Total bullshit

All you need to know about the ‘learning styles’ myth.

Two other myths that shit me: ‘right brain/left brain’ and ‘muscle memory’. The second is particularly irritating. Your muscles do not have memory. They are _muscles_, not brains. So when you are learning a new dance step (for example) you don’t repeat it a heap of times to fix it in your ‘muscle memory’. You repeat it a million times* to improve fitness, balance (core stability), even to make your muscles stronger. But they don’t remember anything. Your brain does that.

*We could also argue that repeating anything a million times without some degree of mindfulness** isn’t terribly helpful. Like those jocks in the gym using momentum to lug weights into the air, rather than recruiting the right muscles, you can do something a million times and still not be achieving your goals.

**By mindfulness, of course, I mean an awareness of what you are doing with your body in that moment. And by awareness I mean knowledgeable awareness.

1 Comment

  1. I understand where you’re coming from, but I think one of the major things you miss from this list

    “You repeat it a million times* to improve fitness, balance (core stability), even to make your muscles stronger. ”

    is that we will be encoding information about how we are doing the thing (though I agree with you it’s a process in the brain) and that makes it easier to do the next time. “Muscle memory “has such a better ring though than “unconscious selection of appropriate motor program”.

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