Reverse Chaining/ Backwards Chaining

[Justanotherdad]

Anyone have any information or good websites on backwards or reverse chaining as it pertains to teaching sports activities?

Pros vs Cons? Experiences, effectiveness in teaching new patterns, etc?

 

[Justanotherdad]

Learning in Sports

Discusses Forward Progression Training of the golf swing vs Backward Progression Training of the golf swing. A highlight:

What are the Advantages of Backward Shaping?

The major benefit of the backward shaping technique is that it overcomes all the disadvantages of the forward progression method. Interference does not occur since each new element precedes all previously "learned" elements, that is, the learner thinks of the new technique item content and then does what has been done successfully before. Each progression does not increase in difficulty through interference since undivided attention can be focused on the new step element to be learned. The formation of a mental check-list is not necessary because of the naturally occurring actions and successful completions that occur. Attention is focused only on the new step content and achieving the terminal follow-through position. There is an obvious lack of tension in the learner because of the simplicity of the task and its steps. Emotional problems did not occur in this demonstration subject and are not likely to occur while step sizes are small, guarantee a high rate of success, and are clearly understood by the learner.

 

[Justanotherdad]

WebBall.com - Start with the Desired Result

It's called "backward chaining".

When you combine backward chaining with the concept of motor programs (how the body learns to move and coordinate its actions) you have the main ingredients for developing a very effective pitching instructional program.

Another vital piece of information that came from the motor learning people is that motor skills are developed based upon final goals. The final goal of throwing a baseball is, you guessed it, throwing the baseball.

Winding up, lifting your leg, striding are all subservient (further down the motor program scale of importance) to actually throwing the baseball. All other body actions are helping the arm (arm action) do the best job possible in throwing the baseball, both from control AND velocity results.

Add to this the principle of variability: no throw is accomplished exactly the same way each time (sequence and use of muscles is somewhat different even though you hit the same spot each time). Add the need to adjust to this variability each time the ball is thrown, and you begin to appreciate why there are so few Pedro Martinez's.

Backwards chaining, goal formulation, adjusting to variability(and more) all become a vital part of the learning process to throw a baseball to your maximum capabilities. And an instructional program that achieves this is what this is all about.

 

[softballphreak]

One of the drills we do may have similar elements. We go through the entire swing in slow motion. At the end of the swing we reverse the entire swing. We will also do the same thing and pause at various points of the swing, both forward and reverse.

Does this sound similar to backward chaining?

 

[Justanotherdad]

Possibly. What I am reading involves breaking the action down into clearly definable steps that would be considered "check points" within an action. You then take what is called the terminal action or the last definable step within an activity and master that step. Once mastered, you then move to the preceding step and master it, so on and so forth. So, if I were to take the RVP steps and list them in the forward progession, they are as follows:

Stance
Negative Move
Toe Touch
Heel Plant
Connection
Bat Lag
Contact
Extension
Follow Through 1 - 4

If I take the Backwards Chaining method, to me the terminal action is contact with extension and follow through simply a result of where and how the ball was hit. So, if I were to utilize Backwards Chaining, I would set a student in the Bat Lag position and explain the what should happen from Bat Lag to Contact. Once mastered, we now set the student up at the Connection position and because they have already mastered Bat Lag to Contact, they only have to think about getting from Connection to Bat Lag correctly since Bat Lag to contact has already been mastered. This follows until the student is at the beginning step.

Keep in mind, I only use the RVP checkpoints, because those are what I know. I am in no way saying that they would be the best progression for teaching in a Backward Chaining type progression. Starting from Bat Lag would be quite hard, I am only using these steps as an example.

I found another study talking about a 16 year old Elite Canadian swimmer who had faults in a swim technique that she had existed for a long time in her stroke. Using 3 40 minute Backward Chaining session, this athlete was able to complete change her technique and shaved almost a full second off her race time.

The swimmer in this study altered a considerable number of front crawl technique features that had existed in her stroke for a long time. Those changes occurred in a very short time period. When one reflects on the number of items and their anticipated difficulty for changing, what was demonstrated is quite remarkable. The topography or technique of the underwater stroking action was altered in three 40-minute instructional sessions.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Interesting topic … and decent food for thought.

What the concept wishes to do is avoid the struggle with learning progressive steps.

