Is there a ‘right’ way to cue?

There are many schools of thought on how best to cue: Tradition, philosophy and personal preference all influence an instructor’s personal cueing style.

Is there a ‘right’ way to cue to optimise learning, or is it a case of each individual finding what works best for them?

This is a long article at just over 5500 words (about 20 minutes’ thoughtful reading), but at the end you’ll have gained some powerful and useful, science-based insights into facilitating the learning of movement skills. Or in other words, cueing. Read on.

Different approaches to cueing

Joseph emphasised concentrating on the purpose of each exercise. His cueing methods were direct and forceful. This is quite different to the gentler, imagery-rich style of cueing that is widely popular these days, which often focusses on bringing awareness to particular muscles or body parts.

Another contrasting approach is minimalism, epitomised by the founder of Ashtanga yoga, Patthabi Jois. He famously cued almost without touching his students, and using only the instructions Breathe…. look navel.

So what works best – fierce concentration and strong physical cues, imagery and awareness cues, minimalism, or something else? Read on.

What are we trying to achieve?

Before we can come to any meaningful conclusions about what (if any) type of cueing works best, we need to agree on what we’re trying to achieve with our cueing.

Joseph’s ideal was to …’acquire that natural rhythm and coordination associated with all your subconscious activities’.⁽¹⁾ This notion is very much in accord with our current understanding of what constitutes ideal movement.⁽²⁾ Good one Joseph.

We all know good movement when we see it. It looks smooth, liquid, graceful, effortless and unconscious. The big question here is; how can we best help our clients to achieve this natural, beautiful movement?

The difference between learning and performance

For our purposes, we’ll define performance as a single instance of doing a movement. For instance, performing a single repetition of Snake on the reformer.

Performance fluctuates with mood, fatigue, concentration, outside distractions and many other variables.

Learning on the other hand means relatively permanent changes in skill over time. The key is relatively permanent. Low skill movement is also easy to recognise – it’s the opposite of high-skill movement. That is to say, clunky, jerky, effortful and having a high requirement for conscious attention.

So performance means doing a skill (movement) once. Learning means relatively permanent changes in skill (moving better) over time.

This distinction is important because certain methods of cueing and practicing improve performance, but not learning. More on that below.

What influences learning?

It turns out that there are several factors that affect learning of movement skills, of which cueing (providing verbal feedback) is only one element.

Client motivation, session structure, the frequency and timing of feedback, as well as the actual content of your feedback all contribute to (or inhibit) successful learning. We’re going to look at each of these elements in turn.

The importance of early success

When clients feel they are good at a task, they feel more motivated to do that task.⁽³⁾ In turn, greater motivation leads to greater persistence, and more likelihood of achieving their goals.⁽⁴⁾⁽⁵⁾

So by allowing our clients to experience early success, we increase motivation, which leads to more persistence. More persistence increases their chance of ultimate success.

This suggests that using partial or pre-Pilates versions of exercises to create early wins for our clients will increase their motivation and foster the persistence required to master more advanced movements. So programming matters.

Teach according to the stage of learning

The learning of movement skills takes place in distinct stages, beginning with the verbal/cognitive stage, progressing through the motor stage and finally the autonomous stage.⁽⁶⁾ Different teaching strategies work best at each stage.

Verbal/Cognitive stage

The verbal/cognitive stage (aka being a rank beginner) is characterised by a large need for conscious attention⁽⁶⁾ as clients try to get the general idea or gist of a new movement pattern.⁽⁷⁾ Clients in the verbal/cognitive stage often use unnecessarily high levels of muscular co-contraction relative to the demands of the task. This overly effortful movement strategy gives a jerky, halting quality to movements, with little ability to utilise passive forces such as gravity and passive tissue recoil that characterise the effortless ease of more advanced movement.⁽⁸⁾

You can recognise clients in the verbal/cognitive stage by their clunky, effortful movement and low self-awareness – they can’t tell whether they’re doing it right or not, because they don’t yet understand the difference between a good and a poor quality movement.

During the verbal/cognitive stage, demonstration and manual guidance are the most effective methods of cueing, as they make it easier for the client to ‘understand’ the experience of the movement.⁽⁹⁾

Manual guidance means putting your hands on the client and firmly guiding them into position – just like Joseph did.

