--- title: "Practicing one movement can speed up a different one" description: "Training one functional movement improved performance on a different, untrained movement (Schaefer 2012). What that means for program design." url: https://thequickboard.com/blog/practicing-one-movement-speeds-up-a-different-one publish_date: 2026-09-28 author: "QuickBoard Clinical Team" audience: sports-performance target_keyword: "motor skill transfer between untrained movements" tags: ["sports-performance", "program-design", "reaction-time", "research"] citations: ["Schaefer 2012", "Sherman 2024", "Engeroff 2019"] --- # Practicing one movement can speed up a different one > Training one functional movement improved performance on a different, untrained movement (Schaefer 2012). What that means for program design. Training one functional movement can improve performance on a second movement an athlete never practiced. Schaefer 2012 found that dual-task practice on one naturalistic movement carried over to a different, untrained movement, while a control group given no training on either showed no such gain. For a coach building a program around a limited set of drills, that changes which drills earn a spot on the floor. ## What did Schaefer 2012 actually find? Healthy adults practiced one functional movement task. Afterward, they performed better on a second, completely untrained movement, under both single-task and dual-task conditions (Schaefer 2012). A control group that received no training on either movement showed no improvement on the untrained one. This is a proof-of-principle design, not a multi-week program, and it establishes that transfer between untrained movements is a real effect. It does not establish that any drill transfers to any other drill equally. ## Does the same pattern show up in a different lab? Yes, with a different task and a different limb pairing. Sherman 2024 randomized 45 healthy adults to a single session: physically practicing a lower-limb reaching sequence, watching someone else perform it, or watching an unrelated video. The group that physically practiced with the leg reacted faster with the untrained arm afterward than either group that only watched (Sherman 2024). Speed improved. Accuracy did not differ between groups. The authors credit part of the effect to the cognitive engagement built into the task, not limb practice alone, so the finding argues for engaged, decision-based movement transferring, not for any repetitive motion doing the same job. ## Does this hold up in reactive training, not just reaching? It does. An independent controlled trial that trained on QuickBoard found the same cross-limb pattern in a reactive-training context. Four weeks of foot-based reaction training improved reaction time in the feet and carried over to the hands (Engeroff 2019). Hand-based training in the same trial stayed limited to the hands. The full breakdown of that finding, including why the transfer ran in one direction and not the other, is covered in [Why training feet also speeds up hand reaction time](/blog/foot-training-speeds-up-hand-reaction-time) and on the [Research](/research#engeroff-2019) page. ## Does any cross-training produce the same effect? No, and this is the part easy to overgeneralize. In Sherman 2024, the two groups that only watched the movement, whether the actual sequence or an unrelated video, did not improve on the untrained arm the way the group that physically practiced did. The transfer tracked with actively deciding and moving, not with passive exposure to the pattern. A program that swaps in easy, low-decision movement variety and expects the same crossover is applying these findings to a condition none of the three studies actually tested. ## How does this change Monday morning? A facility with limited floor time does not need a separate, isolated drill for every limb and every movement pattern. The mechanism these three studies point to is decision-based engagement during the movement, not repetition alone, which is the same demand a cognitive-motor protocol places on an athlete. Sequencing a reactive block feet first in weeks one and two of a training cycle, then adding upper-body or sport-specific work on top, follows the same logic Engeroff 2019 already validated for foot-to-hand transfer on QuickBoard. A catching-sport athlete who looks like an obvious candidate for hand-eye-only drills is not automatically better served by skipping lower-body reactive work. Track whether the untrained movement pattern improved alongside the trained one, not only whether the drilled movement got faster. That is the signal Schaefer 2012 and Sherman 2024 both point to, and it is easy to miss if a program only measures the drill it ran. ## Takeaways - Schaefer 2012: healthy adults who practiced one functional movement improved on a second, untrained movement, while an untrained control group did not. - Sherman 2024 independently found the same direction of transfer with a different task, and credits part of the effect to the cognitive engagement of practice, not limb repetition alone. - The Engeroff 2019 trial, which trained on QuickBoard, found the same pattern in reaction training: foot-based work carried over to the hands. - None of these studies measured multi-week strength, agility, or injury outcomes. Treat the transfer as a training-design signal, not a performance guarantee. - A program built around a decision-based movement, not just isolated repetition, may not need a separate drill for every limb. For program design built around this kind of cross-limb transfer, see [Sports Performance](/sports-performance). QuickBoard's protocol structure, including the cognitive tasks behind protocols like Standard and Go/No-Go, is covered on the [Methodology](/methodology) page. The full citation list behind these findings is on the [Research](/research) page. ## Citations - Schaefer 2012 - Sherman 2024 - Engeroff 2019 See [QuickBoard research](https://thequickboard.com/research) for full citation details.