Discuss the differences between skill, ability and technique. Explain how you would structure practices to enhance these components of fitness.

AS and A Level Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

Freddie Chatt

Skill, ability and technique are closely linked and each have a relationship with one another. To be successful at a particular sport, whether it be playing 1on1 basketball on your local court, or representing your country in the world cup you must have skill, ability and technique.

Skill is an athlete’s ability to perform a technique with consistency and control, with minimum effort (Galligan et al 2000). Skill is the acquired and therefore has to be learnt (Roscoe, 2000). “It is a coordinated act, involving complex movements brought together in a consistent and smooth manner" (Galligan et al 2000). An example of a skill is scoring a goal from a free kick in football, David Beckham has almost perfected this skill as whenever his team wins a free kick close to the goal everyone is expecting to see a goal. From a racket sport point of view Roger Federer combines his textbook technique with his ability of coordination to amazing affect, he shows this by dominating the men’s tennis tour. An individual athlete who has a very high skill level is Asafa Powell, he combines his natural ability of his height and reaction time with his perfect technique to be one of the best sprinters in the world, and this was shown when he broke the world record of 100metre sprint in 9.74 seconds.

Ability is what the athlete is born with (Hay, 1993) to make them better at their chosen sport. It is what they inherit from their parents, therefore this cannot be taught to an athlete. A number of different aspects of your make up can be taken into consideration whilst talking about ability including, height, build coordination. An example of an individual who has a very high level of ability is Ian Thorpe, the Australian swimmer, who is 6 feet 5 inches tall and has size 17 feet, this gives him an early advantage over his competitors. Peter Crouch is an example of someone who has an extraordinary ability, he stands almost a foot above the rest of his Liverpool team, this ability has lead to him being a target man for set pieces and crosses, although he can sometimes be used as a decoy because everyone is expecting the ball to be aimed at him so are watching him and not his team mates who might be in better positions. Lewis Hamilton has an high level of ability, he had never been shown how to drive before and he confidently stepped into a go-kart at the age of six and managed to drive with amazing ease.

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Technique is the accepted way of which a movement should be performed (Hay, 1993). An athlete’s technique can be changed and altered fairly easily. Stephen Harmison is an example of an athlete from a team sport (cricket) who has good ability, as he is very tall, although his technique sometimes lets him down and he can be quite a costly bowler. Some athletes are unlucky because they are not born with a natural ability, but their technique makes up for what they lack in ability, an example of this is Tim Henman, who had extremely good technique but lacked the ability, and therefore the overall skill, to ever match the very top players in the world. Justin Rose is a highly talented golfer, although he has never had a natural ability to perform well at the sport. However his love of the game has meant he has improved his technique to a world class standard and is now competing with the best in the world.

Technique is relatively easy to alter to meet certain requirements of different sports and activities. A high variety of different techniques can be improved using different training methods. In some cases it is often essential for athletes to change their technique as improper technique can lead to injuries like stress fractures, an example of this would be Jason Gillespie who, after being out of cricket for some time with a stress fracture in his back, then managed to change his technique so that he still bowled consistently well but with less risk of injury. When practising to improve a specific technique it is crucial that the athlete is practising the technique in the correct way, “Practise makes permanent, not perfect” (Robert Smith, Former coach at ECCC), this means that the athlete will not improve if the technique is not practiced in the ‘proper way’. It is extremely difficult to be able to coach yourself to be an elite performer; therefore it is important that the athlete has an experienced and well qualified coach to ensure that their technique is perfect. However an example of a self taught athlete is Donald Bradman, he managed to become captain of the Australian cricket team with very minimal help from outside coaches. If an athlete is being trained by a coach, the coach needs to know everything about the athlete (Hay 1993); from what level they are at; to the amount of free time the athlete has to train.

Conversely, you cannot be taught ability although in some cases it can be improved. A 100metre sprinter could improve their reaction time. This could already be an ability that they were born with (a faster than average reaction time), and if they trained it, it could be improved further. This would therefore improve their skill overall when combined with other abilities and technique. The different methods of training could also be used to enhance abilities, for example the athlete could use weight training to improve strength, this could already be an ability of the athlete and therefore they are improving their ability. If you have a particular good ability, being tall for example, you can focus on training your techniques that benefit from this ability. In football you could focus on your heading so you could become a target man for crosses and long balls. In cricket you could focus on becoming a quick bowler as with the added height it would be easier to gain bounce. If you are a shorter person then your role would be different compared to those who are tall, you would most likely play as a wide midfielder or a full back as these positions don’t require a good height to be a elite performer.

There are two types of practices which affect how skill is improved, fixed and variable.

A variable practice is when a skill is practiced in a variety of different contexts and therefore the athlete experiences the full range of situations, this would be good type of practice for a team performer, e.g. a batsman in cricket, because every ball bowled at the batsman is different, whether it is the line or length of the delivery or the speed of which it is bowled, so the batsman needs to be prepared for every eventuality.

A fixed practice is when a skill is practice in one way repeatedly; it is usually used by athletes whose disciplines which rarely have different conditions. An example of this is a 100m sprinter; they follow the same stages during every race so they only need to practice them individual stages and the skill of the sprinter will improve.

Therefore if you improve your technique and maintain and focus on the strengths of your abilities, this will lead to a better skill level.

Bibliography

Davis et al (1991) Physical Education and Study of Sport Wolfe

Galligan et al (2000) Advanced PE of Edexcel Heinemann

Hay (1993) The Biomechanics of Sports Technique Benjamin Cummings

Roscoe et al (2000) Psychological Testing and Assessment Allyn & Bacon

Wessen et al (2005) Sport and PE: A Complete Guide to Advanced Level Study Hodder Arnold