Skill acquisition
We will look at the specific biomechanics of trail running in another section, but here we’re going to focus on your skills as a coach and the core principles of motor learning. While it’s important to understand when biomechanical changes may be required, and what sort of changes could/should be made, if you lack the skills to communicate these changes to your athletes, then it’s not going to make any difference!
Learning any new skill can be broken down into the cognitive, associative, and autonomous stages. The initial stage, the cognitive stage, is when someone is first thinking a lot about the movement they are trying to execute, and this phase will tend to involve high levels of concentration and tend to see a lot of mistakes made. In a sport like trail running, this can be a risky phase – if someone is concentrating hard on changing their foot-strike then they may not be paying enough attention to the trail in front of them!
Next comes the associative stage, where someone is beginning to refine their skills and improve their performance. In this phase they still require regular feedback to fine-tune their technique – they’re starting to get the hang of it, but still require a conscious effort to apply what they’ve learned. For example, they’re getting comfortable with running downhill but still need to focus on choosing a good line.
Finally comes the autonomous stage, where the runner performs the skill without conscious thought. Think of when you see a technically proficient runner bombing downhill – they seem to simply switch their brain off and just let their legs do the work!
How we teach a runner a skill can determine how quickly they move through these different stages of learning. There are two main styles of learning – explicit learning, and implicit learning. Explicit learning is a conscious process that involves direct instruction and deliberate effort to apply what’s been taught. For example, you might explain the mechanics of foot-strike, body posture, or breathing techniques, and then your runner consciously tries to apply these instructions during their training sessions. This will involve them mentally recalling the steps and making deliberate efforts to adjust their running form based on the feedback or instructions given. This will mean they typically spend a while in the cognitive and associative stages.
On the other hand, implicit learning happens without conscious awareness – they are jumping straight to the autonomous stage! This happens through repeated exposure to a specific set of circumstances and letting their body and unconscious mind figure out the most efficient solution. For example, running economy will tend to improve over time simply by running regularly, and by engaging in regular speed work (even when no thought is specifically given to technique). Or, simply getting a runner to regularly run on technical terrain will improve their technical running ability. They may not be able to verbalise what they are specifically doing differently (as they were never consciously aware of the learning process), but they have changed nonetheless!
Of course, sometimes we want to make specific technique changes that aren’t naturally coming about and need to use specific cues to communicate those changes. Technique cues can be broken down into two main categories – internal cues and external cues.
An internal cue is one that focuses on the runner’s own body movements and sensations, e.g., “drive your knee upwards”. While these are good for developing self-awareness of body mechanics and sensations, they can also lead to overthinking and even “paralysis by over analysis” (have you ever seen someone freeze because they had too many things to think about?).
Meanwhile, external cues direct attention outward to the environment or the effect of their movement in the environment, e.g., “push the ground away from you”. These types of cues have been shown to be more effective in improving performance as they promote a more holistic and natural movement pattern. However, an analytical runner may still sometimes want more specific internal feedback (as internal cues may be more how they are used to thinking).
We can further break down external cues by ‘distance’, ‘direction’, and ‘description’ (the 3 Ds). Let’s take a look at those one by one. To compare and contrast the different types of cues, I’ll focus on creating cues to tell a runner to simply apply more force to the ground.
‘Distance’ refers to how far away their attentional focus will be from their body. A ‘near’ cue is focused on something close to them – for example, “hit the ground under your hips as hard as possible”. A ‘far’ cue is focused on something further away – such as aiming to “push yourself towards the horizon”. Near cues can be really effective for addressing specific technique aspects, but may create too narrow of a focus. Meanwhile, far cues do the opposite – they can be good for a broader focus, but may sometimes be too vague to address a specific technical concern.
The ‘direction’ of the cue could either be ‘away’ or ‘towards’ the athlete or an external object/location. An ‘away’ cue could be to, “push the ground away from you”. An example of a ‘toward cue’ could be to “project yourself towards the summit”. While there is some evidence that towards cues may be slightly more effective, you need to find what resonates best with your athlete.
Finally, descriptive cues are separated into ‘action verbs’ (such as push, launch, explode, etc), and analogies (such as “try to spin the Earth backwards”). With both of these, it really comes down to what clicks best for your athlete – do they envision a more forceful foot strike when they are told to ‘push’ vs ‘punch’ the ground away, or what analogy makes the most sense to them?
Of course, as the saying goes “you haven’t taught until they have learned”, so you need to ensure your athletes are retaining the lessons you’ve taught. Short-term changes (e.g., within a single practice session) are not always indicative of long-term learning. There’s evidence that external cues may be more effective for long-term learning, but it’s important that you are still checking that any technique changes have stuck (or are continuing to be worked on).
Key take-aways
Learning a new skill can be broken down into the cognitive, associative, and autonomous stages
Skills can be taught ‘explicitly’ or ‘implicitly’
Cues can be ‘internal’ or ‘external’
When giving external cues, consider the 3Ds – distance, direction, and descripti