Topic 5 - Skills in Sport

• Skill can be defined as the consistent production of goal-oriented movements, which are learned and specific to a task
• Cognitive Skills

  • Involves the use of mental powers e.g. problem solving, decision-making
  • cognitive skills in team games are seen through rules, tactics and game objectives associated with decision making during games
  • e.g. chess require mostly cognitive skill as it require s a lot of thinking
• Perceptual Skills:

  • Involve interpreting and making sense of information coming in via senses.
  • Depend on high perceptual ability and are important in activities which require the performer to adapt to the environment and process sensory information.
  • e.g. perception of sound when a ugn goes off for a 100m spring
• Motor Skills:

  • Smooeth execution of physical movements and is mainly based on movement with little thought required to perform this action.
  • can be classified further into fine and gross motor skills.
• Motor-Perceptual Skills:

  • Refers to the combination of all 3 skills in any context
  • Involve the interpretation of environmental stimuli, motor response to sensory information and they depend on high perceptual ability. Most sports involve these skills thought, interpretation and movement
  • e.g. dribbling a ball to beat a defender
• Gross vs Fine

  • Gross: large muscle actions which result in cordinated movement and have a large margin of error. They are mostly found in sport e.g. running, swimming and cycling
  • Fine: Small muscle actions which have a small margin of error found in and involve high levels of hand-eye coordination. They are rarely foundin sport e.g. darts ,snocker, archery,writing/typing
• Open vs Closed

  • Open: Are affected by the environmental conditions,to the extent that the conditions dictate the pace of movement. e.g. Receiving a soccer ball from another player
  • CLosed: is performed in a more stable and predictable environment and can be internally paced and the performer can commence when they are ready. e.g. a gymanst performing a beam routine
• Discrete, Continuos, Serial:

  • Discrete: Have a distinct start and finish e.g. throw, kick or catch
  • Serial: A series of discrete skills joined to create a coordinated and complex action e.g. a gym routine
  • Continuous: No distinct beginning o r end and can continue for several minutes. e.g. Swimming,running, cycling
• Externally or internally paced:

  • External: Performer doesn't control rate at which mvoemnts carried out. e.g. receiving a serve in tennis.
  • Internal: Performer controls the rate at which the activity is carried out and decides when to initiate the movement e.g. performing a shot put
• Individual, Coactive, Interactive:

  • Individual: performed in isolation (performed by themselves e.g. long-jump
  • Coactive: performed where others are involved but with no direct confrontation e.g swimming,running
  • interactive: other performed are directly involved and involves direct confrontation. e.g. rugby, soccer
• Ability refers to a general trait or capacity of an individual that's related to the performance and performance potential of.a variety of skills.
• Physical Proficiency Abilities - Health Related:

  • consists of gross movements including the use of large muscle groups
  • relate to physical or structural aspects of the body
  • e.g. dynamic flexibility, explosive strength, static strength, dynamic strength, stamina
• Perceptual Motor Abilities - Skill Related

  • A combination of perceptive and motor control - how we make sense of the environment and how we act
  • It's the ability to absorb and process information from the environment and the decision is then processed into justified physiological response

  e.g. limb coordination,speed of movement, rate of control, reaction time.
• Skill = ability + selection of an appropriate technique
• Information processing is the system by which we take information from our surrounding environment, use it to make a decision and then produce a response.

  • 1st phase: (Input) is when information is taken in. It's mostly driven by senses and intuition The information is gathered regarding the external environment.
  • 2nd making: (Decision making) cognitive skills are used to analyse the process input of information to make a justified decision about the course of action that needs to take place.
  • 3rd phase: (Output) this is the associated response or action to the decision making process.
• Welfords Model of Information Processing

  
• Senses are responsible for relaying information to the brain to be interpreted based on past experiences, held in the LTM.
• Exteroceptors: (located in skin, oral cavity, eyes, ears, nose)

  • Receives intrinsic information from outside the body, visual, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling

  Proprioceptors (located in muscles, tendons, joints)

  • Nerve receptors in the body provide intrinsic information, situational awareness and registers stimuli such as stretch/tension/movement

  Ineroceptors: (blood vessels, visceral organs and the nervous systems)

  • information about the internal organs of the body, heart, lungs and digestive system
  • provides detailed information about internal states e.g. pH
• The signal-detection is the process by which the brain interprets and makes sense of the information It is receiving from the sensory organs.The signal detection process consists of 3 elements:

  • Detection: the performer needs to be aware that something is going on around them
  • COmparison: the performer will compare whats happened already to past experiences
  • Recognition: The performer identifies the stimuli, objects and patterns stored in LTM
• Factors that influence signal dectection:

  • Background noise
  • intensity of stimulus
  • efficiency of sense organs
• Response time = Reaction time + Movement Time
• THere are 3 types of memory stores:

  • ST Sensory store: subconscious, lost immediately
  • STM: working memory, retains information for 30 second but can be extended with rehearsal
  • LTM: limitless in capacity
• Selective attention operates in the short-term sensory store and it sorts relevant bits of information from what is received
• Memory allows us to benefit from our past experiences and consists of STSS, STM, LTM

  • 90% of all information entering STM is lost within 10 seconds
  • Retention of information in LTM is dependent on rehearsal
• Coding:

  • labelling sets of information to make it easier to access, by changing info into a word/number/movement code which is shorter and easier to rememebrs

  e.g. key moves are coded to help team members remember information and hide from the opposition
• Rehearsal:

  • the repetition of tasks involved with information, processed mentally or physically
  • Can be verbal, motor and visual
• Brevity:

  • invovles giving a learner a small amount of information at a time to avoid overload in STM, places less stress on STM
  • e.g. learning a gym routine
• Clarity:

  • involves keeping learning and teaching simple at the beginning and then increasing complexity and refinement later
• Chunking:

  • learners retain more information if chunked instead of being presented individually
  • e.g. reach, glide, pull (breastroke)
• Organisation:

  • A person can remember more easily if they organise their learning,ensuring info is meaningful
  • Categorising information makes retrieval quicker and wllow information to be remembered easily
• Association

  • Ensuring that new learning is linked to what players already know. e.g. passing in netball/basketball
  • refers to connections between different things which reminds us of concepts, words , images and ideas
• Practice:

  • establishes memory trace and pathways byand by practicing the memory of the skill to establish a memory trace.
• Response time is an ability which varies for individuals and groups of different age and gender;

  • males have a quicker response time than females
  • children and older people have slower response times
• Reaction time depends on speed of:

  • recognition of stimulus
  • detection of sitmulus
  • nerve transmission
  • initiation of action
  • practice and experience
  • decision time
• Hick's Law:

  • when several stimuli ar given but one must be selected. The more choices a person has, the more information needs processing and the longer it takes with a slower reaction time
• Psychological Refractory period is the delay in reaction time caused by the arrival of a second stimulus before the first has been processed
• The Single channel mechanism is when we are unable to attend to and process a 2nd stimulus until we finish processing the first and increases our reaction time
• Strengths of the PRP:

  • can be used for a greater chance of success
  • greater range of options in their play
  • external noise can enhance effectiveness of PRP
• Limitations of PRP:

  • if used too often, players become predictable, limiting success
  • may be reduced by anticipation of what is going to happen
  • anxiety could cause wrong timings making it less effective
• A motor programme is a set of movements stored as a whole in memory . It enables performers to create and repeat a skill