On Episode 54 I sat down with Dominique Stasulli of Zeal Endurance Coaching located in Boulder, Colorado. I familiarized myself with Dominique and her work by reading a great article on skill acquisition called The Neuroscience of skill acquisition. Much of the first portion of our conversation centers around many of the theoretical models you see referenced in that article, as I have grown as a prep coach I've increasingly become more interested in how preparatory methods translate in regards to retention for specific purposes. To do more and actually achieve less is not only a waste of time, it leaves you with an athlete or person who did not reach their optimal state due to the arrangement of practice or other preparatory methods.

Dominique shares according to Fitts and Posner that skill development follows a three step model. The Cognitive stage is what we associate with novice learners and is where thought and introspection are very involved in the process. At this stage, motor skills and the display of skills are rough and more exposure is needed to reach the next level. The associative level is where you begin to see a refinement of skills and association with other movement options, more efficient models are constructed in this portion. Lastly is the autonomous stage where motor skills are subconscious, this is the level of mastery and there appears to be an uninterrupted flow to the display of skills. We begin to talk about exposure and one of the big conundrums you discover in the building of skills is that myelination determines the motor pathways which we choose to activate to display a certain set of skills. Myelination occurs through repetition, the only problem with mind numbing repetition is that it lacks the variance of many of the dynamic settings that skills will have to displayed within. Dominique shares the difference between random order and blocked practices and how random order practices provide greater variance and opportunity for the growth and retention of a given set of skills.

Throughout the conversation Dominique shares multiple examples of different categories of constraints and you can see how it is easy to wisely construct constraints to tailor training to the needs of a given athletic or certain subset of athletes. Dominique shares how she likes to utilize variance in the task specific constraints to arrange meaningful and efficient sessions with her runners. She discusses how she switches up warmups, changes paces, changes energy system work, etc. to keep athletes on their toes. She also rationalizes why she includes sprinting with her distance runners, she states that it shows intent and also has a promotes feel for the runner to a greater degree. She shares how she utilizes hills to help build more efficient runners.

The last portion of the conversation deals with the 3 most common lower body deficits that she encounters among the athletes that she works with. They are 1) Poor Proprioception, 2) Core stability/Pelvic stability 3) Poor hip extension. Dominique shares how she helps to bring up these deficits and make her athletes less prone to injury and more resilient in the process.

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Episode 214: Nancy Vonk, Co-Founder and Partner at Swim