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I just came across an article about a recent study at the University of Colorado Boulder's Integrative Physiology department. The study suggests that continued practice of a task even after the task he been perfected can lead to subtle physiological changes that allow the task to be performed with less effort. Here's the study as I understand it. Subjects were taught to perform particular arm-reaching tasks using a joystick to control a robotic arm. As the subjects learned the task through practice, they were able to complete the tasks with fewer errors and with less muscle effort. After a certain amount of practice, their skill of the task reached a plateau -- with no more improvement in terms of muscle effort or errors. The subjects' metabolisms were also measured by monitoring their use of oxygen during the tasks. Now here's the interesting part: long after their skill and muscle effort stopped improving the metabolic effort ...