Training fast-twitch muscles for Stepmania

[Arch0wl]

So I am interested in answering the following questions here:

(A) Assuming someone wanted to increase their finger-to-finger dexterity (e.g. ability to trill between ring and middle finger, or ring and pinky, or middle and pinky, and so on) how would they best do this?

(A.1) For (A), what is the ideal practice time? Should they "train to failure", and would more practice lead to more gains?

(A.2) For (A), would high protein / high calorie diets lead to more gains as they do in bodybuilding?

(A.3) For (A), would Stepmania players see greater speed gains by taking steroids? (This is a hypothetical, I do not advocate this.)

(B) Assuming someone wanted to increase their key-to-key dexterity (say, being able to go from getting an F on Disregard, index, to getting an A on disregard index), how would they best increase this kind of speed?

(Same questions applied to (A) apply to (B))

(C) If muscle fibers influence speed to a great extent, why don't more piano players and by extension Stepmania players have much larger forearms? Or is the "stepmania muscle" not visible?

[ilikexd]

a.1) yes, playing to failure seems to help improve speed and stamina even in 1handed trilling abilities
a.2) not sure, my guess is that it's important simply to not have a serious deficiency
a.3) i think no, even though steroids would increase physical strength in order to utilize that strength you still need the time spent improving dexterity and mental speed

c) my arms have gotten noticeably larger over 6 months of playing SM, although to be fair i play vibra stuff a lot. pretty sure this happens to other serious players too

not sure about b) other than just the obvious "play more"
you can isolate the movements used to play index but i would think so much of it (dexterity, reaction time/reading, efficiency) is involved in the actual action of playing the game itself that the best training is just playing whereas isolating the movements to train would most likely focus only or too much on physical strength

[Wayward Vagabond]

Oh wait till I get home

[Dynam0]

(A) I would think resistance training would help (adding weights to the fingers) aside from normal repetition of trill-type patterns. Piano players do the Hanon exercises to increase dexterity although it's obviously not the only way to do so.

(A.1) Practice time would depend on a lot of things...I've heard that training to failure is the best way to gain speed and stamina (see Mina) but I tend to play things that are manageable enough to where I am still focusing on playing fluently, imo this builds technique correctly but who knows.

(A.2) I don't think the raw energy outputs of Stepmania are even close to any other athletic activities, the energy is just localized in a very small area. Comparing this to other musicians with incredible skill, being physically fit doesn't necessarily help performance (see Shawn Lane). (Although I think this might apply more for drummers)

(A.3) Steroids help muscles regen faster iirc allowing you to recover faster from a training session, thus enabling you to train harder. I've never seen a stepmania player 'burnt out' from playing hard 7 days a week or getting some kind of injury from training too hard. iirc Mina plays 8 hours a day or something so I hardly think steroids would help but who knows.

(B) Ask someone in the index department for this answer. I think economy of movement is the idea with this skill-set and minimizing the amount of movement needed to go from key 'a' to key 'b' would be important. Similar to DDR players and how the movement is so fine at the fastest speeds.

(C) I suggest you do some digging on finger mechanics or something of the sort. After a little google searching, I found a number of papers that focus on physiology of piano playing and the like. We aren't the first people to consider this kind of thing

For example: http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/music/m6p.pdf

[SCWolf]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

So I am interested in answering the following questions here:

(A) Assuming someone wanted to increase their finger-to-finger dexterity (e.g. ability to trill between ring and middle finger, or ring and pinky, or middle and pinky, and so on) how would they best do this?

(A.1) For (A), what is the ideal practice time? Should they "train to failure", and would more practice lead to more gains?

I had a huge response to this but accidentally closed the tab and I'm not re-writing the 1000 words I just inadvertently deleted. I'll summarize it.

Progressive overload on songs. Work up comfortably. Work to destroy, not pass.

How long you play doesn't have an adverse effect on how quickly you progress in comparison to weight lifting (naturally speaking). Play until you feel you mentally can not perform to your best abilities.

"Treat your weight lifting like your sex life. Don't always go chasing heavy singles." -Paul Carter.

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

(A.2) For (A), would high protein / high calorie diets lead to more gains as they do in bodybuilding?

(A.3) For (A), would Stepmania players see greater speed gains by taking steroids? (This is a hypothetical, I do not advocate this.)

No, probably not. Pre-workouts may temporarily improve your gameplay though.

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

(B) Assuming someone wanted to increase their key-to-key dexterity (say, being able to go from getting an F on Disregard, index, to getting an A on disregard index), how would they best increase this kind of speed?

(Same questions applied to (A) apply to (B))

(C) If muscle fibers influence speed to a great extent, why don't more piano players and by extension Stepmania players have much larger forearms? Or is the "stepmania muscle" not visible?

Play songs that cater to the specific ability you're working on improving. Progressively overload your gameplay (increase the rate at which the song is played at).

Speed, dexterity and stamina aren't dictated by muscle mass.

Originally Posted by Dynam0

(A) I would think resistance training would help (adding weights to the fingers) aside from normal repetition of trill-type patterns.

Heavy rings etc, yes. Treat your gameplay like body weight exercise.

[Wayward Vagabond]

watch all of these videos and do what he does every day and eventually you will be able to do the things you do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRF4EICO2G0

[top]

i still have your original post about those vids bookmarked bearface hahaha
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...64&postcount=5

[mrpreggers]

Originally Posted by top

i still have your original post about those vids bookmarked bearface hahaha
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...64&postcount=5

hehe yeah i gave them a try for a few days and they helped marginally but then i stopped for no reason

[LLaMaSaUceYup]

Brain foods! Cacao nibs, Coconut oil, Goji Berries, Chai seeds, Walnuts, Blueberries, Spirulina, Etc. Also never give up. Muscle memory buildup takes time. The more relaxed of a state you are the easier it is to learn + the faster. Psychedelics, although most are illegal (check for legality) can definitely help you learn so many times quicker. Will also put you into a relaxed zen-ful state which will allow your mind to accept all information provided without struggle. Another way would be meditation (basically the same as psychedelics except self-induced.)

If you were to compare this with juggling, this would technically be like learning to juggle 8 objects after already mastering 4. Dedication, Determination, & Practise! Each number higher gets that much more difficult it seems. Can work in a 1x2x4x8x16 configuration. (the amount of control required & achieved)

Originally Posted by ilikexd

c) my arms have gotten noticeably larger over 6 months of playing SM, although to be fair i play vibra stuff a lot. pretty sure this happens to other serious players too

The muscle on my forearm is much larger than most people I have seen because of this!

P.S. Not sure how good the repetitiveness would be on your pinky, you would probably have to work up a lot slower with said finger to prevent injury.

[Mollocephalus]

If there was a way to play stepmania underwater it would be such a hell of a training.