to do. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Click on "read more" for an explanation of how movements are actually learned.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
To stretch or not to stretch
I had an interesting conversation with several students today on the topic of stretching. These students were surprised when I shared with them what the research on stretching has found.
1) Stretching prior to or immediately after physical activity has not been found to reduce the likelihood of injury.
2) Stretching immediately prior to physical activity has not been found to improve performance. In fact the opposite has been found: stretching immediately prior to physical activity impairs performance.
3) Stretching can be effective to increase range of motion, but the stretching needs to cause micro damage to the muscle, tendons, ligaments. During the subsequent healing process the length of muscle, tendon, and ligament increases. The "key" word is "micro" damage. Stretching the muscle, ligament, and tendons too much may cause "macro" damage (i.e., strains and tears).
Based on these research findings . . .
1) Stretching prior to or immediately after physical activity has not been found to reduce the likelihood of injury.
2) Stretching immediately prior to physical activity has not been found to improve performance. In fact the opposite has been found: stretching immediately prior to physical activity impairs performance.
3) Stretching can be effective to increase range of motion, but the stretching needs to cause micro damage to the muscle, tendons, ligaments. During the subsequent healing process the length of muscle, tendon, and ligament increases. The "key" word is "micro" damage. Stretching the muscle, ligament, and tendons too much may cause "macro" damage (i.e., strains and tears).
Based on these research findings . . .
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