Sports characteristics of special sports

The core characteristics of special sports are essentially "highly customized physical ability adaptation + solidification of action nerve pathways in special scenarios + domestication of corresponding special metabolic patterns." There is no set of universal training logic that can be applied to all special sports. This is the underlying law that I figured out after 8 years as a youth physical fitness coach after going through countless pitfalls.

Don't tell me, a little while ago, a little brother who practiced fitness came to me and said that his bench press was 120kg, but he had no energy at all when playing badminton smash. I touched his force generation mode and understood - the bench press is a forward push dominated by the pectoralis major, and the badminton smash is an internal rotation dominated by the latissimus dorsi. The order of muscle call is different, and you can't exert the force. This is actually the most common misunderstanding that ordinary people have about the characteristics of special sports: they always think that good basic strength can cover all sports, and they do not realize that the action logic of each special activity has long been engraved into the neural reflexes of practitioners. Just like if you ask a 100-meter athlete to catch a table tennis serve, there is a high probability that he will not be able to catch the first three. It is not that his reaction is slow, but that the neural pathways he has practiced for more than ten years are "listen to the gun → push both feet on the ground → explode forward." When encountering a scene where he needs to judge the rotation and finely adjust his wrist and fingers in an instant, all the reflex arcs he has practiced before will not take effect.

The industry has been arguing about "physical fitness priorities" for many years before. One school is the "universal fitness theory," which says that as long as you improve the basic qualities of cardiopulmonary, strength, and flexibility, you can quickly achieve results in any specialization.； The other school is the "specialty-only theory", saying that basic physical fitness is useless, and just spending time on the court every day to perform special movements is enough. A high school basketball player I coached once encountered this pitfall. The former coach insisted on making him squat heavy weights to strengthen his lower limbs. When he squatted to 180kg, his bounce dropped by 2cm. When shooting, his lower limbs were as stiff as if they were welded to death - to put it bluntly, Squats are a symmetrical, vertical force exertion by both legs, while basketball layups and pull-up jump shots are mostly asymmetrical single-leg force exertions with lateral displacement. The movements practiced do not match the requirements of the special event at all. The more you practice, the more it interferes with the muscle memory of special movements. Later, we replaced his strength training with movements such as single-leg deadlifts and box jumps that were more suitable for basketball force generation. In less than three months, his bounce increased by 4cm and his movements became smoother.

I used to find it funny when I saw netizens scolding weightlifters for failing the 3,000-meter run and saying that the national team's physical fitness test was useless. Laymen have no idea that the special metabolic model of weightlifting is to supply energy with phosphate for a few seconds. Normal training does not require aerobic training. If athletes are really forced to train 3,000 meters every day, they will lose muscle and reduce explosive power. In serious cases, it may even directly affect competition results. In the same way, if you ask a marathon runner to train for a 100-meter sprint, it's just a fool's errand. Their muscle fiber composition has long been tamed to slow-twitch muscles, and their heart and lungs serve long-term steady-state output. If they really want to train for a 100-meter sprint, they may not be as fast as a kid from a sports school who has been training for half a year.

One point that is still being debated in the circle is "whether special movements should be split into separate trainings." Some people say that the movements should be broken down into individual links and polished separately. For example, the badminton smash is divided into three parts: hip rotation, arm swing, and wrist force. Each part should be trained separately for strength and accuracy.； Some people also say that split training will destroy the coherence of movements. It is better to directly practice multiple ball smashes and polish the movements in actual combat scenarios. My own experience is that there is no right or wrong between the two. Children under the age of 12 who have basic skills can split their training appropriately and find the right feeling for each link of exertion. However, during the preparation period for those over 16 years old, they must try their best to simulate all movements, and even practice until they can maintain their movements without deformation even under fatigue. After all, no one will wait for you to be ready before exerting force during the competition. Whether you can perform the movements to a standard despite the accumulation of lactic acid is the key to getting results.

To put it bluntly, special sports are like crafts in different fields. No matter how good you are with the video editing software, you cannot directly use it to write code. The underlying logic is fundamentally different. Many people think that running 5 kilometers is easy, and playing field football can definitely last the whole game. However, after running for 20 minutes, they stoop and bend. The essence is not understood: running is aerobic output at a constant speed, and football is intermittent mixed metabolism. Sometimes sprinting and sometimes walking, the energy supply modes are different. It is strange that they can endure it. My biggest feeling after working in this industry for so many years is that don’t use general standards to apply to any special event. The characteristics of each event are derived from the results of generations of athletes and coaches. Don’t think that you know it after two years of fitness training. You will know when you actually try it. The saying "every line is like a mountain" is more common in the sports circle than elsewhere.