Why your Cerebellum matters in swimming?

Previous articles at Dobkanize have touched on the subject of mental exercise in the pool for triathletes.  It may sound funny that you get all suited up in a freezing cold pool for a workout that is really in your head.  But if you are interested in making the greatest improvement in the least amount of effort, look no further than between your ears.  In particular, there is one particular area of the brain that is the focus of this article:  the cerebellum.  This purpose of this article is to show the importance of cerebellum function in learning swimming movement.

The cerebellum is the area that controls movement and perception.  It is an amazing piece of computerized machinery, containing more than half of the processing power of the entire brain.  Its job is to take all of those conscious commands we make (like “walk there” or “pick up this”) into coordinated electrical signals that relax or contract your muscle fibers so that they do what you are asking.  A good analogy is that your conscious mind is the software user interface, while the cerebellum is the source code doing the work.  It is a very old part of the brain, and can also be found in fish and reptiles! 

It takes many years and practice to master patterns of movement.  Walking, running and cycling are not skills we learn overnight.  But most of us mastered these at a very young age, making it easy to take them for granted.  It may seem that all we have to do is say “walk” and we can magically walk.  But there is a lot going on to make your movements happen.  And it is these patterns that get people in trouble when learning to swim.  Walking and swimming are both incredibly complex.  Swimming only seems harder because the assumptions that the cerebellum uses for optimal walking often conflict with optimal swimming.

For instance, the movements you make with your arms while walking lead you instinctively to disaster in the pool.  On dry land, our arms serve as a counter-balance to the motion that our legs are generating.  We swing them back and forth, keeping the elbows nice and loose.  You would look like a weird robot if you walked with your elbows locked (probably would feel like a weird robot, too).  But our arms are not used for the same purpose in swimming.  They are used to propel you forward and your elbow needs to be locked in position in order to hold as much water as possible.

But learning to keep your elbows locked is only 10% of the battle.  Just because you read some article on Dobkanize to lock your elbows doesn’t mean your cerebellum instantly creates a vast program of commands throughout your entire system to do so.  It actually doesn’t create anything at all.  Instead, it takes your commands and does its best with the programs it already has. 

So, when you say, “lock those elbows”, your cerebellum gets confused.  If it cannot process the command at all, it simply overrides and tricks you into thinking it has done it.  Thus, you feel like you have issued the command to lock the elbow (and even feel the elbow lock!), but you are still actually swimming with a loose elbow.  Many coaches get frustrated when they tell a swimmer to do something and they don’t do it.  Most of the time, the athlete actually thinks they are doing it and would pass a lie detector test that they are doing it.  I cannot count how many times I have observed this in triathletes learning to swim.  They are simply shocked at the difference between what they think they are doing versus what they are doing.

The way to control your cerebellum’s tricks is to simulate and isolate.  If you place an athlete into a machine that twists and turns the arms and legs in the specific movements of swimming, then suddenly the athlete has a point of reference.  They know what swimming feels like, and this stored memory of feeling can be used by the conscious brain as a point of comparison to what the cerebellum is actually doing.  Simulation and isolation does not stop the cerebellum from trying to trick you.  Instead, it makes you more aware that it is tricking you so that you can do something about it.  

So, here’s what happens if you have just learned what a locked elbow feels like in swimming.  Your conscious mind issues the command to swim with a locked elbow.  Your cerebellum, all confused, thinks, “I think that crazy conscious mind really means a floppy elbow!”.  Elbow goes floppy.  Conscious mind runs a quick calculation and determines that elbow doesn’t feel like the simulation.  Therefore, it must be floppy.  Conscious mind re-issues command to lock the elbow.  The cerebellum, now really confused, thinks, “this guy is nuts!  But if he wants a locked elbow, I’ll do it”.  Cerebellum then locks the elbow. 

But the cerebellum doesn’t know when to time this locking motion with the rest of the body.  So, it just throws it in by brute force, random timing and hopes for the best.  Efficiency losses ensue.  Cerebellum reports to conscious mind that movement doesn’t feel right, even if conscious mind says it is the right thing to do.  The cerebellum then thinks, “this is stupid.  I know that locking the elbow doesn’t help me walk.  Why should it help me swim?  I’ll just go back to the floppy elbow when that crazy conscious mind isn’t looking!”.  Cerebellum goes back to floppy elbow when conscious mind thinks of other things or gets tired.  Conscious mind re-issues command to lock elbow in the swim and process repeats over and over.

It is the constant struggle between the thinking mind and the cerebellum which prevents the fittest triathletes in the world from quickly becoming world class swimmers.  Even though they know what the movement is supposed to be and even have an idea of how it feels, their cerebellum is constantly undermining them.  All the fitness, endurance and technique training in the world are not enough to overcome this deficiency.  It’s not that the cerebellum is bad or evil.  It’s just that it is struggling to move in such a way that its software code says is wrong.  Take a close look at the swimming styles of pro triathletes.  Those that have learned swimming late in life will have a stroke that looks more deliberate and rehearsed, even when they swim at the same speed as their competitors.  Their conscious mind and cerebellum are in constant war, with each side trying to override the other many times each second.

This article may sound like learning swimming is hopeless.  It is only trying to give understanding.  The technique and knowledge of movement is a small fraction of what it really takes to swim well.  So many athletes are used to picking up and excelling in new sports, and get frustrated when they try to swim and find it is not easy.  The vast majority of world class triathletes have been swimming for 10 years or more.  It didn’t take them 10 years to get swimming fitness.  It took 10 years to create that program in the cerebellum that thinks a locked elbow is the right thing to do!  So, the next time you are in the pool and get frustrated, give yourself a pat on the back.  There is no free lunch in learning swimming.  Every gain you get, no matter how small, takes an immense amount of strength, determination and willpower.  I hope that this article helps you understand how challenging it really is to learn swimming and keeps you excited about the sport, no matter how frustrating it can be!  Until next time, happy training.

Disclaimer:  This article is based on the observations I have made while coaching athletes and teaching swimming, as well as basic understanding of brain function.  It is a hypothesis of why people who learn swimming late in life struggle so much, even when other new sports come easy to them.  I have worked with athletes of all levels, and they have some things in common.  For instance, they often think they are doing something in the water when they really aren’t.  They tend to have an easy time implementing new motor skills that are similar to land based movement, but have a very tough time learning movements that are entirely new.  As a hypothesis, this article is not based on testing of brain function.  Perhaps such testing will produce a different theory of what goes on in the mind when learning to swim.