What does special sport mean?

Specialized sports specifically refer to the exclusive competition and training logic surrounding a single sports event. From technical movements, physical reserves, tactical thinking to psychological construction, the entire link matches the needs of the event. It has a clear boundary with the general fitness and pan-physical training we usually talk about.

Let me give you the most intuitive example. When I was a sparring partner for the provincial badminton team, I saw the team members practice swinging. They had to wear a 300-gram weight-bearing plate when swinging in the air. The angle of the swing, the range of turning the waist and even the sequence of exerting force on the ground were all different. It's so stuck. This is special training for badminton. It's completely different from our usual sweating on the field. If you use the arm strength you trained in ordinary fitness to play professional games, you won't be able to exert strength at all, because the logic of exerting strength does not match.

Many people tend to confuse general physical fitness with special training. In fact, they are completely different logics. If you practice ordinary squats until you can bear a weight of 200 pounds, you may not be able to use it in weightlifting events. The stance distance, rising speed, and core tightening timing of special squats in weightlifting all follow the force generation mode of clean and jerk and snatch, and you almost can't use it.

At present, the industry has different views on the timing of intervention in special sports. Many youth training coaches believe that it is best for children to do less detailed special training before they are twelve years old. For example, practicing gymnastics too early will easily affect bone development, and practicing football too early will limit the development of ball sense. It is better to let children be exposed to different sports to build general physical fitness.； But there are also other coaches who believe that top athletes have to cultivate their special skills from an early age. For example, the splash of diving and the racket of table tennis are all developed by childish skills. After the muscle memory is finalized, it cannot be changed. There are good performance cases on both sides, but there is no absolute conclusion at present.

Two years ago, I trained a high school student who wanted to take the basketball-specific physical exam. At first, he practiced blindly on the 5-kilometer run. His endurance improved, but his explosive power in the 100-meter sprint dropped a lot. Later, we changed the content of his special training to include 15-meter return runs, continuous height touch, and weight-bearing dribbling, which are directly related to the basketball game. After only two months of training, his special score in the physical exam increased by almost 20 points.

To put it bluntly, the core of special sports is "practice what you do." All training content must ultimately fall on the competitive needs of the corresponding event. Training that bypasses this core cannot be considered true special content.