During the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, gymnast Simone Biles — often called the greatest of all time — withdrew due to a case of the "twisties," a strange condition familiar to many athletes.
The twisties, sometimes called the yips, causes athletes to lose track of their position and/or control over their body.
It's not a problem in the mind. It's a problem in the brain.
While the twisties may sometimes be due to psychological factors, scientists also believe that neurological mechanisms may also be involved.
Athletes conducting repetitive tasks may experience involuntary, sustained muscle cramps, a condition called focal dystonia. Perhaps the most familiar form of dystonia is simple writer's cramp.
Athletes suffering from the yips may experience involuntary jerks that might disrupt a golf swing or cause a gymnast to land incorrectly, perhaps resulting in injury.
Dystonia may cause anxiety as well, and anxiety could also impact an athlete's performance, creating a disrupting feedback loop. The twisties may also impact an athlete's ability to process information.
At one point, Ms. Biles attempted to perform a two-and-a-half twisting vault, but ended up doing a one-and-a-half instead. Missing a twist might not seem like a big deal, but if a gymnast forgets or misjudges her position in the air, she risks serious injury when she hits the ground.
Dive into a professional athlete's cerebellum and you'll find vast quantities of information being processed at astonishing rates. Repetition allows the brain and body to work together to perform complex maneuvers with exceptional speed.
Unfortunately, the sympathetic nervous system, which controls fight or flight responses, may intrude and flood the brain with signals, disrupting information processing. The garbled signals may cause the athlete's muscles to respond incorrectly or result in poor spatial awareness. The result: the dreaded twisties.