Unfamiliar exercise activities can also cause muscle spasms to occur. Abdominal spasms can occur when a person decides to begin working their abdominal muscles by doing sit-ups and does too many too quickly. Writer's cramps of the hand and fingers are similarly caused by prolonged use of the small muscles in the hand.
Rote learning is a learning technique which avoids understanding of a subject and instead focuses on memorization. The major practice involved in rote learning is learning by repetition. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it. Rote learning is widely used in the mastery of foundational knowledge. Examples include, phonics in reading, the periodic table in chemistry, multiplication tables in mathematics, anatomy in medicine, cases or statutes in law, basic formulas in any science, etc.
The best description of how rote learning was used in ancient Rome to teach children to read can be found in the writings of Quintilian, the famous teacher of rhetoric, born in about 35 A.D. Thus he advocated teaching children the letters and their shapes quite early.