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This is the type of study and insight I like. Kind of amazingly simple, but effective. Though my headline may seem like promising the world, it isn’t. It simply focused on research into amputees and how they regain movement with artificial limbs of all sorts.
Simply a matter of training you may say. Kind of, but it is a painful and slow process because the body and brain are wired to work with the limbs you had and when they are gone it is a long frustrating process to regain functional movement.
And recent research by Szu-Ping Lee of the University of Nevada, is showing that attentional focus, an issue of the mind, is key to getting this right. This is grounded in sports kinesiology research particularly that of Professor Gabrielle Wulf.
The general approach is to focus on what muscles or joints need to coordinate to make a movement - this is similar to what happens in sport. For example, in golf you will be focused on getting the right movement to make your swing, or in baseball, or soccer, or whatever sport it is.
This is an internal focus whereby you are trying move specific muscles or limbs in complex coordination. The idea of course sounds logical: to get a specific movement you should coordinate your body internally.
