If you’ve been coaching for any length of time, you may have noticed that it can be confusing to your clients when you delve into elaborate details about basic techniques. As fun as it is to geek out on the intricacies of fundamental movements, engage in heated debates on the internet (or productive discussions on the Catalyst Athletics forum), and dissect variations with other bright minds, you’ll find that sharing theories on modifications and progressions with your clients doesn’t always have the intended results.

Throw out terms like proprioception or rate of force development and you’ll often see people’s eyes glaze over. Only a small handful of your clients will understand what you’re talking about, and your long-winded explanations are unlikely to help them grasp those few basic movements they’re still struggling with in spite of your patient guidance.

This doesn’t make your athletes dumb or unmotivated, or mean that they don’t have the desire to squeeze the most out of their training sessions. It just means that these details can be overwhelming for them, however tempting it may be for you to offer nuanced explanations. Maybe some of them will want to explore these complex concepts in greater depth at some point in the future, once they’re further along towards their goal (be it technical mastery, competitive numbers, or looking good naked--whatever their driving motivation may be). But first, they’ll need to learn specific movements you’re teaching them inside and out, and take that knowledge home with them, especially if they work out on their own in addition to working with you, or have any kind of competitive ambitions.

A widespread criticism of workshops and seminars, as reported by attendees, is that they can’t remember all the cool things they learned. Even cutting the technical jargon out of your coaching, simplifying movements and providing helpful cues doesn’t always do the trick. Something which worked so seamlessly when an instructor was there to offer guidance and coaching can often seem impossible for people to recall on their own. Your carefully chosen cues seem to go in one ear and out the other, and you wonder if your clients are actually learning anything at all.

And even with your knowledge and experience, and the systems you’ve developed to help your coaching run smoothly, there are probably a few things you have trouble remembering yourself. So let’s take a step back and tap into some strategies to better use your memory. We’ll address the skill of memorization itself, explore a couple of ancient techniques, take a brief look at the wild world of competitive memory sports and, with current and former U.S.A. memory champions as our guides, look at strategies you can incorporate into your own coaching and learning.

What Are We Doing, Again?

As someone who’s watched videos on YouTube for exercise suggestions on new equipment, written a series of exercise names and cues on an index card, and summarily forgotten a good chunk of the details by the time I hit the gym, I’m all too familiar with being unable to recall basic information. I like to think I’m somewhat intelligent. I have a working knowledge of various topics ranging from Russian literature to MMA, and a repertory of everything from song lyrics to poems to Latin names of plants in the recesses of my mind. Yet I’ve often been frustrated at my own inability to remember the most basic of things. According to 2011 and 2012 U.S.A. memory champion Nelson Dellis, I’m not the only one. This is something many people struggle with.


“Everyone in some way or form has to memorize things every day, and sometimes people have difficulty with it--maybe not in every form, but I can probably go out there and everyone will tell me one thing they hate memorizing or have trouble memorizing,” he said.

The world of memory sports, described in fascinating detail by science writer Joshua Foer in the bestselling memoir Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, is a bit of an eye-opener about what the human brain can do with practice. Foer himself did not set out to become a memory champion, but noticed his numbers rising to competitive levels through guided practice, and found himself winning the 2006 U.S.A. Memory Championship in what began as merely an experiment in participatory journalism. In the book, he weaves historical details, cutting edge scientific research, compelling personal anecdotes and intricate analysis into a fascinating narrative on this strange world where normal people regularly accomplish seemingly impossible feats.

Simply recalling information, described as the lowest form of learning in Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives, sometimes gets a bum rap...at least at first. “People think memorization is dull, and if you tell them that you’re the winner of memory championship, they think that’s kind of nerdy and lame, but when I tell them what I’m capable of and how I do it, suddenly there’s a tremendous amount of interest,” Dellis says. In the 2012 U.S.A. Memory Championship, he memorized 303 random numbers in five minutes, 163 names and faces in 15 minutes, a previously unpublished poem in 15 minutes, and the order of a shuffled deck of playing cards in one minute and 3 seconds. He also memorized a series of random words in an elimination round, recalled details about strangers in a memorization game aptly titled “tea party,” and memorized the order of additional playing cards in the final showdown, beating out all other finalists.

