contralateral benefits of unilateral training?

[exile]

A long time ago I read some research in sports physiology that seemed to suggest an unexpected benefit in training for the other side of your body: the opposite-side limb would, according to this research, benefit slightly, but measurably, from the training you did on one side. In general, every rep you do of some routine for a rightside technique improves your execution of this technique. The authors hypothesized, as I recall, that if this effect can actually be established, then it suggests that our neurological `model' of what we're doing when we carry out some task is not side-specific, that our brains are able to take what works on one side, abstract a kind of general template for that kind of action, and use that template to evaluate, inform, and correct our execution of the same tech on the opposite side. In this way, training one side or the other will always yield a certain contralateral benefit.


I'm curious to know if other MTers have experienced something like this. I have to say that I've noticed something which could easily reflect this effect: I've worked very hard to establish good dynamic balance in kicking on my strong side, and for a while focused all my workout efforts on that side, because I figured that my weak side is so far behind my strong side that I'd be spending most of my time grabbing for things to hold onto in order to regain my balance as soon as I stwitched from one to the other. And what I noticed was that the stability for my right leg balance/left leg kick is way better than it used to be, although I've really skimped on training that side. It's as though the improvements I've made in my left leg balance/right leg kick have carried over somewhat, along the lines of the research I mentioned earlier. Has anyone else had an experience which reflects something along these lines?

 

[Xue Sheng]

In Taijiquan after you learn the long form starting by going right (for example) it is recommended that you then learn the long form by starting going left. This is a bit disorienting in the beginning but I have always found that after learning the form in one direction it does not take as long to learn the form in the other direction as it originally did when first learning the form.

As a matter of fact it is one of the few things in Taiji that I have no problem with if someone self-trains but ONLY after learning to do the form correctly from a qualified Sifu in the first place.

 

[exile]

In Taijiquan after you learn the long form starting by going right (for example) it is recommended that you then learn the long form by starting going left. This is a bit disorienting in the beginning but I have always found that after learning the form in one direction it does not take as long to learn the form in the other direction as it originally did when first learning the form.

As a matter of fact it is one of the few things in Taiji that I have no problem with if someone self-trains but ONLY after learning to do the form correctly from a qualified Sifu in the first place.

Interesting... again, this suggests that you learn from the right-oriented version a `direction-neutral' version of the long form, so that you can abstract from a road-map of the form involving specific directions to one with `direction 1' and `direction opposite to 1' instead....

 

[Xue Sheng]

Interesting... again, this suggests that you learn from the right-oriented version a `direction-neutral' version of the long form, so that you can abstract from a road-map of the form involving specific directions to one with `direction 1' and `direction opposite to 1' instead....

I should add I have only done this with empty hand forms, no weapons forms. The disorientation has me a bit nervous when it comes to swinging a Chinese “combat steel” Dao around my head I have however found in stationary moves with the Dao I have no problem right or left and I initially trained with only my right, same goes for Jain and Staff.

But here is another one push hands is initially trained right leg forward but it generally is much easier for students to pick up left leg forward after learning thei right. I imagine it would make no difference which side you learned first just that the prior learning makes it easier to learn the other side. This is stationary push hands but the same can be said for moving as well.

 

[Flying Crane]

In the kenpo lineages tracing back to Ed Parker, this is an often argued point: whether it is worthwhile to practice self defense techniques on one, or both sides.

Some proponents suggest that one side is all that is necessary, as the techs are designed around the idea that most people are right handed, so the attack can be reasonably expected to be right handed, and the best defense would also be right handed. At the same time, proponents of this method suggest that lefties somehow have no problem learning the system this way. I personally have never embraced this method. However, this idea seems to be different from what you are suggesting.

I feel it is best to practice techs on both sides, even tho you will always have a stronger and better side. Best to develop as equally as possible on both sides, that's just my feelings on it.

Anyway, I've never heard the suggestion that by practicing on one side, there may be some carry over that benefits the other side, at least not directly. It's an interesting idea, but I suspect the fastest way to develop the other side is to practice it on the other side.

