Sports
The yips: when elite athletes suddenly can't do the basic move
12 min
The neuroscience and psychology behind the sudden, career-threatening loss of a fundamental skill — the golfer who can't putt, the infielder who can't throw — and what it reveals about how expertise works.
Listen on the app, request early access:
Show notes
The yips occur when the basal ganglia fails, causing opposing muscles to contract at the same time.
Extreme repetition can degrade neural motor maps, turning a well-worn skill path into an unusable trench.
High-stakes pressure triggers the prefrontal cortex to interfere with the cerebellum's automatic motor execution.
Golfers suffering from the yips show significantly higher left-hemisphere brain activity during their performance.
Athletes can bypass corrupted neural pathways by adopting novel tasks like switching to a claw grip.
Traditional practice often reinforces the glitch instead of fixing the underlying neurological disconnect.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2Defining the Glitch2 min
- 3The Neurological Hardware: Focal Dystonia4 min
- 4The Psychological Software: Over-Analysis3 min
- 5Rewiring the Circuit2 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Yips - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic
- Yips and Twisties: What Makes Athletes Suddenly Lose Control of Their Bodies?
- The yips: when ‘choking’ in sport can go next level
- Why Do Top Athletes Suddenly Develop “the Yips”—a Tendency to Choke under Pressure? | Scientific American
- Frontiers | The yips: an investigation of the causes and treatments in the context of golf
- When Athletes Get "the Yips" | Psychology Today
- Yips: Do They Exist or Are They Just Sports Mythology?
- The yips: an investigation of the causes and treatments ... - PMC - NIH
- Mayo Clinic Minute: Are the yips just nerves or something more? - Mayo Clinic News Network
- Rockstar athletes like Ilia Malinin often get 'the yips' at the Olympics. It can make them stronger : NPR
- Yips - Diagnosis and treatment - Mayo Clinic
- Abnormal co-contraction in yips-affected but not unaffected golfers: Evidence for focal dystonia
- The 'yips' in golf: A continuum between a focal dystonia and choking - Mayo Clinic
- Sports-Related Dystonia
Fylom generates episodes like this on any topic you're curious about.
Fylom episodes are researched and written by AI. Automated checks help catch inaccuracies, but episodes aren't reviewed by a human and AI can still get things wrong. Treat them as a starting point, not a source of record — more in our accuracy disclaimer.