In addition to his memory prowess, Dellis, who trains at an I Am Crossfit affiliate in Miami, Fla., has also climbed Mt. Everest to raise money for Alzheimer’s research. He managed to incorporate memory training into this climb, memorizing shuffled decks of cards without the aid of supplemental oxygen, and reshuffling the deck at each altitude change. (In a phone interview, Dellis was quick to promise that he wouldn’t automatically memorize our entire conversation, though. “That’s a common misconception,” he explained. “I’m not a tape recorder.”)


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REMEMBERING NAMES IN FIVE EASY STEPS

While you may not want to memorize the order of a deck of playing cards at each altitude while climbing the highest peak in the world, remembering the names of everyone at your gym is a useful, practical activity. Dellis, who’s taught workshops to help Crossfit coaches memorize the names of hundreds of clients, shared his five-step method:

1. Pay attention and make sure you’re actively trying to remember someone’s name, instead of just thinking about the next thing you want to say. Consciously telling yourself that you’re going to learn someone’s name, or learn as many names as you can, surprisingly makes a lot of difference.

2. Before asking for their name, find a distinguishing feature on their face--a large nose, bushy eyebrows, a dimple, a scar...something that will pop out at you the next time you see them. This serves as a kind of anchor which will help you in the process.

3. Ask them their name. This is where imagery comes in; you have to be a bit creative, and it does involve some practice. Come up with an image for their name, or the syllables that make up their name. As an example, Nelson pointed out that his own name sort of sounds like the words “nail” and “sun.” One might imagine a big yellow sun with a nail being driven through it.

4. Take the image of their name and intertwine it with the anchor from their face. Envision the image happening along with the distinguishing feature. When Nelson asked me what his name reminded me of, I mentioned Nelson from the Simpsons. Pointing out that he has a larger nose, Dellis said I could imagine Nelson from the Simpsons, who’s a bully on the show, punching him in the face--making his nose big because it’s all swollen.

5. Whether you casually use the person’s name in a sentence or not, try to picture that image in your mind throughout your interaction with them.

Mental Athletes; Physical Athletes

Joshua Foer points out that a surprising number of those who do well in the world of competitive memorization are physical athletes, and are often competitive runners. This includes 2005 and 2006 World Memory Champion Clemens Mayer, 2007 World Memory Champion Gunther Karsten, and 2008 U.S.A. Memory Championship finalist Paul Mellor, who has run a marathon in all 50 states.


Although many people who perform well in memory competitions are athletes, Dellis points out that this certainly isn’t the case with all competitors. “For the most part, most memory competitors are not physically active,” he said. “It would be your typical kind of nerdy guy who just sits at his desk all day, but maybe the people who do a little bit better have a little healthier lifestyle.”

Foer, a recreational cyclist himself, believes the link is there because “these are people who like to push themselves. They like to push themselves mentally, they like to push themselves physically and see where their limits lie and see if they can go beyond those limits.”

Smashing Barriers

The drive to overcome perceived limitations can be quite strong, and Foer is quick to point out that when any kind of world record is broken, it’s usually not long until others hit the same record, no matter how impossible this feat previously seemed. “There is this kind of interesting phenomenon, basically, where there’s no competitive endeavor where records don’t regularly fall. So if there’s limits to what we can do, we haven’t figured them out in any competitive sport, which is rather remarkable. It does suggest that we haven’t found our limits yet as a species in basically anything,” Foer explained.

But not everybody gets past what Foer refers to as the OK Plateau, where you continue practicing a sport or activity for hours upon hours without any improvement. You’re putting in the time, but your training is automatic, and you’re not pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone... and therefore see no improvement for all of your practice.

And yet Foer, who is quick to insist he wasn’t born with a good memory, regularly found strategies to overcome plateaus in his training. Working with a coach to get immediate feedback on performance, and making a point to practice in areas in which you have difficulty instead of focusing solely on those you’re already good at can help you break down these walls in both physical and mental endeavors.