Motor stage

Once the client understands the general gist of a new movement, they have progressed to the motor stage. This should take a matter of minutes if you provide good initial demonstration and clear, firm guidance.

The motor stage is characterised by refining skills and developing more efficient movement patterns.^(2)(10) In the motor stage, performance is generally fairly consistent and clients start to work on the finer details of the movement. This stage generally lasts much longer than the verbal/cognitive stage (weeks to years) and progress is slower.⁽²⁾

You can recognise clients in the motor stage by their ability to self-correct. They know what a good movement looks or feels like, but they can’t necessarily do it every time. They’re working on refining their movement, making it smoother, more effortless and more accurate.

During the motor stage, verbal feedback should be provided every second or third repetition.⁽¹¹⁾ Feedback should emphasise successful rather than unsuccessful efforts by the client,⁽¹²⁾ and should promote an external focus of attention (i.e. outside the client’s body).^(13)(14) The idea of external focus is discussed more fully below.

Autonomous stage

The third stage of learning, called the autonomous stage is characterised by skilled actions (aka beautiful, flowing, effortless movement, just as Joseph described) produced almost automatically and with minimal requirement for conscious attention.⁽²⁾

Even though clients at the autonomous stage have achieved a very high level of movement skill, it appears that learning can continue indefinitely.⁽¹⁵⁾ People at the autonomous stage are very good at detecting their own movement errors and making appropriate adjustments largely without external feedback.⁽¹⁶⁾ So they don’t really need us. You probably don’t have many clients who are in Cirque du Soleil. And if you did, there’s not much you could do to improve their skill at balancing on a fitball.

Manual guidance

During the verbal cognitive stage, it is effective to use your hands to physically place the client in the right position. This means taking the client’s pelvis, leg, shoulder blade or whatever and gently but firmly guiding it to the right position. Just like Joseph did (except for the gentle bit).

This can help the client get the idea of a new movement.⁽⁹⁾ BUT (and it’s a bit but) it is important not to allow clients to become dependent on manual guidance, as this causes learning to decrease or even prevents it from happening.⁽¹⁷⁾ Essentially the client learns how to do the movement with your guidance, but not without your guidance.

Don’t create a movement welfare state. You need to take your hands off the client, early.

Attentional focus

Internal versus external focus

Internal attentional focus means bringing the client’s attention to a point inside their own body, for example asking them to focus on rotating their pelvis smoothly during a rollback. Their attention is on their pelvis, which is inside their body.

External attentional focus involves bringing the client’s attention to a point outside their body, for example asking them to focus on rolling their waistband back towards the table. The client’s attention is thus on their waistband – just outside their body.

Surprisingly, there is a wealth of research that shows adopting an external attentional focus improves learning of movement skills. This holds true across a range of learning situations.^{(13)(14)(18-22)} External focus of attention results in more natural, less attention-demanding movement patterns.⁽²³⁾

In other words, more highly skilled, natural movement.

Indeed moving the focus a greater distance from the body can increase learning more than an external focus located near the body.⁽²⁰⁾ Examples of moving the attentional focus further away from the body could include focussing on the trajectory of the rolldown bar rather than the waistband, or focussing on moving the wheels of the reformer carriage smoothly in and out, rather than focussing on pulling the hand loops evenly.

Interestingly, this phenomenon seems to apply specially to adopting a focus that is directly related to technique, rather than adopting a focus on a higher-order result. For example in golf, focussing on the trajectory of the golf club is more effective than focussing on the trajectory of the golf ball, presumably because the trajectory of the golf club is directly related to the body movements produced, whereas a given ball trajectory could be achieved with a wide range of body movements.^(22)(24)

The learning advantages of adopting an external attentional focus have been demonstrated with various sports as well as with children^(25), older adults⁽²⁶⁾, Parkinson’s disease patients⁽²⁷⁾, stroke patients⁽²⁸⁾ and for patients with speech disorders.⁽²⁹⁾ Additionally and of interest to endurance and recreational athletes, adopting an external focus has also been shown to increase muscular endurance.⁽³⁰⁾

So use cues that bring the client’s attention outside their body.

