Club 300 Closes: but did it work?

A project to test the theory that 300 repetitions results in improved performance has come to an end. And the results are in. By Billy Mann

The Occupational Therapy project at Headway East London I posted about a while back has now finished. To recap, Club 300 as we cheekily called it, brought together four members of Headway East London, each of whom wanted to gain some improvement in the execution of an everyday task. Two members wanted to improve their handwriting, another wanted to cut up food on a plate more confidently, and I tasked myself with the mission impossible of walking without a stick while holding a cup of water in my weaker left hand. 

If you want detailed information on the results of this exercise, the OT in charge was Natasha Lockyer. I cannot discuss how others performed, but to finish the analysis, the tests we performed at the start were repeated at the end and the change recorded. At the start, I had walked a given distance (not sure what it was) holding a cup in my left hand filled to near the top with water in 46 seconds, and I spilled around 10ml in the process. At the end, I walked the same distance in 18 seconds and spilled no water. Get me, eh? Top of the world, Ma.

In my daily executions of these 300 steps, I determined to make the task more difficult as my performance improved. This, I am afraid to say, has fallen by the wayside in favour of basking in the success of spilling no water. Still, I do continue to perform the routine every day (or thereabouts) and continue to notice a difference. I shall report on my progress as and when something of interest happens, and I will ask Natasha if a re-run of the test in, say, 6 months is possible. Only then will I be able to declare Club 300 a giant leap for mankind.