Robotic guidance induces long-lasting changes in the movement pattern of a novel sport-specific motor task

Facilitating the learning or relearning of motor tasks is one of the main goals of coaches, teachers and therapists. One promising way to achieve this goal is guiding the learner through the correct movement trajectory with the help of a robotic device. The aim of this study was to investigate if haptic guidance can induce long-lasting changes in the movement pattern of a complex sport-specific motor task. For this purpose, 31 subjects were assigned to one of three groups: EA (early angle, n=10), LA (late angle, n=11) and CON (control, n=10). EA and LA successfully completed five training sessions, which consisted of 50 robot-guided golf swings and 10 free swings each, whereas CON had no training. The EA group was guided through the movement with the wrist being bent early during backswing, whereas in the LA group it was bent late. The participants of EA and LA were not told about this difference in the movement patterns. To assess if the robot-guided training was successful in shaping the movement pattern, the timing of the wrist bending during the backswing in free swings was measured before (PRE), one day after (POST), and 7 days after (FUP) the five training sessions. The ANOVA (time×group×angle) showed that during POST and FUP, the participants of the EA group bent their wrist significantly earlier during the backswing than the other groups. Post-hoc analyses revealed that this interaction effect was mainly due to the differences in the wrist angle progression during the first 5° of the backswing. The robot-guided training was successful in shaping the movement pattern, and these changes persisted even after 7 days without further practice. This might have implications for the learning of complex motor tasks in general, as haptic guidance might quickly provide the beginner with an internal model of the correct movement pattern without having to direct the learner's attention towards the key points of the correct movement pattern.