Deliberate Practice Is Important But Not Sufficient For Sports Success
At this point in our youth sports evolution, most parents have heard of the 10,000 hour theory, the supposed minimum amount of deliberate practice needed to attain a high level of athletics mastery. Then, we were told that it’s more like 10,000 hours, give or take 5,000 hours, based on more recent research across additional knowledge domains.
However, Professor David Hambrick of Michigan State has been trying to tell us for years that no matter what the magic number is, there are still other determining factors to attain an elite status. So, how much does practice matter in our pursuit of perfection? According to new research from Hambrick and others, not nearly as much as we thought.
Since Malcolm Gladwell publicized (and oversimplified) the research of Florida State Professor K. Anders Ericsson in his bestseller, Outliers, the original finding that expert performance in motor skill tasks takes an average of 10,000 hours has been taken as gospel among many coaches and parents.
Still, innate ability, along with commitment and circumstances must have some effect on the final product. At least that’s what Hambrick has been proposing for over a decade. In 2011, he and research partner Elizabeth Meinz looked at 14 different studies of chess and music students to look for clues to their success. While they found that practice quantity was important, that factor alone only explained about one-third of their mastery, holding other variables constant.
So, what other ingredients were part of the expertise soup? For the chess and music players, starting at an early age and higher overall IQ had a significant impact on results.
“This evidence suggests that there may be a critical period for acquiring complex skills just as there may be for acquiring language,” said Hambrick.
Now, in his recent research, he joined Brooke Macnamara of Princeton and Frederick Oswald of Rice University to widen the search for relevant evidence of expertise beyond just practice. After an exhaustive search, they focused on 88 previous studies of specialists in domains including music, games, sports, professions, and education.
As expected, hours of practice over several years did have an impact on performance. But, even more dramatically than the music and chess studies, it only accounted for an average of 12% of success across all domains.
Each subject area seemed to have its own level of specialization. On the high end, games and music got the most boost from more practice repetitions, 26% and 21% respectively. However, for expertise in education, practice contributed only 4% to overall mastery, while performance in different professions registered a tiny 1% effect from practice.
So, what about our aspiring sports superstars? Only 18% of success in athletics was attributed to more practice. Important, yes, but certainly not deserving the overwhelming attention its been getting.
“There is no doubt that deliberate practice is important, from both a statistical and a theoretical perspective. It is just less important than has been argued,” said Macnamara. “For scientists, the important question now is, what else matters?”
Besides beginning at an early age, Hambrick has found that an athlete’s working memory capacity is just as important as a determinant of cognitive abilities in sports. Being able to hold multiple situational variables in memory at one time during a game helps an athlete under stress to make better decisions.
We’ve all heard of quarterbacks, midfielders or point guards who have advanced vision to “see the game.” What they do have is the mind of a top chess player, being able to match the scene in front of them with thousands of other examples from their memory. From that database, they select the right pass or the best movement for that situation.
“Not surprisingly, we found that deliberate practice was a powerful predictor of performance,” wrote Hambrick. “However, we also found that working-memory capacity was a positive predictor of performance above and beyond deliberate practice.”
For young athletes to reach top levels of performance, studies like these teach us that it is an entire package of innate abilities, learned skills, and, yes, plenty of practice.
Dan Peterson is Metrifit’s Director of U.S. Business Development. He specializes in integrating Metrifit’s Athlete Monitoring System into the physical, technical and lifestyle training programs of NCAA D1 athletic departments and professional teams.
About Metrifit
Metrifit is an athlete monitoring system that gathers subjective and objective information from both coaches and athletes in a simple but effective manner with intelligent visualization helping coaches and athletes to act on that data. Why not have a look at our Ready to Perform product and gain insight on the physical and mental state of your athletes through our daily wellbeing questionnaire? To find out more visit our Metrifit Product Overview page or get in touch for a free demo.
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Dr. Dale Richardson
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"We started using Metrifit to see if it gave us better predictability and allowed easier monitoring than our DIY excel sheets prior to the Tokyo qualifiers. In a sport where measuring training load is very difficult, Metrifit filled a huge gap in our ability to monitor our athletes’ performance state and recovery. After some months of collecting data I was able to clearly see when to back off and when to keep going with different aspects of the training programme, as well as when to provide extra care and support for our elite athlete – and without a doubt it is much more informative and sensitive than our DIY model, not to mention much easier! Looking forward to the next Olympic cycle with Metrifit as one of our essential tools."
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Coach - Sweden Climbing, Olympic Offensive - Female Coach Swedish Olympic Committee, Senior Lecturer - Coach education programme (Sweden)
https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/emma-hawke/
"I've found Metrifit an invaluable resource. Not only to monitor daily wellness, readiness to train and training load within the squad, but also to monitor training load externally with additional external squads. Furthermore, Metrifit has acted as a key teaching tool, allowing young athletes associate good sleeping, eating and recovery habits to an improved sense of wellness and thus superior on-field performance."
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Strength and Conditioning Coach at DCU Sport and with Dublin Minor GAA
https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/tommy-mooney-short/
“I have been using Metrifit for the past number of years and I have found it to be an excellent piece of software. It is extremely easy to use and has proved very beneficial in preparing myself for competition. The ability to view my health and wellbeing stats everyday and see how this influences my performance in both practice and competition has been very helpful. I have been able to put more effort into key areas such as fluid intake, sleep and balanced golf practice and training. Having the ability to view my detailed stats helps me to understand exactly where I am and how I need to adjust my training or health choices. I have found using Metrifit this past year has been a crucial help for me to play well. As I now have turned 50 I am playing on The Champions tour in the USA and have played well during my first year. Metrifit has been as important as my golf equipment in achieving that success.”
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Richard Deuchrass
Lincoln University Athletic Performance Manager
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NISUS Fitness, S&C Coach Clare Senior Hurling, Horse Sport Ireland and Limerick Senior Hurling
https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/joe-oconnor/
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CEO, Shift Performance, Miami
https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/michael-torres-short/
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https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/graham-williams-short/
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Head Coach, Women's Soccer at Regis University
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Team Manager and Athlete Support Services Coordinator at Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby
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Brian Clarke
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https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/brian-clarke/
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Kevin Schultz
Associate Director of Strength & Conditioning
Director of Olympic Strength & Conditioning
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https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/kevin-schultz-full/
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Tino Fusco, B.Sc. ChPC
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https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/tino-fusco-b-sc-chpc/
"The ability to acutely monitor stress and recovery and make the correct adjustments was critical to our health and performance throughout the NCAA tournament. Metrifit has a very strong educational component. With the information we get, I am able to clearly understand the habits and behaviors of our athletes, and how they may be impacting performance."
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Erik Helland
Director of Strength & Conditioning and Head Strength Coach Men’s basketball, University of Wisconsin
https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/erik-helland/
"When COVID altered college athletics as we knew it, Metrifit came to the rescue. This intuitive athlete monitoring, health and well-being system provides the athlete, coach, and sports medicine staff a way to monitor and balance the physical, emotional, health and well-being of our athlete’s. Metrifit provided that calm in the middle of the perfect storm for our entire athletic department for the future. Thank you to the entire Metrifit family for assisting our department with a seamless process."
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Jennifer McIntosh
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https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/jennifer-mcintosh/
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https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/yvonne-treacy-short/
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Metrifit Athlete Monitoring System
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Kari Thompson
Head Volley Ball Coach, Southern Illinois University
https://metrifit.com/blog/testimonials/kari-thompson/
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