--- title: Athletic Edge: Does Practice Really Make Perfect? description: The next time you putt 100 balls at the range, because you know the practice will improve your short game, know this: it probably won't.Why?... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6934536/athletic-edge-does-practice-really-make-perfect/ author: Sean Gregory article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2010-07-16T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-23T04:37:58.452Z article:section: Health og:title: Athletic Edge: Does Practice Really Make Perfect? og:description: The next time you putt 100 balls at the range, because you know the practice will improve your short game, know this: it probably won't.Why?... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6934536/athletic-edge-does-practice-really-make-perfect/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73d36c7a2892b339/698a4e2a86f68e064b6f4515/360_smart_practice_0712.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_smart_practice_0712.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Athletic Edge: Does Practice Really Make Perfect? twitter:description: The next time you putt 100 balls at the range, because you know the practice will improve your short game, know this: it probably won't.Why?... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73d36c7a2892b339/698a4e2a86f68e064b6f4515/360_smart_practice_0712.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # Athletic Edge: Does Practice Really Make Perfect? > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Sean Gregory](https://time.com/author/sean-gregory/) Jul 16, 2010 4:00 AM UTC  Shaquille O'Neal takes a free throw on May 22, 2005\. Sports-training experts believe practice that mixes tasks has better results Shaquille O'Neal takes a free throw on May 22, 2005\. Sports-training experts believe practice that mixes tasks has better results J. Pat Carter / AP by [Sean Gregory](https://time.com/author/sean-gregory/) Jul 16, 2010 4:00 AM UTC The next time you putt 100 balls at the range, because you know the practice will improve your short game, know this: it probably won’t. Why? Because it’s not just practice that makes perfect. It’s practicing intelligently that improves performance. Such are the conclusions of a study published this week in the journal _Nature Neuroscience_ by a group of neuroscientists at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. The authors compared the performance of people who tried to hone a skill through “constant practice” — that is, the rote repetition of a task, like taking 100 serves across the net — and those who underwent “variable practice,” in which you work on a mix of skills during a training session. An example of variable practice: taking a serve, followed by a backhand, then mixing in a drop shot and forehand. [(See 10 cool ways to get into shape.)](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1968057%5F1968056,00.html) In the study, participants were asked to mimic a 60-degree forearm movement that was represented as a wavy line on a computer screen. They moved their forearms while holding a lever, and their results were superimposed onto the target line after each movement. The more the movement mimicked the target, the better the performance. Those who repeated the movement 120 times (constant practice) performed just as well during the practice session as those who did the 60-degree movement 60 times, and a 30-degree, 45-degree, and 75-degree movement 20 times each, in a jumbled order (variable practice). Of course, you can knock the cover off the ball in practice. But it’s the game that counts. About 24 hours after the volunteers finished their practice sessions, the authors tested their performance again. This time, they found that those in the variable-practice group performed better on the 60-degree movement than those who trained with rote repetition. The suggestion is that during the key postpractice period when the brain processes and retains the lessons it has just learned — known by neuroscientists as the consolidation phase — mixing tasks pays off. [(See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2009.)](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379%5F1944376,00.html) Why? Psychologists have long known that variable practice of motor skills leads to better retention. The current study, however, offers a neurological explanation for this phenomenon. Immediately after the practice sessions, some study participants (from both the variable- and constant-practice groups) received transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a procedure that temporarily interferes with brain activity through the application of electric coils on the primary motor cortex, the area of the brain associated with simple motor learning. “We kind of messed with the brain after practice,” says Shailesh Kantak, a former Ph.D. student in the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at USC and the lead author of the study. Another group received TMS on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain region associated with higher-level cognitive functions like problem-solving and planning. The variable-practice participants who received TMS to the prefrontal cortex did not perform as well as those who received TMS to the primary motor cortex, or the control group. Since interference, and a temporary “slowing down,” of the prefrontal cortex negatively affected performance of the variable-practice subset, the authors were able to conclude that variable practice engages this problem-solving and planning area of the brain. The engagement of this more powerful part of the brain, in turn, explains why variable practice improves retention levels the next day. Similarly, people in the constant-practice group who received TMS to the primary motor cortex performed worse on the next-day retest than those who received prefrontal-cortex TMS. This implies that the rote drills engage a lower part of the brain, and further explains why constant practice is less effective for next-day retention of motor skills. Tedium is bad for the brain. “In constant practice, people just go into auto mode, and are just like, ‘Whatever,'” says Kantak, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. “In variable practice, your brain is more actively engaged and actively processing information, which allows it to hold information better. Our brain is like a muscle, and when it gets a good workout, it gets stronger.” So go ahead, take those 100 serves. But don’t forget to work on your drop shots. Your brain will thank you for it. And your opponent, perhaps, will rue the day you mixed up your workout. [See TIME’s sports covers.](https://www.timecoverstore.com/search/sports/?utm%5Fsource=covers&iid=covers) [See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.](https://www.time.com/time/picturesoftheweek) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6934536/athletic-edge-does-practice-really-make-perfect/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6934536/athletic-edge-does-practice-really-make-perfect/"},"headline":"Athletic Edge: Does Practice Really Make Perfect?","datePublished":"2010-07-16T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-23T04:37:58.452Z","description":"The next time you putt 100 balls at the range, because you know the practice will improve your short game, know this: it probably won't.Why?...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6934536/athletic-edge-does-practice-really-make-perfect/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73d36c7a2892b339/698a4e2a86f68e064b6f4515/360_smart_practice_0712.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sean Gregory","url":"https://time.com/author/sean-gregory/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73d36c7a2892b339/698a4e2a86f68e064b6f4515/360_smart_practice_0712.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"360_smart_practice_0712.jpg","caption":"Shaquille O'Neal takes a free throw on May 22, 2005. 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