In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, I explore how to improve motor skill learning and proficiency—whether for athletic performance, learning an instrument or refining any physical skill. I explain practical tools to build skills, including how to structure learning sessions to focus on repetitions, use internal feedback systems and learn from errors—key elements for accelerating progress. I also discuss strategies such as visualization, metronoming, idle time and the impact of supplements like alpha-GPC and caffeine on performance. This episode provides valuable insights for anyone looking to accelerate and optimize their motor skill development. Huberman Lab Essentials are short episodes (approximately 30 minutes) focused on essential science and protocol takeaways from past Huberman Lab episodes. Essentials will be released every Thursday, and our full-length episodes will still be released every Monday. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Huberman Lab Essentials are short episodes focused on essential science and protocol takeaways from past full-length Huberman Lab episodes. Watch or listen to the full-length episode at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/lmnt Mateina: https://drinkmateina.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Huberman Lab Essentials; Learning Motor Skills 00:01:10 Building New Skills, Tools: Open vs Closed Loop; Focus 00:03:58 Sponsor: LMNT 00:05:15 Skills & Realistic Expectations, Super Mario Effect 00:09:34 Tube Test & Brain, Tool: Increase Repetitions 00:12:19 Importance of Errors, Framing Effect, Neuroplasticity 00:14:39 Sponsor: AG1 00:15:43 Learning Session Protocol, Tool: Idle Time Post-Learning 00:19:44 Movement Speed, Ultra-Slow Movements 00:21:49 Skill Proficiency & Errors, Tool: Metronoming 00:24:16 Sponsor: Mateina 00:25:42 Mental Rehearsal & Limits, Tool: Visualization 00:28:24 Skill Learning & Supplements, Alpha-GPC, Caffeine 00:32:14 Recap & Key Takeaways Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. This podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. Today, we're going to talk about and focus on skill learning. We are going to focus on how to learn skills more quickly, in particular motor skills.
So if you're interested in how to perform better, whether or not it's dance or yoga, or even something that's just very repetitive like running or swimming, this podcast episode is for you.
We're going to go deep into the science of skill learning, and we are going to talk about very specific protocols that the science points to and has verified allow you to learn more quickly, to embed that learning so that you remember it, and to be able to build up skills more quickly than you would otherwise. Let's talk about the acquisition of new skills.
These could be skills such as a golf swing or a tennis swing, or you're shooting free throws, or you're learning to dance, or you're learning an instrument. I'm mainly going to focus on athletic performance. There are basically two types of skills, open loop and closed loop.
Open loop skills are skills where you perform some sort of motor action and then you wait and you get immediate feedback as to whether or not it was done correctly or not. A good example would be throwing darts at a dart board. So if you throw the dart, you get feedback about whether or not you hit the bullseye, that's open loop. Closed loop would be something that's more continuous.
So let's say you're a runner and you're starting to do some speed work and some sprints and you're running and you can kind of feel whether or not you're running correctly or maybe even have a coach
and they're correcting your stride, that's closed loop because as you go, you can adjust your behavior and you can adjust the distance of your steps or you can adjust your speed or you can adjust your posture. You're getting feedback on a moment to moment basis. There are essentially three components of any skill that involves motor movement. And those are,
sensory perception actually perceiving what you are doing and what's happening around you then there are the actual movements and then there's something called proprioception and proprioception is often discussed as kind of a sixth sense of knowing where your limbs are in relation to your body now skill learning has a lot of other dimensions too
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