rob kall
TEMPLATE FEEDBACK OF ATHLETIC FORCE AND MOVEMENT
Skiers at all skill levels were tested with a pressure-sensitive device which monitored the pattern of timing, weight placement, and shifting from one foot to the other, essential were transduced into audio displays.
Key movements produced reproducible audio signatures.
All levels of skiers, including instructors, were able to use these audio signatures as audio templates, which they would memorize and then try to match, using the appropriate movements. The different skill groups utilized the feedback in different ways, but they all found it useful.
All levels of skiers, including instructors, were able to use these audio signatures as audio templates, which they would memorize and then try to match, using the appropriate movements. The different skill groups utilized the feedback in different ways, but they all found it useful.
By producing movements that produced the same audio template, they were able to identify key biomechanical vectors and were able to match the instructors movements with little intervening verbal or visualizing cognitive distraction. It is suggested that this training approach is neuromuscularly more efficient, in that audio templates are more closely linked to the essential biomechanical vectors. This allows for more specificity in training and learning.
This approach to movement training has wide application for sports and industry. This study suggests the value of further study and quantification of template training and performance.
TEMPLATE FEEDBACK OF ATHLETIC FORCE AND MOVEMENT
Presented at the ANNUAL MEETING OF
THE BIOFEEDBACK SOCIETY OF
AMERICA, MARCH 10, 1980
By Robert A. Kall
In athletics, movements which are very simple to do can be extremely difficult to verbalize and conceptualize. Learning a specific new movement pattern entails successively approximating one's movements with one's comceptual idea of the movements.
Current training techniques require that the teacher observe the athlete directly and/or via films and/or computer simulations of his/her movements, make a qualitative judgement about the movement, and then provide verbal or illustrative feedback about needed movement modifications. Thinking through these movements either visually or verbally is at best difficult, at worst, in light of recent findings about the competitively inhibiting, lateralized verbal/visual-spatial nature of the brain, inhibitory of maximal neuromuscular efficiency and interaction.
Natural sensory and proprioceptive feedback are essential for learning new movement patterns. But almost any movement in athletics requires a gestalt awareness of almost all the musculoskeletal activity of the body. It is difficult to integrate and process all the raw proprioceptive and sensory data fed back when novel movement patterns are attempted.
This study suggests that complex behaviors and patterns of behavior, particularly movement, can be transduced and interpreted into more conveniently perceivable cognitive-sensory modes through augmente sensory feedback.
In athletics, force and angular displacement can be transduced and reduced to a simple audio, visual or vibrotactile feedback display. For example, increases in pressure or joint angle can be transduced into tones which vary in pitch.
In this preliminary study, skiing movements were transduced using a portable, pressure responsive monitor.
The proper pattern of timing, weight placement and shifting from one foot to the other is essential for good skiing.
The small, transistor radio sized fedback device used could be worn on a belt, with the transducers laced at different sites inside the ski boot and worn while skiing.
Changes in pressure were translated into a positively correlated increase or decrease in pitch. A threshold could be set for the minimum pressure that would activate the auditory feedback.
This study only looked at the feasibility of recording a reproducible audio template of specific, correctly patterned movements, and the applicability of those templates to athletic training.
The device was evaluated on beginner, novice, intermediate and instructor level skiers. No quantitative measurements were recorded due to the early, exploratory nature of the study. Qualitative responses from the skiers and instructors formed the basis for conclusions made in the study.
