A new Johns Hopkins University study found that introducing variety into a practice session increased the learning of motor skills in contrast to repetition alone (with the idea of instilling muscle memory).

Volunteers were asked to learn to move a cursor in a particular pattern using an object requiring squeezing rather than the usual movement on a mouse pad. Group 1 did an identical practice session six-hours later; group 2 practiced six hours later but moving the cursor required different level of squeezing pressure in each trial; and group 3, the controls, didn’t have a second session. The groups were tested 24 hours later.

The results: the control group (#3) did the worst in terms of speed and accuracy. Group 1, the “identical practicers” did much better. But the folks who had to manage the continual variation did the best, scoring nearly twice as high as the other practice group in both speed and accuracy. Read more

“What we found is if you practice a slightly modified version of a task you want to master, you actually learn more and faster than if you just keep practicing the exact same thing multiple times in a row,” says study author Pablo A. Celnik, MD. It’s about reconsolidation, the recall and modification of existing memories with new knowledge. In the area of motor learning, the new input from slight variations provides the essential ingredient.

This research excites me because it's what we do in class each week! The novelty and the need to change our movement in subtle ways demands attention which, I believe, further adds to the benefit. It's all about using our brain's ability to change in response to what we do and how we do it. And for everyday movements, like reaching, bending or walking, the additional variations improve our ability to respond to life's many, slightly different situations.