SELF REGULATION / 002 [WHAT DO EXPERTS DO DIFFERENTLY WHEN THEY PRACTISE ALONE?]

Question
Why do some athletes get more out of the same practice than others?

Study
Researchers studied 43 high school boys: 15 strong free throw shooters, 13 weaker shooters from the same kind of teams, and 15 beginners. Each one practised free throws while the researchers asked about their goals, strategies, confidence and why they missed. The strong and weak players had the same experience, the same practice hours and the same knowledge of shooting technique.

Findings
The experts did their practice differently. They more often set specific goals: 11 of the 15 experts did, against 5 weaker players and 4 beginners. Before shooting and after missing twice, they more often chose a specific technique focus, like keeping the elbow in. When they missed, they blamed a specific, fixable part of their technique. They were also the most confident. One surprise: the weaker players were more satisfied with themselves than the experts, even though they shot worse. The experts simply set higher standards.

What It Means for Athletes
It's not just how many hours you practise, but how you use them. Vague goals like "shoot better" or "focus" give you nothing to work with. Specific goals and specific explanations do. Note that this was a small study of boys in one sport, measured at one moment.

Try this: before your next practice, set one specific technical goal. After a mistake, name the exact technical cause and one fix. Not "concentrate", but "my toss was too low, toss higher".

Source
Cleary, T. J., & Zimmerman, B. J. (2001). Self-regulation differences during athletic practice by experts, non-experts, and novices. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13(2), pp. 185 to 206.

BEHIND THE SCIENCE
Translating sports science into information athletes can actually use.