As far as practicing with weapons goes, I do practice basic techniques on both sides, for staff, spear, sword, and broadsword (all Chinese). I have not begun working my complete forms on both sides, however. I've thought about it and may do so someday, but have not taken that step. At any rate, I am a big supporter of the idea that it's good to work things on both sides, develop physical strength evenly, as well as finer motor skills on both sides.

 

[Danny T]

Something I noted many years ago when training new movements or actions I would first work my weak side first and found my strong side seemed to be jumped started. This is something I have continued with my students. We work the left side first and then the right. I have found by doing it this way mentally they make a much quicker connection. The weak side is usually harder to do and is often more frustrating. Then when switching to the strong side the mental connection is there (for most) and they feel much better because it seems easier to perform. If you want to be good on both sides I believe you have got to work both sides. However, I do agree there is contralateral growth happening.

Danny

Danny

 

[FearlessFreep]

Oh,yeah... this is why I set up my left handed mouse with reverse buttons, so my 'trigger finger' is always my index finger, because the 'mirror muscle memory' works out really well for some reason....

However in my limited MA experience, I've gravitated toward an approach of "learn it well on one side and then pick it up on the other side' because I cannot actually play bass left handed : ) and there are strength differences between my sides that do have an impact on the technique that go beyond muscle memory

 

[Kacey]

TKD is pretty bilateral, so I'm not sure I can really answer this... I have noticed, in TKD and out of it, that skills I have learned on one side are less difficult (not easy) to learn on the other - especially gross motor skills; having learned a technique or a sequence of techniques on one side, I find it transfers to the other side with less difficulty... but fine motor skills, such as writing, are more difficult to transfer than gross motor skills, such as kicking, hand attacks or blocks, and tul sequences.

 

[IcemanSK]

I was a TKDoan for 12 years before I took up Western Boxing & American rules Kickboxing. So, I was used to training everything bilaterally. Then I was told, "pick a stance & stick with it." That was very hard for me.

In my case, with my lack of ability with my right hand, in was in my best interest that I switched sides when needed. Due to this same fact, it was also in my best interest to maintain my bilateral training to maintain the strength I had on my right side (& hopefully grow it a bit).

I would often switch sides while boxing &/or kickboxing out of my own sense of self-protection. When I tried to just "pick a side" it was to my determent.

I know tennis player's main playing arm becomes a bit larger than their non-dominant arm. In that sport, perhaps it doesn't affect balance. However, for most sports, I would imagine that striving toward balance would be crucial.

 

[exile]

Just to make it clear, I should say that I certainly don't take this contralateral training effect, even if it does hold up, to absolve us of the need to train both sides. Rereading what I've written makes me suspect that my OP could have been taken that way. I don't think you can get out of training both sides, even if strong-side training carries over to the weak side. My conclusions from this research are more along the lines of (i) whoa, this might have some very interesting impact on our understanding of how it is that our cognitive mechanisms model preset sequences of physical movements and (ii) this effect might have certain practical implications for how to sequence strong and weak side training.

In the kenpo lineages tracing back to Ed Parker, this is an often argued point... Some proponents suggest that one side is all that is necessary, as the techs are designed around the idea that most people are right handed, so the attack can be reasonably expected to be right handed, and the best defense would also be right handed. However, this idea seems to be different from what you are suggesting.... It's an interesting idea, but I suspect the fastest way to develop the other side is to practice it on the other side.

... At any rate, I am a big supporter of the idea that it's good to work things on both sides, develop physical strength evenly, as well as finer motor skills on both sides.

No argument here. What I've been contemplating is something a bit different: whether it might not make sense to favor strong-side over weak-side training (not exclusively, but in terms of the lion's share of training time) up to the point where that essential `click'—the kinæsthetic breakthrough—occurs, and then, having established the internal body sense of the technique, to switch emphasis to the weaks side, using the now-established internal model of the technique to guide the weak-side training. Basically, once you know how doing whatever it is correctly should feel, you can now use that as a training target on the weak side, aiming for the same body-sense you've already locked in on the strong side. If the contralateral effect is real, it implies that we have ways to make a single `internal picture' of the tech available to both sides, and it might be more efficient to wait till that internal picture is obtained and confirmed, so to speak, by strong-side experimentation, before committing the weak side to the effort in full earnest.

