The Practice Effect

It's easier to get better at things you actually do.

Pablo Casals, the virtuoso cellist, was once asked why he continued to practice several hours a day in his old age.  “Because,” he responded, “I think I’m getting better.”

That’s a remark that has struck me, lately.  I’ve really noticed the importance of practicing, in all sorts of things.

Probably that’s a side effect of growing older.  The benefits of practice show over time, and the older you get, the more time you have to observe those benefits.

(Then again, I had a colleague many years ago who announced in a faculty meeting that he had been teaching Contracts for over thirty years, leading another colleague to whisper that “actually, he’s taught Contracts for one year, thirty times.”)

But most people learn through repetition.  When it comes to weight training, famed trainer Mark Rippetoe distinguishes between exercise and training.  Exercise aims at burning calories; training aims at improving specific capabilities.  If you go into a gym and do random things until you’re tired, you’re exercising.  When you do specific things with increasing levels of effort/resistance so that you can do steadily more over time, you’ll get better at those specific things rapidly:  That’s training.