Errorless Training Improves Performance Even Under Conditions of Cognitive and Physical Fatigue

Background: For many years the negative effects of fatigue on performance have been studied. Fatigue can deteriorate different factors in the performance of learned motor skills. This research was undertaken to elucidate the effect of errorless training on the performance of a throwing task in non-fatigued, cognitively fatigued, and physically fatigued conditions. 

Methods: 16 subjects (males: n= 6 and female: n=10) (age mean: 29 ± 5.63) participated in the acquisition phase, the participants performed 5 blocks of 30 trials of a two- step ball throwing task, starting close to the target, and gradually moving away. 48 hours later, the participants first took part in a retention test of 10 throws, and then, after a mental fatigue protocol of 30 minutes of word-color Stroop test, the first transfer test (10 trials) was taken. 48 hours later, the participants made another 10 trials (transfer 2) after the physiological fatigue protocol (maintaining 50% MVC for 2 minutes). 

Results: The results of ANOVA with repeated measure showed a significant difference between performance in the retention test and the two transfer tests (p<0.05). Bonferroni test showed better performance in the transfer 1 (p= 0.002) and transfer 2 (p= 0.003) tests compared to the retention). No significant difference was observed between the two transfer tests (p=1.000). 

Conclusion: Not only did the performance of the throwing task learned through errorless training not deteriorate with fatigue, but it also improved compared to the non-fatigued condition. It is suggested that people specially athletes and coaches to leverage the errorless training method when designing training courses to prevent the deterioration of performance.