Different levels of movement control

During the early stages of learning, clients tend to focus on individual components of a movement sequence, such as controlling their pelvis or shoulder blade, or positioning their feet correctly.

As learning progresses, movements are represented in the central nervous system by longer and longer strings of individual movement commands being ‘chunked’ together as a single motor program, and thus movement is controlled at a more general level.^(31)(32)

This leads to the notion of a hierarchy of levels of control of a movement. The lowest level being focus on control of individual muscles, and the highest level being focus on the overall movement outcome or mood of the movement.⁽³³⁾

Beginners tend to adopt a lower locus of control, focussing on the details. As clients become more skilled at a movement, they progressively adopt a higher level of control, focussing on overall movement outcomes, and eventually moods or single ideas that encompass the entire movement.

For example, in footwork a low-level focus typically adopted by a beginner could be to think about keeping the toes in line with the knees. A higher-level focus adopted by an intermediate client might be to move the carriage smoothly; slightly higher again would be a focus on silencing the carriage wheels as much as possible. A very high-level focus adopted by an advanced client could involve focussing on the flow of the movement, or expressing a mood or emotion such as flowing like water, or sliding like a languorous cat.

Cueing should promote clients adopting a slightly higher level locus of control. Adopting a higher level locus of control essentially progresses the client to a later stage of learning.

Beginner, intermediate and even advanced clients should receive feedback that promotes an external focus that is directly related to the body movements of the client e.g. focussing on the movement of the client’s clothing, the reformer or push-thru bar, the chair pedal or hand loops. This will promote optimal movement patterns.^(24)(33)

Adopting a lower level (more detailed) locus of control essentially regresses the client to an earlier stage of learning. When internal attentional focus instructions are used, performance suffers. ^(16)(20)

This is essentially creating the same phenomenon as ‘choking’ – focussing on the nitty-gritty of the movement makes it impossible for the client to achieve a flow state.

Very advanced clients who are very close to their maximum potential for movement skill should receive simple, very high level feedback that encourages a focus on overall movement outcomes or moods e.g. ‘flow sinuously’ rather than focussing on more immediate movement effects e.g. ‘move the carriage at the same speed’.^(16)(33)

So if you do have a Cirque du Soleil athlete in your studio, and you’re teaching them to improve their one leg fitball balance, use a simple instruction like ‘be still’.

Speed of practice

For any given movement, the rhythm and sequence of muscle recruitment is very similar across different contexts, even though the speed, amount of force, or size of movement may vary a lot.^(34)(35) So essentially the rhythm is the only unchanging parameter of any given movement. The rhythm is the movement.

For example, in walking there is a rhythm to the sequential firing of various muscles around the hip and knee, which remains constant even when walking speed increases or decreases, or when walking with longer or shorter strides.

The rhythm stays the same when walking context changes, but the speed, force and movement size can adjust without affecting the rhythm. Walking faster is thus the same skill as regular speed walking, just executed faster, more forcefully and with longer strides.

Running however is a different skill to walking, as the rhythm of the movement is different. So being a good walker doesn’t make you a good runner, and vice-versa.

This implies that teaching a movement at a slower pace is just as effective for producing the final, full speed movement as teaching at full speed, as long as the essential rhythm is the same.⁽³⁴⁾

But, if practice is so slow that the normal rhythm of the movement sequence changes, learning suffers. This is because slow-speed practice may teach the learner to engage what is called closed loop processing, rather than the open loop processing that is required for rapid or unconscious movements like walking and other skilled tasks.⁽³⁶⁾

Closed loop processes (also called feedback processing) involve the client constantly incorporating feedback and making adjustments during execution of the movement.⁽³⁴⁾ In contrast, open loop processes (also called feed-forward processing) involve executing pre-programmed movement sequences (called motor programs) so rapidly that making adjustments during movement is not possible.⁽³⁴⁾

All highly skilled movement involves a large element of open loop processing. This is what makes skilled movement ‘unconscious’.

Implicit and explicit learning

Explicit (also called conscious) knowledge of movement is concerned with rules, steps and instructions on how to perform a movement.⁽³⁷⁾ This is a type of knowledge that we are consciously aware of and can articulate.