Of course, we must offer the standard disclaimer that trying to overcome plateaus does not mean one should sacrifice perfect form and get themselves injured trying to get better numbers to throw on a gym’s whiteboard. But we’ve all seen positive effects from friendly competition. When I went to an indoor climbing gym with a friend, I noticed he was sticking to the bottom of the wall and feeling incapable. Having a vague idea of his fitness level compared to mine, I knew he had the potential to step up his game, so I deliberately raced to the top of the same climbing route. It worked--he suddenly found the ability to navigate the foot and handholds with increased speed and make his way to the top on his second go-around. You’ve likely had similar occurrences, which showcase the importance of training with people who are better than you or will continue to push you, rather than being the top performer in the gym, or stepping out of your comfort zone to compete at a national level no matter the outcome, instead of easily winning states year after year.

Application in the Gym (Shove Your Ankles Where The Sun Don’t Shine)

Speaking of competition, I asked Nelson Dellis if using memorization techniques can help in high-stress situations, where memory sometimes flies out the window. (Science writer Jonah Lehrer, interviewed in the May 2012 issue, recently wrote about the new neuroscience of choking in the New Yorker.) Boxers often forget to keep their arms up and elbows in during an actual match, basketball players miss what should be easily attainable shots, and athletes in every sport often see the fundamentals of their technique fly out the window.

“That kind of stuff is muscle memory,” Dellis said, and not easily solved by the memorization strategies covered in this article. “You only can do that [kind of thing] naturally if you practice it so much that you don’t think about it anymore. What the techniques I do, I think, is get information in our mind quicker. So if you’re presented with something new, it takes awhile for you to really lock it in your brain, and then it takes a while before you really know it, whether it’s a movement in sports or a language or whatever. [These strategies help with] that part of getting it into your head first, the steps of how to do a golf swing, but to actually do the golf swing like Tiger Woods... that takes practice until it becomes natural.”

Dellis thinks the technique is especially effective for learning new movements, which brought up some confusion for me. Why come up with an unrelated visual to learn something you’re seeing visually via a demonstration? He reminded me that the brain latches onto bizarre images best, and provided a particularly cogent example of how one might memorize proper form for an exercise. “Say you’re learning how to do a squat, and one of the important things that you need to remember is you want to go all the way down; you want your ass to go low. So you can see that when somebody’s demonstrating it to you, of course, but that doesn’t mean that when you’re doing it you’ll necessarily see that picture. So what I would do is make that image of that step, that image of the squat into an image that is more out of the ordinary, something sort of bizarre. So I can imagine maybe driving my ankles up my ass, something like that, something really stupid and gross, but when I’m in the bottom of my squat, I’m thinking of that image, which is a little more disturbing. That’ll make me think, ‘Okay, I need to go a little bit lower; I’m not fully as far down as I need to go.’ And that’s the kind of idea and that’s what I do when I’m memorizing numbers or cards or names; I’m turning all that information into these weird, kind of shockingly absurd pictures, because those are actually easier to latch onto for the brain,” he said.

Depending on the culture of your gym, telling a client to visualize shoving their ankles up their ass might be a bad idea, but having them develop their own series of images in response to specific cues might be an alternative way to incorporate imagery into their training.

Other Applications

In addition to training for specific competitive memorization events, and memorizing the names and faces of those he meets, Dellis also has a practical gym application for his skill. He keeps his mind active while he’s training by memorizing his running time, weights, sets and reps--in particular, his maxes.

These days, Foer makes regular use of the memory palace, or the method of loci, to give speeches without notes. This is an ancient technique which was used by Cicero and countless others to memorize speeches, and by medieval scholars to memorize entire books. It involves coming up with an image to represent each part of a talk, and placing it somewhere along a building you know well. Ever heard someone say, “in the first place” during a talk? Foer pointed out in a speaking event that this was originally used to literally refer to a physical location in the orator’s memory, going back to the earliest Latin memory treatises. Even the word “topic” was derived from the Greek word topos, which means place--a vestige of spatial thinking used in delivering speeches.

For best results, your objects have to be a bit out of the ordinary, though--the more unusual, colorful or bizarre, the better. Engage all of your senses. Think comic books. Make things stink or make them explode. Make things gigantic or pornographic--or both. (It’s an interesting footnote in history that the most pious of sermons were delivered using these, uh, non-pious memorization techniques.) As you walk through the building in your mind’s eye and see the images along the way, you’ll remember the topics they represent.

