Why changing the SPEED of your movement helps you learn faster
"Brainy What-Why-How"
Your weekly nibble of science-backed goodness to help you move better and feel unstoppable.
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What (the TL:DR)
You can enhance neural plasticity --
i.e. learn new things FASTER --
by changing the speed of your movement.
Why (the geeky neurology)
You've no doubt felt the challenge of trying a totally NEW movement and it slowly feeling more and more familiar with repetition.
This is learning; and one area of your brain that's hugely responsible for this is the cerebellum.
Your cerebellum also plays a major role in helping you coordinate your movements to different speeds.
So speeding up a movement as you repeat it keeps your cerebellum challenged.
BUT THERE'S MORE....
think of a movement you typically do slowly (perhaps a yoga transition, such as standing from runners lunge to warrior 3) and imagine if you did that movement:
- on repeat
- as fast as you can
- for a full minute
runners lunge ➡️ warrior 3 ➡️ runners lunge ➡️ warrior 3 ➡️ runners lunge ➡️ warrior 3 .... etc
What would happen to your breathing?
It would go up right?!?
Well guess what -- this is bringing more oxygen to the brain (hopefully -- breath through your nose even when winded!) and with more oxygen, your brain is better fuelled for neural plasticity to take place.
How (apply it to your life)
Let this approach to movement inspire you next time you're on your yoga mat: take a simple transition and repeat it, building your speed, and breathing fully through the nose.
This can be especially helpful towards the end of a movement practice, to help cement the positive changes that have occurred.
This type of fast, dynamic movement is exactly what we do in the Dynamic flows on Move With Adell. There's a new one out today and -- you guessed it -- we do something like that runners lunge ➡️ warrior 3 movement in it 😉
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Breathe,
Adell xoxo
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