I have to say that knowing what certain kick-training tasks feel like when they're done right on the strong side has make it, apparently, much easier for me to do them on the weak side; I'm not at all sure I'd have been as successful simply attempting to do them on the weak side from the outset. They still need to be trained intensely on the weak side, of course, because the weak side is just that—weak, at least relatively so, certainly in terms of strength and, concommitantly, balance, flexibility, dexterity... these all need to be developed by the usual means, aka imposing non-negotiable demands on those limbs. But it might be that this phase is better deferred till the right `key' has been discovered by initially focusing more on strong-side training...

Something I noted many years ago when training new movements or actions I would first work my weak side first and found my strong side seemed to be jumped started. This is something I have continued with my students. We work the left side first and then the right. I have found by doing it this way mentally they make a much quicker connection. The weak side is usually harder to do and is often more frustrating. Then when switching to the strong side the mental connection is there (for most) and they feel much better because it seems easier to perform. If you want to be good on both sides I believe you have got to work both sides. However, I do agree there is contralateral growth happening.

Danny

Interesting switch on what I was just speculating about... do the harder bit first and then the stronger side will pick it up more easily... I just wonder if it might not take a good deal longer going after the training goal on the weak side... but still, it's all an open question at this point... definitely food for thought...

Oh,yeah... this is why I set up my left handed mouse with reverse buttons, so my 'trigger finger' is always my index finger, because the 'mirror muscle memory' works out really well for some reason....

However in my limited MA experience, I've gravitated toward an approach of "learn it well on one side and then pick it up on the other side' because I cannot actually play bass left handed : ) and there are strength differences between my sides that do have an impact on the technique that go beyond muscle memory

Yes, and those strength differences probably make a big difference in rate of progress. That's a good deal of the reason why the strong-side-first gambit has seemed to me to be the default, at least for experimental purposes.

TKD is pretty bilateral, so I'm not sure I can really answer this... I have noticed, in TKD and out of it, that skills I have learned on one side are less difficult (not easy) to learn on the other - especially gross motor skills; having learned a technique or a sequence of techniques on one side, I find it transfers to the other side with less difficulty... but fine motor skills, such as writing, are more difficult to transfer than gross motor skills, such as kicking, hand attacks or blocks, and tul sequences.

Hmmm, that adds another important dimension to the discussion—how gross vs. fine motor skills compare. I agree: I am a reasonably decent pen-spinner with my right hand but I don't think that would give me any advantage whatever if, for some masochistic reason, I decided I had to learn to spin a pen around my left thumb—whereas freezing a side kick at full extension on my left side became materially easier after I started being able to do it with my right leg. (And again, yes, the skills need to be learned bilaterally... my speculations are just about whether a contralateral effect might be relevant to how one might best go about sequencing training for the weak side....)

It's almost as though gross and fine motor skills are vested in two different processing routines in the brain, or correspond to two different neural zones, so that what holds for one doesn't necessarily hold for the other...

 

[Steel Tiger]

I should add I have only done this with empty hand forms, no weapons forms. The disorientation has me a bit nervous when it comes to swinging a Chinese “combat steel” Dao around my head I have however found in stationary moves with the Dao I have no problem right or left and I initially trained with only my right, same goes for Jain and Staff.

When I first started learning jian I had to learn it right-handed, it was the only way I could make sense of what I was seeing. The thing is, though, I am left-handed. The form felt very strange at first, but once I had completely learnt it with my right hand it translated very quickly to the left. This could have been the nature of the form or the fact that I was translating from my weak to my dominant side. I suspect it to be the latter because weapon forms like the jian and dao do not really lend themselves to bilateral operation.