I tested this technique out myself while visiting Marcelo Garcia’s Academy in New York. I wanted to write a gym review on my blog, but obviously couldn’t take notes in the middle of back-to-back jiu-jitsu classes. Instead of trying to recall the details afterwards, I wanted to memorize specific things that stuck out to me during my visit.

I actually used the building of the gym as my memory palace, because two things about it struck me as quite unusual and memorable. The first was that it was on the 6th floor of a building, and despite my awareness of real estate in NYC, I’d always imagined my BJJ mecca as its very own building rather than just a segment of one. Another surprising physical feature of the Academy was that the elevator opened right up to the gym--no walkway, nothing; one step off the elevator and your foot is on the mat.

The first image I created was of the building getting visibly taller...like an elevator to the sky. The second image I created in my mind’s eye was hundreds of eyeballs of all sizes appearing on the walls. Third, I filled the entire building with smoke.

When I had a chance to sit down and compose my blog post, I was pleased to realize that I remembered the three images well. It took me a bit longer to figure out what they meant, though. I knew the eyeballs represented the watchful eyes of the many assistant instructors at the Academy. But what was the building becoming taller? Eventually I remembered that this was the image I’d created to remember the expansiveness of the techniques. (All Alliance affiliates utilize a series of choreographed techniques in their fundamental classes, to teach proper movement patterns. In this case, we worked on setting up a seated upright guard pass, then our opponent would take the underhook and we’d respond with a backstep, they’d pull half-guard, we’d post on their leg and post our hands on their opponents hands and slide off to the side, followed by a seamless transition to side control. That’s a lot of steps. Some gyms just work on a single guard pass to side control.) And finally, the smoke. After about ten minutes, I remembered that the smoke was an image I created to try to symbolize the positive vibe in the gym, where everyone was helpful and friendly and there were no meatheads to be found. I didn’t know how to create an image for ‘vibe,’ so I changed the word to atmosphere, and used smoke to symbolize that.

Although I clearly need some practice to be able to remember what the images I create represent, I can attest to the fact that this technique actually worked quite well on my very first attempt--in spite of my skepticism.

Memorizing Vs. Learning

Although both Dellis and Foer use these skills they’ve developed in their day-to-day lives, they are both quick to agree that memorization has its limitations. It’s a step towards learning, but isn’t learning itself.

“Memory is the basic building block of learning,” Dellis said. “It gets information quickly in your head. That’s not the actual information you want to learn, but once you have it in there, you can review it and make sense of it after that and that’s where the actual learning comes.”

Foer points out that although repeating something over and over again is mindless, memorization can actually be mindful by “forcing you to reckon with what it is that you’re trying to learn.” He views committing things to memory as a necessary first step for processing the world. “Understanding is essential, but sometimes you need a little extra help,” he explained. “For example, say you memorize all the U.S. presidents, and what years they served. That’s raw and kind of uninteresting information, and it’s not that useful in and of itself, but it becomes useful when you are reading U.S. history and then all of a sudden this information that was kind of disconnected can provide context and structure to what you’re reading and what you’re learning.” Remembering basic facts gives you a starting point to fasten other facts to. Awareness of this is embedded into the medieval mind. In fact, the Latin word inventio gave rise to the words invention and inventory, signaling, Foer believes, that one needs to stock their mind with knowledge to be able to project into the future with new creative insights.

Giving oneself permission to use memorization as a starting point for analyzing information in detail at a future time is actually quite relieving. Trying to understand and analyze everything can be overwhelming, but allowing oneself to indulge in a bit of rote memorization as a stepping-stone can make things easier in an age where it’s easy to get oversaturated with details.

But although mnemonic devices are very effective for recalling structured information, the memorization techniques aren’t ones you’ll necessarily want to use for all kinds of learning. Embedding random images in your head instead of observing what’s going on around you isn’t always the solution. “I can imagine some situations where it would distract you by taking you away from something practically meaningful and relevant,” Foer said. The memory palace, for example, “is a technique that’s good for something that does not have inherent meaning to you; you’re adding a layer of meaning where there is none.”

