The Story
“Yips and Twisties: What Makes Athletes Suddenly Lose Control of Their Bodies?”
https://www.brainfacts.org/thinking-sensing-and-behaving/movement/2023/yips-and-twisties-what-makes-athletes-suddenly-lose-control-of-their-bodies-091823
by RJ Mackenzie
BrainFacts, 18 Sep 2023
The Pitch
| The “yips” might have a playful name, but this phenomenon – an unexplained loss of motor control over actions like tennis serves or golf swings – can ruin sporting careers. Often treated as a psychological phenomenon, neuroscientists are advancing our knowledge of the yips – research that may even help us understand neurodegenerative disorders that affect how we move.
I intend to write about studies of the yips and then use this work as an entry point to review movement disorders in sport. I will start by interviewing Charles Adler, a professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic and expert in the field. He has advanced tools for separating out cases of the yips that may be caused by motor involuntary muscle movements from those that may have a psychological basis. Adler has expanded this work to create predictive models of tremor and dystonia that has helped to map out how these conditions are related. I intend for this piece to be an article of medium length – 700–900 words. I think this article would address a poorly understood sporting phenomenon that many sportspersons are concerned about – which is particularly relevant given BrainFacts’ focus on neuroscience in sport. I think an in-depth and clear explanation of the latest research on this condition would add greatly to coverage in this area.
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