Sports characteristics of special sports

The core essence of special sports is "highly narrow adaptation of abilities + scene-based action nerve solidification + efficient optimal solution set under competitive rules." All the physical characteristics and movement habits of professional athletes that we can see that are different from ordinary people are essentially the result of evolution around these three cores.

Don’t believe it, I used to know a guy in the gym who could squat up to 180kg and deadlift up to 200kg without getting red or out of breath. Last week, he was dragged to an amateur badminton match by a friend. He sprained his ankle just after running for more than three beats. I sat on the sidelines in confusion for a long time and said, “I usually have such strength in my legs, why can’t I stand still after running two steps?” ”In fact, it’s not that he lacks strength at all, but that his muscle ability is completely adapted to the fixed trajectory equipment in the gym. The stability of the small muscle groups of the ankles and the logic of switching the center of gravity when changing directions have never been practiced in badminton scenarios. The essence is that he has not followed the law of "specialized narrow adaptation". What’s interesting is that there are two factions in the training circle that are constantly arguing. One faction thinks that no matter what special event you practice, it is right to first develop general strength and cardiopulmonary skills. The other group feels that you should practice all the specific content from the first day of contact with the event. General quality is a waste of time. I did auxiliary training for the short track speed skating team in the past two years, and I have met two very representative children: one is a middle and long-distance runner in track and field. His basic cardiopulmonary and core strength are much stronger than those of children of the same age. It is not difficult to carry out high-intensity training after getting on the ice. However, it took half a year to change the skating movements. The arm swinging and kicking habits developed from running before are always integrated into the skating movements. ； The other one has been on the ice rink since he was 6 years old, and his gliding feeling is very good. No one in his age group can skate better than him. But when he was 15 years old, when he was trying to achieve good results, he got stuck. His core strength could not support the high frequency of cornering and tilting. It took him three months of additional training to regain his strength. To put it bluntly, the views of both groups are correct. It is just that the stages of adaptation are different. There is no absolute right or wrong at all.

If the narrowing of abilities is a directional upgrade of body hardware, then the solidification of motor nerves is a dedicated code written in your movement system, which cannot be changed even if it is modified. I was playing with a table tennis friend who had retired from the provincial team. He caught a side-spin ball from me and twisted his wrist so much that I could barely see it with my naked eye. The ball just scraped the edge and landed in the middle of my blind spot. Later, during dinner, he said that his coach had asked him to practice 1,500 backhand twists and pulls every day since he was 10 years old. He had been practicing for almost 6 years. Now this action does not require any thought at all, and his hands react faster than his brain. At the last sports meeting organized by his work unit, he went to throw the javelin. As soon as he took the shot, he was happy. The muscle memory of twisting the ball suddenly appeared. When he was supposed to throw the ball, he subconsciously retracted his wrist, and the javelin directly hit the lawn next to him. This is what is called "power shaping" in special training. Repeated scenario-based training will allow specific actions to form exclusive neural pathways, which are directly triggered when the corresponding scene arrives, eliminating even the step of thinking.

But whether it is hardware upgrades or code writing, the final yardstick is actually special rules. All training logic is ultimately aimed at the highest efficiency in the rules. Ordinary people think running is just about spreading your legs and rushing forward? But you see, the arm swing angle of professional marathon runners is always stuck between 30 degrees and 45 degrees, and the stride and frequency are stuck. They have even practiced the movement of passing water stations to get water hundreds of times. To put it bluntly, it is to save a little bit of oxygen consumption. In the last few dozen kilometers, they can be dozens of seconds faster than others. Of course, many amateur road running enthusiasts are particularly disgusted with the idea of ​​"standardized movements". They feel that they run just to sweat and do whatever is comfortable for them. This is completely fine - after all, if you don't need to compete for results, there is no need to pursue the ultimate efficiency of rules. Forcibly changing movements will easily lead to injuries.

I ran into a big trap when I was practicing rock climbing. At the beginning, I always practiced pull-ups with my fitness friends. I could do up to 22 pull-ups in one breath, but I couldn't get past the V3 difficulty level after three months. Later, the coach cut my pull-up training in half and asked me to practice the special content of fingertip force and foot stepping for half an hour every day. In just one month, I passed the line that had been stuck for a long time. It was then that I really understood that the so-called special characteristics were never the ones listed in the book, but were the rules that were most suitable for this project and were discovered by generations of practitioners after going through countless pitfalls.

To put it bluntly, it's not that mysterious. If you just want to play ball and sweat on the weekends, you don't have to worry about special features and you can be happy as long as you want. But if you really want to touch the threshold of the project, or even want to achieve a small result, then you have to abandon the general thinking of "I can win if I am strong" and follow the rules of the project - after all, the decades of experience of other people's professional teams are more reliable than your own guessing, right?