March 4, 2020
Is demonstration of exercises beneficial to learning a motor skill?
By Chelsea Corley
We have all heard the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
As a Pilates instructor, when we demonstrate an exercise to a client, we are trying to give our clients a picture of what the exercise should look like. They are able to see the choreography and then replicate what they just saw. Demonstrating exercises to our clients may seem like it is benefiting their Pilates practice. However, in terms of truly learning a skill (exercise) with the goal that they can reproduce this skill accurately time after time (which is our goal), demonstration is actually detrimental to the learning of the Pilates Method. If you are shocked by this, I was surprised as well until I dove into the literature and learned what happens to our brains when we observe demonstration of movement.
As a dancer, I relied on my visual learning and preferred to see the movement or sequence to reproduce it. After I was certified in Pilates and began to teach, I often used demonstration. I felt that it was extremely beneficial to my clients’ learning process, until one day when I realized that I needed to learn more about how demonstration affected my clients’ performance and learning of the work.
I was teaching my client John the Tendon Stretch on the Wunda Chair. John is a stiff man with a tight posterior chain. Tendon stretch is a great, yet challenging, exercise for him. Now, I am not a stiff man. I am a flexible hypermobile ex-dancer. When I hopped on the Wunda Chair and demonstrated the Tendon Stretch, John observed that my legs were straight throughout the exercise and my nose was close to my knees.
It was then John’s turn and I am sure you can guess what happened: his knees had to be bent due to the restriction of his hamstrings and the overall shape of the body was less compact than mine. What I saw John achieve was engaging his lower abdominals, keeping the back of his legs away from the chair and he no muscling with his arms. In my mind, I was thrilled at how well John performed his Tendon Stretch. When I complimented John on how great he did, he said, “Well you are just saying that. My legs were bent and my nose wasn’t anywhere near my knees. It didn’t look anything like you showed me.” It was in that moment that I realized that my demonstration didn’t help John understand the exercise at all. John had no idea from watching me where to focus his attention. To me, it was more important for him to use his lower abdominals to lift the pedal than to have straight legs. However, my demonstration didn’t convey this to John. He only focused on the fact that his legs were bent when he actually did a good job!
This occurred during the time that I was in graduate school at Teachers College, Columbia University in NYC for Biobehavioral Science in Motor Learning and Control. I became fascinated with the use of demonstration and whether this really was a beneficial way to teach people new movements. The results I discovered in the literature shocked me.
What I discovered from the Motor Learning research was that demonstration is very valuable to a performer who is experienced in a skill watching another expert perform the skill. Therefore, when we go to Pilates conferences or workshops, we benefit from observation. The science behind this is that when we observe movement, this activates the neurons that are used during that action. This is called the Mirror Neuron System. By observing movement, this also activates the representation in the motor cortex of the brain. Therefore, this neural connection can be strengthened by observation and increase the proficiency of a skill.
However, this does not occur in people who are not experts in a skill. Most of my clients have been practicing Pilates for a while, but they are not experts. When these clients are observing a teacher who is an expert perform an exercise, their motor cortex does not activate, and they do not receive the benefit we do when we observe Pilates movements.
Let’s talk about the science behind what goes on in a novice’s brain when they are observing the demonstration of an expert. When a novice is observing a motor skill that they are not expert in, they rely heavily on their visual cortex, not their motor cortex. This means that their attentional demand is focused on what the exercise looks like, not how to produce the motor action to perform it. This is exactly what happened to John when he watched me demonstrate the Tendon Stretch. His visual cortex was working as he was paying attention to what the exercise looked like rather than learning how to coordinate his muscles to perform the exercise.
In order for a client to truly learn an exercise and replicate it session after session, they need to experience the movement. Clients need to go through the trial and error process to learn how to move their bodies into the positions we are asking them. It doesn’t benefit a client to show them what they are doing wrong, because the client needs to experience it, not see it. A client will do anything to make it try to “look” correct rather than understand what the correct form should “feel” like. That feeling is important because it creates episodic memory for the client to be able to retrieve that feeling to produce that motor skill. This is what increases neural connection in their motor cortex. Therefore, using your words and demonstrating minimally will optimize the learning of an exercise by your clients.
There are some instances where demonstration is beneficial such as, for example, in a group mat class. You will need to demonstrate to get your point across to a large audience. For private clients, when you have tried to explain the exercise verbally in many ways and the client still looks like a deer in the headlights, you will need to demonstrate. They can then understand the initial set up of the exercise and the coordination of the body.
Keep in mind just because the client is performing the exercise after you demonstrate it does not mean that they have learned the exercise and will be able to reproduce this next week. True learning is achieved in stages and takes time for the neural mapping to form. Being patient and methodical will help your clients progress.
Chelsea Corley is a Romana’s Pilates Certified Pilates Instructor who found Pilates as a young dancer and decided to become certified when she sustained a hip injury. Chelsea has been teaching since 2010 and has taught at studios in NYC as well as in the D.C. area. While Chelsea was still living in NYC, she received her master’s degree in Biobehavioral Science and Motor Learning and Control at Teachers College, Columbia University. Studying these Motor Learning concepts, she was able to apply this to her teaching of Pilates. Chelsea learned the real craft of teaching and realized that teaching is a skill, just like learning Pilates. She refined her skills using the concepts she learned in her Motor Learning Theory degree from Columbia. She has used this methodology of teaching to help coach her staff when she managed a Pilates Department for a high-end luxury fitness club as well as when she opened her own Pilates studio. Chelsea now is the owner of Integrated Pilates Studio, LLC in Falls Church, VA. She is also the creator of Integrated Teaching System which is an online educational platform for Pilates teachers that has various workshops based in Motor Learning theories and concepts that benefit Pilates instructors and their teaching. Her mission is to help Pilates instructors be able to refine their craft of teaching, and help their clients see results by using the methodologies that she learned and has refined over the years of studying the research in the field of Motor Learning and Control.