For example, in Pilates it is common for instructors to provide explicit instructions about where the feet should be placed on the mat, and which body part should initiate the movement. Essentially explicit instruction is a set of rules or a procedure for how to do a movement well.

Implicit (also called unconscious) knowledge is that which we ‘know’, but are not aware of and thus cannot articulate. This type of knowledge is most effectively acquired without conscious efforts to ‘learn’.⁽³⁷⁾

For example, you probably know how to write cursive script, but are not aware of the step-by-step process for writing and could not explain how to write; you just know it.

Explicit learning involves teaching a learner the step-by-step process for performing a task, often using verbal instructions.

For example, in cat stretch you would start by explaining and demonstrating the correct starting position for the hands and knees, and correct breath pattern during each phase of the exercise.

Implicit learning is learning where the learner is not aware of what they are learning, and sometimes not even aware that learning is taking place.⁽³⁷⁾

For example, young children learn to walk using implicit methods. No one explains how to walk – they just practice it until they get good at it.

Implicit learners perform worse during practice sessions but score equally with explicit learners on retention tests. Perhaps most importantly, implicit learners perform much better under pressure than those who have undertaken explicit learning.^(38-41)

The reasons for this are thought to be that under pressure, people who learned explicitly pay increased attention to the technical aspects of skill production (effectively adopting a lower level focus), whereas the people who learned implicitly show a decrease in skill-focussed attention.⁽⁴²⁾

Implicit learning has been shown to be more effective than explicit learning in stroke rehabilitation.⁽⁴³⁾

Generalising movement skills

The general timing structure of a given skilled movement (such as handwriting) is preserved even when using different muscles or limbs to produce the movement.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Different sized versions of the same movement also preserve the individual movement characteristics of the mover, implying the existence of a generalised motor program for the movement.⁽⁴⁵⁾

Baseball players adjust their throwing patterns according to the situation at the time of the throw, ⁽⁴⁶⁾ providing further support for the notion of a generalised motor program dictating the rhythm of the movement, with speed, force and amplitude being variable whilst still using the same general motor program.

For example, a fast, flat throw with the hand a shoulder height probably uses the same motor program as a high, arcing throw with the hand above head height. So if you can throw with your hand at shoulder height, you can throw with your hand above your head. They are the same skill.

Handwriting is adjusted for different speeds, using the same general motor program.⁽⁴⁷⁾

When a client always practices under identical conditions the movements learned during the sessions do not transfer well to other, similar situations outside of the session. However when a client practices under varied conditions the movements learned in practice transfer well to a range of similar situations.⁽¹⁷⁾

So if you practice a movement pattern using only a single exercise, it won’t transfer well to the client’s daily activities. But if you practice the new movement pattern in several different exercises incorporating different body positions, different speeds, different loads and different relationships to gravity, the new movement pattern will generalise and transfer well to other activities.

Movements practiced using the same rhythm but at varied speeds or with varied size, with feedback provided less often than every single repetition, provide better generalisation.⁽¹¹⁾

Providing feedback

This is what we usually think of as cueing. Finally.

Manual guidance

Manual guidance (using hands to physically position the learner in the correct position) generally enhances performance during a session but these performance improvements typically do not transfer to situations where the guidance is not available,⁽¹⁷⁾ however manual guidance can increase learning in the verbal/cognitive stage as it can help learners get the general idea of the movement.⁽⁹⁾

The timing of your cue matters

Providing feedback after several repetitions, as opposed to after every repetition, decreases performance during the session but increases both learning and retention.^(48-50) (Remember that performance is a single instance of doing a movement, whereas learning means relatively permanent changes in skill as a result of practice).

This may be because clients undertake more problem solving when feedback is less frequent, and that this enhances learning and retention compared to having more frequent feedback.

Providing feedback after several repetitions instead of after each repetition also improves the generalisability of a skill, in other words it’s transferability to other, similar contexts.^(11)(49)

Excessive amounts of verbal feedback hinder both performance and learning,⁽⁵¹⁾ and the more complex the skill being learned, the simpler and more consistent the feedback needs to be in order to optimise learning.⁽⁵²⁾

Focus on success

Feedback focussing on successful rather than unsuccessful aspects of performance is more effective.^(12)(51) So you should emphasise to the client what you want them to do, rather than telling them what they’re doing wrong.

