Think about any new skill or movement that you want to learn.
Do you learn that skill from scratch? How would you start? Where do you begin?
You can always google instructional videos, or ask a friend.
To methodologically build, refine, and master a skill, there’s another strategy suited for this purpose.
Skill development follows 3 Steps
1. Identify WHAT you want to learn
The world is your oyster with no shortage of exercises and movements to learn. Want to ride a bike? Perform your first pull-up? Improve your running form?
2. Find an expert performer
As a behavior analyst, this is the fun part. Experts have mastered their craft tirelessly, giving us the blueprint of each critical step for any athletic movement. Steal their strategies, ideas, and coaching tips.
(No need to reinvent walking, running, lifting, or throwing a football.)
Listen to Tom Brady’s coach, put Usain Bolt’s heel-strike videos in slow motion, and watch Lebron James lift-off.
3. Analyze and break the skill down
Much of the analysis starts here. What movements do you see? How can you track and analyze individual steps?
Fortunately, applied behavior analysis provides us with a tool for teaching and mastering any complex movement – a task analysis.
What is a task analysis?
A task analysis (TA) breaks down an action or sequence into small, teachable, and observable steps.
The beauty of the task analysis lies in its simplicity. Breaking down complicated sequences into smaller and smaller units.
Now, lets’ look at each core component of the task analysis: small, teachable, observable.
Small
Is the step broken down into its smallest form? Let’s consider teaching a pushup.
“Do a pushup” breaks down to two smaller steps: 1) Down and 2) Up.
However, you could break “Down” into even smaller steps:
- Place hands on ground
- Keep elbows close to body
- Lower body while maintaining a “plank” position
“Up” can be broken down in a similar way.
How far you need to break down each step depends on the level of proficiency that you want to teach, learn, or maintain.
Teachable
For each step written in a task analysis, you have to be able to demonstrate the correct form; the precise movement or topography.
Examples of teachable steps:
- Correct hand placement on ground
- Correct feet placement
- Start and finishing position (sometimes referred to as “range of motion”)
The teaching challenge: can any athlete learn the new step or skill?
Is there an opportunity to practice the skills over and over again, such that the athlete can contact positive feedback and show progress?
The learning process is critical to learning any skill.
More learning trials = more opportunities to be successful.
Observable
Finally, each step must be observable.
Can you and an untrained observer, someone naive to your task analysis, easily tell which step that the athlete completed?
We’re talking clarity here. How clear are your steps? Your definitions.
“Correct hand placement on ground” lacks clarity.
What does correct look like?
- One hand position that looks correct to you may not to the next coach.
- How should hands be placed?
- Can someone else tell that the athlete performed a correct pushup?
She can’t.
Clear and observable steps should leave no doubt to what you are teaching.
Always ask yourself: Can any of my steps be clarified further?
You might then update ”correct” to ”hand placed outside of shoulders on ground”.
Task Analysis Example: Performing A Strict Pushup
After watching countless pushup videos online, reviewing my own client videos, and reading various texts, I developed the following pushup task analysis:
My pushup task analysis is by no means the only way to break down a pushup, but an example of how you can teach or learn this movement.
Breaking down skills and writing a task analysis if half the battle.
We also need to collect data too! That will be a feature of the next blog post!
Stay tuned!