They give an example of getting to points, or body relationships, or angles … further downstream in the swing.

The reality is that what is performed earlier in the motion will dictate what occurs later in the motion. The student is therefore left to run mini experiments upstream to figure out what it takes to achieve the desired result downstream.

The question then comes down to whether or not the student selected the correct upstream actions to obtain the desired downstream target result. If they do, then the process works well. If they don’t, then the process doesn’t work so well.

Those familiar with Jim Dixon’s book will understand that there are multiple ways for an athlete to obtain a surface result downstream … but only one “under the hood” type approach is best for getting there. Simply focusing on surface relationships may not be the best approach … as the ‘how’ and ‘what is done’, in terms of achieving a surface look can dramatically influence the end result.

 

[tom.guerry]

earliest/most highly developed backward chaining method may have been Homer Kelley in The Golf Machine ("TGM") where you learn basic motion then acquired motion the full motion.

The most developed backward chaining method in baseball was to teach overhand throw by Nyman at setpro.com. This info may still be available at the archives on his website or if you can order his throwing online ebook.

His method was also incorporated as part of Ron Wolforth's baseball teaching approach available through pitchingcentral.com and athleticpitching.com. In this case he calls it "backward shaping".

backward chaining is a little more difficult to apply/define for the baseball swing because it is so quick and requires ongoing reaction/adjustment before firing the bathead, unlike golf and throwing which are more planned/creative rather than reactive skills.

You could call Epstein torque and numbers dills somewhat backward chaining even thought they start in the middle with the arms/bat fixed to torso so you can learn the feel of dynamic torso stretch created and released before bathead releases.

or you could try to learn how to fire/release the bathead first, then work backward, but this can be more problematic.

In any case, the backward chaining works quite well in conjunction with forward chaining (see Jeff Hodge) for overhand throw teaching which then enables you to learn a very similar sequence to the early part of the swing motion.

If you can throw (well/high level pattern/overhead/low arm slot) then you can hit.

 

[Justanotherdad]

What the concept wishes to do is avoid the struggle with learning progressive steps.

Quite a worthy goal, I would think.

Some of the arguments against traditional progression training are that the learning gets exponentially more difficult as the progression advances. AKA, your "mini experiments upstream" if arriving at the terminal action is less than optimal. Also, More mental work is required of the learner because they must think of every step along the way to the terminal action which leads to some interference of the instructor and an increase in the thinking by the student which the studies seem to suggest can reduce the learning rate.

 

[Justanotherdad]

Tom, that is what I am trying to wrap my head around. How could it be implemented with hitting. I see many many examples on the internet that proudly proclaim success with golf, swimming, pitching/throwing, volley ball spiking. But nothing regards hitting. Golf seems to be the closest, but only when you consider hitting off a tee. But, then again, isn't that how we build mechanics? Off the tee?

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Quite a worthy goal, I would think.

Some of the arguments against traditional progression training are that the learning gets exponentially more difficult as the progression advances. AKA, your "mini experiments upstream" if arriving at the terminal action is less than optimal. Also, More mental work is required of the learner because they must think of every step along the way to the terminal action which leads to some interference of the instructor and an increase in the thinking by the student which the studies seem to suggest can reduce the learning rate.

Let’s say you target extension of the arms beyond contact. From there you target contact without extension. From there you target the RVP connection point position, etc. You continue to chain backwards … eventually getting to the unloading of the rear leg ... and let’s say the student is performing a ‘spinning’ motion to realize the desired ‘extension’, ‘contact position’, ‘RVP Connection Point position’, etc.. That is, their swing that generated the desired downstream actions had a faulty base. As you change that base, the points downstream will be influenced … and the entire process needs to be repeated from the new upstream condition.

The reality is that what Tom said about the rapid rate of movements is correct. It occurs so quick that it is difficult to have more than one swing thought and succeed in burning in a new mechanic … which is why the process can be a struggle, especially for those that have bad habits embedded in their sequence.

Another point is that it can be much easier and quicker to learn ‘feel’ over learning body ‘angles’ & ‘positions’ when dealing with high speed athletic movements … and hence the importance of an approach using “actions under the hood”. That is, many find ‘feel’ to be much easier to duplicate when dealing with high speed athletic movements.