Structuring practice sessions

Practice the entire movement as early as possible

Practicing the entire movement sequence as a whole enhances development of general motor programs and hence skill generalisation.⁽⁴⁹⁾ This is compared to practicing individual components of a movement. So if you were working on gait retraining for a client with an SI joint problem, it would be more effective to practice the whole gait sequence (aka walking) rather than just a single component of the sequence.

You can still start with a component of the movement (e.g. start with a pre-Pilates exercise such as toe taps/up-up down-down), to build confidence and skill. Then progress the client to a complete movement pattern as quickly as possible.

Controlling your SI joint in toe taps (or any other exercise) by itself, won’t translate well to walking. To improve SI joint control in walking, you need to practice controlling your SI joint during walking.

As soon as your client gets it right, move on

Random practice, where different skills or movement parameters are practised in a quasi-random order within a session gives lower performance during the session but higher learning and retention compared to blocked practice, where a single movement or skill is practiced repeatedly. ^(53-59) It appears that random practice promotes an implicit learning strategy which in turn enhances learning and retention.⁽⁶⁰⁾

Essentially, we’re training our clients to solve the problem of how to move better. When they first practice a movement, they need to perform several corrections before they get it. This is where learning occurs – they’re solving the problem.

After they’ve got it, further practice simply involves repeating the solution again and again – they’re effectively memorising or rote-learning the solution, not practicing solving the problem.

So if you spend 4 minutes practicing your movement, and it takes you 2 minutes before you start to get it consistently right, the first 2 minutes is learning time, and the last 2 minutes are repetition of the solution.

However, if after 2 minutes (as soon as the client starts getting it right) you take her into a different, unrelated exercise, results are different.

When you come back to the original exercise later in the session, the client will have forgotten the movement solution, and will have to solve the problem again – so they get another 2 minutes’ time on task of solving the problem. Twice as much actual learning.

You’ve spent the same 4 minutes practicing that exercise, but now all 4 minutes were useful learning.

So, as soon as your client starts to get the movement right, move on.

Take a collaborative approach

Giving clients some control over the structure of their own learning as well as the timing of feedback has been shown to enhance learning.⁽⁶¹⁾

Structuring sessions with 2 or more clients has also been shown to enhance learning.⁽⁶¹⁾

Conclusions

Set your client up for success

Give the client early and ongoing wins by choosing tasks that are somewhat challenging, but achievable

Promote an external outcome focus

Give feedback that promotes the client adopting an external focus related directly to their movement quality

Give feedback the encourages the client to focus on the immediate outcomes of the movement rather than the process of the movement

For elite performers give simple feedback that promotes focus on overall movement outcomes

Give simple feedback

• give feedback after every 2 or 3 repetitions, not during movement
• provide simple feedback on a single item at a time
• for simple skills, give feedback about a different aspect of the skill each time feedback is offered
• for relatively complex skills, give repeated feedback on a single skill element.

Give feedback appropriate to the stage of learning

• manual guidance is useful in the early stage of learning but harmful in the middle and later stages
• use lower level instructions at the early stages of learning and higher level instructions for more advanced learners.

Use implicit learning strategies

• implicit learning strategies should be used in preference to explicit strategies: although in-session performance will be lower, learning and retention will increase.

Generalise movement skills

• slower practice is effective as long as the fundamental rhythm of the movement is preserved
• practice multiple variations of a movement skill using the same rhythm but different movement speed, size, limb angles and force requirements in order to generalise the skill.

Structure practice sessions in small, quasi-random blocks

• structure practice sessions to include multiple small blocks of different skill practice in a quasi-random order
• where possible practice entire movement sequences (e.g. walking) in a continuous fashion, particularly at the later stages of learning
• encourage input from the learner on the structure of the sessions.

 

Raphael Bender – Bio

Raphael is a Pilates trainer & Accredited Exercise Physiologist with an MSc Clinical Exercise Physiology (Rehabilitation) and BSc Exercise & Sport Science. He is a Pilates Alliance Australasia Principal Trainer and also Managing Director of Breathe Education (RTO#40490).

 

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