What does special sport mean?

Judging from the actual scenes of sports training and event participation, special sports are a collective name for related training and competition activities that are anchored to a specific sports event and fully conform to the competitive rules, technical characteristics, and force logic design of this event.

To put it bluntly, whatever project you will eventually participate in, all actions that revolve around the core capabilities of this project can be classified into the category of special sports. Take the youth track and field team I led before as an example. Many parents of children practicing long jump always ask, does practicing squats at home every day count as training for a specific sport? In fact, it really doesn’t matter. It’s true that squats train the basic strength of the lower limbs, but the core force generation mode of the long jump is a combination of horizontal and forward pedaling. Squats use vertical force. The logic of the movements is completely inconsistent. At most, it can be regarded as an auxiliary strength supplement. ； If you really want to practice special events, you have to step on the take-off machine to practice pushing and extending, and repeatedly picking up the complete movements of running up, taking off and landing. That is the core ability to truly compete in the long jump.

Of course, there is no completely unified view on the boundaries of special sports in the sports circle. Many grassroots coaches think that as long as it can directly serve the project results, it can be counted. For example, badminton coaches will classify fast rope skipping into special sports, saying that the training is the frequency of footsteps on the field, which is directly linked to the needs of the project.； However, most of the physical trainers of professional teams do not agree with this classification. They think that only content that completely replicates the action patterns of the sports such as sliding, hitting the ball with the racket, and rubbing the ball in front of the net can be considered special. Rope skipping still belongs to the category of basic physical fitness.

In fact, this distinction is a bit like when we prepare for exams in school. Memorizing vocabulary and learning grammar are the foundation. Directly studying real questions and practicing answering skills corresponding to the question types are "special projects". All actions are aimed at the final assessment goal. For ordinary sports enthusiasts, you don’t need to be so diligent. If you just want to play badminton to keep fit, skipping rope to practice physical fitness and running two kilometers to practice endurance can all be considered as your own sports preparations. ； But if you want to get ranked in amateur events, you must spend most of your time on special content related to holding the racket, running, and hitting the ball, so that you can really achieve results. Otherwise, after practicing the auxiliary content for a long time, you will still be unable to run or catch the ball when you get on the court, and your efforts will be wasted.