Specialized Sports Practice and Theory

The two are a dynamic binding relationship with two-way calibration. There is no absolute priority. Theory divorced from practice is an invalid castle in the air. Practice divorced from theory is high-risk blind trial and error. Any statement that singles out one party to emphasize its decisive role can only be adapted to specific scenarios and is not universal.

If you often go to sports fields or gyms, you will most likely have seen two types of people who go to extremes. One type is the practical group who believes that "practice is the truth". They feel that all theories are just words on paper, and if they have enough time, it is better to shoot 100 more baskets and run two kilometers more. I used to know an older brother who had been playing basketball for more than ten years on the field. He could change direction so much that he could dodge defenders. However, he had been suffering from effusion in his knees for five or six years. When the weather got cold, he had to put on two layers of knee braces. If the pain was severe, he would put on plasters to carry it. He also knew that his knees would buckle in when changing directions. , It is wrong to lower the center of gravity too low, but it is always said that "after so many years of playing, it has been fixed and cannot be changed" - this is a typical lack of basic theoretical guidance, and the wrong movements are practiced into muscle memory. The longer you practice, the more damage will accumulate, and in the end it will become a burden for exercise.

The other is a collection party that regards theory as a "gold medal to avoid death". There is a girl in my circle of friends who said she wanted to run a half marathon last year. She spent half a month studying the rolling resistance of carbon plate running shoes, the scientific basis of 180 cadence, and 12 sets of dynamic warm-up exercises before running. She has dozens of instructional videos from national team coaches in her favorites. She also has three sets of equipment, including heart rate belts and compression socks. The total mileage she has run so far has not exceeded 50 kilometers. When asked why she doesn’t open her legs, she always says, “I haven’t studied the running posture thoroughly, and I am afraid of getting injured if I run wrong.” To put it bluntly, she is not rigorous, but uses theory as an excuse to avoid practice. She has not even established the most basic sense of movement, and no matter how much theory she has, it will not be implemented.

There is a lot of quarrel in the sports circle now about the order of the two, and there is indeed no unified standard answer. Many coaches of old-school professional teams believe in "adding volume first, then adjusting posture." I talked to a track and field coach of a provincial team before, and he said that when a newbie comes to the team, he won't spend hours figuring out the details of movements. I have a deep understanding of this. I used to practice CrossFit rocket push movements and spent two weeks looking at the details in front of the mirror. When doing it with an empty bar, the synergistic force of the hips, knees and ankles was not up to standard. As soon as the weight was increased to 30kg, I immediately subconsciously shrugged my shoulders and raised my arms, forgetting all standard movements. When the core strength cannot keep up, no matter how correct the theory is, it will not be effective.

But on the other hand, coaches with a background in rehabilitation completely disagree with this logic. The rehabilitation teacher at the gym I often go to said, "Repeating the wrong movements 1,000 times will only train the mistakes into muscle memory. When the time comes, it will be harder to change again than to climb to the sky, and you will still be injured." He had a patient who practiced squats blindly following online videos. After squatting for half a year, his knee meniscus was damaged for the second time. He originally wanted to train his legs and buttocks, but in the end, he was so painful that he broke out in a cold sweat even when he climbed the third floor. This kind of case is really not rare. According to statistics from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), independent trainers without basic theoretical guidance have a 62% higher probability of sports injuries than those with professional guidance or basic theoretical reserves. In the long run, the rate of progress is nearly half slower.

Oh, by the way, don’t think that professional athletes just rely on “dead training”. I used to watch a documentary about the national short track speed skating team. The scientific research team behind them would break down each athlete's cornering movements into hundreds of frames and analyze them frame by frame. How much the center of gravity shifted, how much the skates tilted, and what the peak force of the ice was. All calculated based on the theory of sports biomechanics, and then the training plan was adjusted accordingly. When athletes skate on the court, they rely on the physical sense they have developed over many years, but the foundation of this physical sense itself is the result of numerous theories. You may think that someone "trained it by wild means", but in fact the theoretical support behind it is much more detailed than what ordinary people can access.

Now that I am exposed to a new special sport, I am used to spending an hour or two to understand two core things: first, what are the most common injuries in this sport, and what are the red lines that must not be touched, such as not locking the elbows when practicing rock climbing, not stretching the arms when playing badminton, and not bending when doing deadlifts. Memorize these things first to avoid getting injured before you get started.； The second is what is the core logic of this project, and the rest is done directly on the field. When you encounter a bottleneck in practice, such as running 10 kilometers for an hour, or your back hurts when you add weight to the deadlift, you can go back to find the corresponding theoretical content, adjust the details of the movements, and you can find the problem after two or three tries. It is much more efficient than reading a professional book for half a month at the beginning.

In fact, to put it bluntly, theory is like the navigation on your mobile phone. When you want to go somewhere, scan the navigation first to know which way to go, which intersection to turn, and where there are accident-prone areas. Don’t run a red light as soon as you get on the road, or drive directly on the wrong road. You have to drive the rest of the road by yourself. If you encounter a pit or a temporary road construction, the navigation has not been updated, and you can go around it by yourself. You can’t study the navigation for three years before you dare to step on the accelerator, right?

There is no need to argue over who is more important, after all, everyone’s demands for exercise are different. If you just want to meet up with friends to play ball and get sweaty on the weekends, and you don’t plan on getting any grades, then you can just play casually if you know a little bit about the basic injury taboos. ； If you want to take a professional route, or want to achieve training results quickly, then theory and practice are inherently intertwined. You should focus on which at what time. Your body feels the most clearly when you practice, and what others say doesn't count.