What courses are included in specialized sports?

The core of the specialized sports courses we often talk about is to build all-dimensional capabilities around a single sport. From campus interest classes, commercial training institutions to professional competitive echelons, the general content basically covers the four major areas of special skill polishing, special ability improvement, injury prevention and rehabilitation, and event response. However, there has never been a unified template, and the curriculum settings for different projects and different learning objectives are far different.

When I was an assistant coach at an amateur badminton club two years ago, I met several novices who were eager to hit the ball. They made appointments for technical classes as soon as they arrived. I practiced for two months staring at high and long balls and rubbing the ball in front of the net. After playing for only ten minutes, I couldn't move my arms. The ball in the backcourt couldn't even reach the opponent's half. Finally, the coach asked me to have a test. It was only after their physical fitness that they discovered that their core explosive power and shoulder and back endurance could not keep up with the force requirements of badminton. The five-kilometer running and plank support they usually practiced were completely incompatible with the kicking and forwarding power and the muscle recruitment mode of fast swings required by badminton. It took a month of special physical fitness classes to show improvement. There are always different opinions on this topic in the industry. Some coaches think that specialized sports should focus on skills, and physical fitness can be kept up by just practicing casually. There are also senior coaches who insist that specialized physical fitness must be synchronized with skills. For example, the explosive power required in basketball and the core control of changes of direction in football are completely different from the strength of ordinary fitness training. If you practice blindly, you will easily accumulate old injuries.

Don’t think that special classes are just about practicing technique and physical fitness. The youth taekwondo team I worked for before left 15 minutes of injury prevention content at the end of every regular class to teach children how to cushion when a horizontal kick lands and how to avoid stretching the back of the thigh when doing a chop. If you really twist your foot or poke your hand, there are special rehabilitation training classes. You will follow the team doctor to practice strength recovery and movement correction, so you will not be forced to train with injuries. If there are competition tasks, special event-related content will be added. It is not just about playing against each other. How to adjust the diet and training volume before the game, how to observe the opponent's technical loopholes to formulate tactics, and how to review the video and change actions after the game. These are all in the special courses. The content is that last year I led a ten-year-old tennis team member. Before the city match, we gave him three tactical lessons for left-handed opponents to teach him to catch the mobile blind spot of the opponent's forehand. In the end, he actually won the runner-up in the U10 group. When the little guy received the award, he jumped very high holding the trophy.

If it is just a hobby, the special courses of many institutions will integrate these contents into the regular courses and will not break them down too finely. If you go to the professional competitive echelon, there will be a dedicated coach in charge of each module, and the details will be particularly detailed. To put it bluntly, it is actually a bit like learning to drive a racing car. You don’t just need to be able to turn the steering wheel and step on the accelerator. You have to understand the performance of the car (that is, your own physical condition), understand how to run on different tracks (that is, the application of technology in different scenarios), and understand how to adjust if there is a glitch (that is, injury recovery). If you really want to compete on the track, you also need to understand tactics and strategies. If you are missing any piece, you will not be able to run fast.