Yet the brain does prefer to take in information in the form of pictures, and as I mentioned previously, the more bizarre or disturbing these images, the better. Graphically sexual or violent images are surprisingly effective.

I asked Dellis whether associating a person with an image might change your behavior toward them. What if you come up with a disturbingly gruesome image of a nice old man, and suddenly see and treat him differently from then on, reacting to my image association rather than the individual?

Dellis put my mind at ease. “That never happens. You can always separate the two,” he assured. “The thing with names is, you will meet people who might be constantly in your life and you meet people you might never see again. So sometimes you try to learn their names, but it’s not important because you may not see them again. But another person may become your best friend or your boyfriend or girlfriend. What happens with the people that become more prominent in your life is that you end up just knowing their name. It’s not that you always have to think of these images. These images and this technique help get the name in your mind faster. It’s like a crutch; it goes away. Over time, if you develop a relationship with that person, eventually you just know them as that name and you don’t have to think of that image. The image; that’s just something to help you in the beginning because it is so difficult.”

[SIDEBAR]
MAKE YOUR TRAINING MORE MEMORABLE

1. Find ways to make ordinary things fun.

Dellis describes breaking up his many hours of memory training into smaller chunks to make it less tedious to get through. Foer, who is the cofounder of Atlas Obscura (a compendium of the worlds wonders, curiosity and esoterica), found ways to make otherwise tedious memorization fun by tapping into his creativity and finding enjoyment in the process. These concepts can also apply to your own training in the gym or on the field. Whatever you need to do to find joy out of your deliberate practice, make sure it’s not so boring or repetitive that you stop doing it.

2. Get constant, immediate feedback, however possible.

Foer referred me to Personal Best, an article in the New Yorker about the importance of coaching. If you can’t work with a coach, or aren’t getting the feedback you need, post your lift videos on a forum or show them to someone who can help. Sharing videos of failed lifts or tournament losses isn’t much fun, but getting better is, so make sure to get tips on your areas of weakness in addition to celebrating your strengths.

3. Eliminate distractions, when possible.

When competing in the U.S.A. and World Memory Championship, Foer copied a technique from the Germans. He wore industrial-grade earmuffs to block out distracting sounds, and special goggles that reduced his vision down to pinpricks. Although this is highly impractical in most everyday situations, making a willful effort to cut out distractions isn’t, so leave your phone in the locker room.


4. Rise above perceived limitations.

Nelson Dellis rattles off memorized words and numbers with ease in memory competitions, but it probably wouldn’t look so easy if he didn’t practice 4-5 hours a day leading up to a competition or 2 hours in the off-season. And although Joshua Foer is clearly highly intelligent, he insists that memory isn’t actually his forte--and yet he pulled off impressive scores with hard work and expert guidance. We are capable of so much more than we think we are.

5. Break out of the rut.

No matter how dedicated you are to your training, falling into a mindless routine at the gym is always a bad idea. Stay interested in your sport or activity by finding new ways to anchor your memories, so one training session doesn’t blend monotonously into the next. This might mean visiting a different gym, attending a seminar which piques your interest (even if you don’t “need” it), finding a new trail to run or bike, or even just playing with a new tool--whatever it takes to keep things memorable and fresh rather than rote and prescriptive. What will help you be more present, make your training more relevant and meaningful to you?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Books: You Can Have Amazing Memory by Dominic O’Brien is a how-to guide, filled with tips and techniques from an 8-time World Memory Championship winner. The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games by K. Anders Ericsson, and Expert Performance in Sports: Advances in Research on Sport Expertise (also by Ericsson) looks amazing, if you have $50+ to spend on a book. And, of course, we already mentioned Foer’s Moonwalking With Einstein, which is more of a memoir.

Online Resources: Elliot Waite has a Remember Names Game, and Memrise can help you learn languages. Mnemotechnics has boatloads of information, an active forum, and they sometimes organize Google hangouts on Sundays to talk about memory. And, of course, you can always check out Nelson Dellis’ blog (he plans to return to Mt. Everest in 2013) or pore through Joshua Foer’s website. If you’re looking for more on the method of loci, Foer seamlessly incorporates a memory palace into his TED talk, and Dellis has a great video where he demonstrates memorizing ten random words for a magazine.