My guest on this episode is Adam Young, a golf instructor and author of the excellent book The Practice Manual.

We discussed Adam’s personal journey in developing a unique task-oriented teaching style. He explained how his early experiences with textbook-based instruction led to physical injuries and frustration, prompting him to explore alternative methods.

We also discussed a variety of topics related to motor learning, including the effects of internal versus external attention, the complexity of biomechanics, why deliberately making mistakes can be helpful, and the psychological and cultural factors inhibiting the exploration of new movement patterns.

Even if you're not interested in golf, I think you will find Adam's ideas highly relevant to any movement-based practice, in the context of either rehab or performance.

Links

Adam’s website

Adam’s book: The Practice Manual

Follow Adam on Twitter

Related Posts

Focus of Attention in Golf

Learning From Mistakes

The Feel of Good Movement

My guest for this podcast is Greg Lehman. Greg is a physical therapist, chiropractor, and researcher. Our main subject was a new study that found very positive results for Cognitive Functional Therapy (CFT). I thought Greg would be a good guy to ask about the strengths and weaknesses of the study, and how to interpret its meaning in light of the broader literature.

Greg is a popular writer and teacher whose main interest is reconciling pain science with biomechanics. Part of his approach involves looking at many different kinds of therapies that seem to work, and then asking: what do all these different methods have in common? It’s a good question that generates insight.

One of Greg’s strengths is a broad knowledge of the relevant research. Therefore, he always supports his arguments with specific citations, and he also has a good context to interpret the meaning of a news study. For example, if a new study comes out showing that therapy X works or doesn't work, he can probably think of other studies with different results.

Another great thing about Greg is that he is always willing to challenge his own biases. So if a study comes out validating his ideas, he will be the first one to stand up and point out its limitations.

In this podcast we talked about the strengths and weaknesses of the new CFT study, and how to put it in the context of the larger literature. We also talked about broader issues related to being aware of your own biases, cherry picking evidence, and using double standards to interpret studies.

Links

Greg Lehman’s website

Greg on Twitter

My previous podcast with Greg

Information on the study and Cognitive Functional Therapy

A previous post on Pain Reprocessing Therapy, which I compared to CFT

Today’s podcast is a 15-minute movement lesson you can do in a chair. It's a novel way to get the pelvis and spine moving, and bring some awareness to how they coordinate to keep you comfortable and balanced. It involves walking the sit bones over the base of your chair as if they were feet. Maybe the best alternative to getting up and going for a walk.