How The Brain Learns New Movement |
Before you read about how this machine affects your swing you need to know the truth about how your brain helps you to learn any new thing concerning your golf swing. Most golfers are taught to think that if they hit enough golf balls that their brain will eventually learn what they want it to learn and this movement can be repeated just by swinging the club. This is not an accurate statement. A lot of golfers are hitting a lot of balls and nothing is changing. The brain does not allow you to learn new motor skills at 40 in the same manner that it did when you were 12.
Motor skills are the things that your brain learns to do from repetitive movement. When you perform any previously learned motor skill your brain is retrieving stored information that it has already learned. When you start to perform that learned skill the brain retrieves that information to make all the necessary muscles move without you having to think about all of the muscles that are being used. This learned program also makes the specific muscles fire in the order or sequence necessary to perform that motor skill effortlessly and consistently. Some of our motor skills are typing, knitting, walking, playing a musical instrument, throwing a baseball and swinging a golf club.
You start to learn motor skills when you start to crawl. By the time you are a teenager your learning capacity for motor skills is at it's peak. Whatever you do repetitively at this age will be stored in motor memory so it can be retrieved later. Just because you go out and play golf a few times as a child does not mean that you will learn to play golf well. When you start to swing a golf club regularly and repeat the swing over and over you must use the thinking part of the brain to do this. This part of the brain is an initiator of movement and it also controls coordination and timing. This thinking part of the brain can not help you duplicate the swing because it has no memory storing capacity.
The brain is very efficient when it comes to using old information. As soon as you start to swing the club repetitively the brain will search another part of the brain where motor memory is stored for anything that resembles this movement that has already been learned. If you have learned to play another sport that is remotely similar such as baseball, the brain will use as much of this old information as possible to help you perform the golf swing. This is your brain being efficient. This is also why people who have learned to play baseball first have a lot of baseball in their golf swing.
If there is nothing resembling this movement in motor memory then the brain will turn on the synthesizer. When you are a teenager your brain has a synthesizer especially for learning motor skills. The thinking part of the brain initiates the primary movements. When you are learning the golf swing you are not thinking of all the dozens of muscles that are used to perform the swing. The thinking and reasoning part of the brain has interpreted your intent because it sees you trying to hit a ball over and over. Now the synthesizer is turned on to help you learn the golf swing.
The synthesizer figures out the best muscles to use and the best order that they should be fired in to allow you to have a sequentially powerful swing. While the synthesizer is doing it’s thing the motor memory part of the brain is storing this information. The thinking and synthesizing parts of the brain use a lot of energy. Retrieving this information from motor memory is much less energy consuming. This is why the brain stores the specifics of the golf swing and any other motor skill. This is also how the different parts of the brain help you to learn the swing as a kid.
When you get into your early 20’s this ability to learn motor skills starts to dissipate at about the same time that your bones stop growing. At this time the brain’s priority is switched from learning motor skills to mental reasoning. Now your brain starts to give you the ability to think and reason more. It is ironic and at about the same time that you get out of college your ability to absorb information increases dramatically. The ability to reason is one of the worst possible things that could happen to a golfer for swinging a golf club without thinking. But, from the brain’s perspective it has given you the time to learn how to hunt and kill food. Now it is time to learn something new to help you to survive.
When the bones start to solidify the synthesizer that was used to help you learn new motor skills starts to go away quickly. The loss of this synthesizer more than anything else makes the learning of new motor skills progressively more difficult. The older you get the more time it will take you to learn the golf swing. Now you have to go back to using the thinking part of the brain to initiate the muscles to make the swing. The initiator or thinking part of the brain does not have the ability to repeat the swing consistently from one swing to another. This is why most golfers who take up the game later in life can not get their brain to learn the golf swing as easily as someone who started to play in their teens. If you continue to play sports from the time you are young through the early 20’s it will be easier for you to learn any motor skill at a later age. This activity gives you an advantage over someone that did not play any sports as a kid.
For the average person if you have not played any sports as a teenager at the age of 30 it will take you 6 times longer to learn to play golf as it did when you were 15. So for every large bucket of balls a teenager hits you will have to hit about 6 buckets of balls to get your brain to store the same amount of information in motor memory. At age 40 it will take you at least 10 times longer to learn to play golf as it does a teenager. The older you get the more time you will have to spend hitting balls just to get your brain to turn on the motor memory switch. No one has the time or energy to learn to play golf like this. There are always some exceptions to the rule.
If you are 40 and older and you did not learn golf when you were a teenager, your swing is going to look different from golfers who started to play golf when they were young. They had extra help from the brain to learn the new swing easily. If you have to use the thinking part of the brain to swing the club as an adult, you can not produce a consistent swing.
Is there hope to be a better player if you are not a teenager? Yes but to have a consistent swing you must be able to retrieve information that is stored in motor memory and not rely on thinking about swing mechanics. The best game of golf you will ever play will come from not having too many swing thoughts. If you are a older golfer you can learn a new swing but not from hitting balls all day at the driving range. You don't have the same tools as a teenager and you are going to have to learn the swing from a different perspective. Go back to the GOLF page and read the information on how the Golf Swing Emulator can help you. If you have any questions about the golf swing or the learning process feel free to send us an e-mail. You can use the link at the bottom of each page. |
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