Hmmm, that adds another important dimension to the discussion—how gross vs. fine motor skills compare. I agree: I am a reasonably decent pen-spinner with my right hand but I don't think that would give me any advantage whatever if, for some masochistic reason, I decided I had to learn to spin a pen around my left thumb—whereas freezing a side kick at full extension on my left side became materially easier after I started being able to do it with my right leg. (And again, yes, the skills need to be learned bilaterally... my speculations are just about whether a contralateral effect might be relevant to how one might best go about sequencing training for the weak side....)

It's almost as though gross and fine motor skills are vested in two different processing routines in the brain, or correspond to two different neural zones, so that what holds for one doesn't necessarily hold for the other...

I think you are exactly right about the difference between gross and fine motor skills. There appears to a significant contribution from muscle memory in gross skills allowing us to utilise them without much concentration, while fine skills nearly always require us to focus on the task at hand. Compare walking with writing for instance.

These contralateral benefits would appear to make bilateral training much easier. It may be that less effort than previously thought need be dedicated to bringing the weaker side up to speed. Rather than, say, 30% strong side and 70% weak, we might find its more like 40% and 60%. These are just examples, I don't train this way myself. Can't really, bagua forms and principles just don't let you.

 

[charyuop]

I admit that I might have understood close to nothing of the OP so I am sorry if my answer is wrong.

By what I understood someone stated that training one side of the body also train the other side of the body. I really don't agree with that 100%. I am basically only right handed and never done anything with my left hand in my life.
Now in Aikido we constantly train techniques in both sides equally and I can pretty much tell that my left side has never received any benefits from using only the right side. It is slowly getting better, but my timing/reflaxes with my left hand are still slower than the right. Not only strength, but even keeping correct posture when I practice my left side make me feel uneasy. I learnt katas with weapons with my right side very quickly, but when I transpose them to the left side the kata disappear from my head, to show that even muscle memory is affected by a side which is not used to working.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I admit that I might have understood close to nothing of the OP so I am sorry if my answer is wrong.

By what I understood someone stated that training one side of the body also train the other side of the body. I really don't agree with that 100%. I am basically only right handed and never done anything with my left hand in my life.
Now in Aikido we constantly train techniques in both sides equally and I can pretty much tell that my left side has never received any benefits from using only the right side. It is slowly getting better, but my timing/reflaxes with my left hand are still slower than the right. Not only strength, but even keeping correct posture when I practice my left side make me feel uneasy. I learnt katas with weapons with my right side very quickly, but when I transpose them to the left side the kata disappear from my head, to show that even muscle memory is affected by a side which is not used to working.

The benefit you gain to, let's say, your left from training your right may not be all that obvious. Its really a cognitive development and connection which allows you to training the other side quicker. I'm sure you have noticed that a technique you have learned primarily right-handed isn't all that difficulto to translate to a primarily left-hand position. This is where the benefit really lies, in more rapid comprehension.

 

[exile]

The benefit you gain to, let's say, your left from training your right may not be all that obvious. Its really a cognitive development and connection which allows you to training the other side quicker. I'm sure you have noticed that a technique you have learned primarily right-handed isn't all that difficulto to translate to a primarily left-hand position. This is where the benefit really lies, in more rapid comprehension.

Exactly my original point. The contralateral effect, if it turns out to be a robust phenomenon that can be supported by hard data (the sources in which I read about it were promising preliminary studies, but the effect still awaits detailed confirmation) would not substitute for bilateral training. What it would suggest, rather, is that there may be some reason to train a technique primarily on the strong side, when first starting to learn it, to develop a body-sense of the successful execution of the technique—what it feels like to do the thing right—and then seek out that same sensation when training on the weak side. The thinking here is that a lot of the problems on the weak side—strength, coordination, flexibility and other issues—acting in dysfunctional concert, can present significant obstacles to getting close to successful execution on that side, but that if you have a kind of sensory target, based on your knowledge of what it feels like when it is done right, you can use that target to help overcome the negatives on the weak side and train the technique successfully there sooner—maybe much sooner. This is the core idea—you sort of inscribe the sense of what doing the technique right feels like from your strong side training, and then are able to carry that over to the other side as a realizable objective....