Verbal instructions on learning the Front-Crawl: emphasizing a single component or the interaction between components?

Purpose
In Front-Crawl swimming stroke, the interaction between two of its components, i.e. arm stroke and breathing, affects the performance of the motor skill as a whole and therefore can be considered a critical aspect of the skill. The purpose of our study was to investigate if a verbal instruction emphasizing this interaction could lead to learning gains when provided along with video demonstrations.

Methods
Participants (children) were randomly assigned to three experimental groups according to the type of verbal instruction provided. Component and Interaction groups received their specific instructions along with video demonstrations of a model execution of the Front-Crawl. The Control group watched the same video, but received no further instruction concerning the movement pattern. In the Acquisition phase (AQ) all groups performed 160 trials (organized in 4 sessions) of the task that consisted in swimming 8 meters the Front-Crawl at a comfortable velocity. To assess learning gains, a retention test (RT) and a transfer test (TR) were carried out one week after the end of the AQ.

Results
Regarding RT and TR, the one-way ANOVA on the movement pattern score showed a significant difference between groups, with post-hoc tests revealing that the Interaction group achieved higher score than the Control group.

Conclusions
The results reveal that enhancing aspects of a video demonstration with verbal instruction improves learning gains of the Front-Crawl in children. Additionally, the results suggest that providing verbal instructions about the interaction between stroke and breathing might promote learning gains, compared to providing instructions about the stroke component individually.