Skill

Skill is a word that is thrown around a lot in the context of playing a sport so surely this is the domain of the technical coach or ‘skills’ coach not the domain of a strength & conditioning coach.  Our job it is to make you run faster, get stronger and last longer? Right?  Wrong.  In fact most sports skills are build on solid movement foundations and most sport skills are simply combinations of simple movements.

To make it easy for my athletes and fellow coaches I break down skill into a few categories:

Coordination:

Locomotion- skills that get you from place to place such as running, jumping, hopping

Manipulation- skills that involve sending and receiving objects using your limbs and external equipment

Balance:

Static-staying still by keeping head and shoulders level and within width of feet

Dynamic- losing and regaining balance during activity that involves constant changes to your body position

Reaction Time: 

the time involved in recognising the need to make a decision and actually starting to execute the decision

I have included three videos below to give an example of locomotion, manipulation and balance

If you want to learn more about how to develop ‘Skill’ in your athletes then check out the APA ‘Creating Athletes’ DVD.  I filmed this a few years back with my colleague at Hills Road High Performance Centre, Kirk Boywer.