Skills vs. Talent

What does each word mean to you, in terms of sports? Personally, I have a theory. If you care, keep reading.

A consensus that is usually generated by this question is that skills are the facets of the game you learn and develop, and talent is natural ability. For example, a singer's voice is their talent and the rest is skill. However, I don't think this can be applied to sports. Nobody is born fit with ripped muscles, though it certainly affects your physique. Height is probably the only dependent genetic factor, but a wingspan can be significantly increased through training.

After some research, I have concluded that skills and talent, in sports, go down to two distinct categories each with several components. And that this just doesn't apply to recreational sports, but here is a universal definition for anything that works on fitness. You can maintain or improve on both of these by crossing your training threshold, or overload. This goes back to something you were taught in middle school PE curriculum, skill-related fitness and health-related fitness. The following definitions have are from a transcript form my school curriculum.

Skill-related fitness

Agility: The ability to quickly and accurately change the direction of limb or several limbs.

Balance: The ability to maintain equilibrium while stationary or moving.

Coordination: The ability to use the senses and body parts in order to perform motor tasks smoothly and accurately.

Power: The amount of force a muscle can exert quickly.

Reaction Time: The ability to respond quickly to stimuli.

Speed: The amount of time it takes the body to perform specific tasks.

Talent-Related Fitness

Cardiovascular Fitness (Aerobic Fitness):

This is also sometimes known as stamina and is the ability of your body to continuously provide enough energy to sustain submaximal levels of exercise. To do this the circulatory and respiratory systems must work together efficiently to provide the working muscles with enough Oxygen to enable aerobic metabolism.

This type of fitness has enormous benefits to our lifestyle as it allows us to be active throughout the day, for example walking to the shops, climbing stairs or running to catch a bus. It also allows us to get involved in sports and leisure pursuits. If we have good cardiovascular fitness then our health is also good as it helps with:

• Fat metabolism
• Improved delivery of Oxygen
• Faster removal of waste products
• Decreased levels of stress

Strength:

Strength is vitally important, not only in sports but in day-to-day life. We need to be strong to perform certain tasks, such as lifting heavy bags or using our legs to stand up from a chair. Strength is defined as the ability of a muscle to exert a force to overcome a resistance. The benefits of strength are:

• Avoid injuries
• Maintain good posture
• Remain independent (in older age)

Flexibility:

Flexibility is the movement available at our joints, usually controlled by the length of our muscles. This is often thought to be less important than strength, or cardiovascular fitness. However, if we are not flexible our movement decreases and joints become stiff. Flexibility in sports allows us to perform certain skills more efficiently, for example a gymnast, dancer or diver must be highly flexible, but it is also important in other sports to aid performance and decrease the risk of injury. In daily activities we must be flexible to reach for something in a cupboard, or off the floor. It also helps:

• Prevent injuries
• Improve posture
• Reduce low back pain
• Maintain healthy joints
• Improve balance during movement

Muscular Endurance:

Muscular endurance, unlike strength, is the ability of a muscle to make repeated contractions over a period of time. This is used in day-to-day life in activities such as climbing stairs, digging the garden and cleaning. Muscular endurance is also important in sports, such as football (repeated running and kicking), tennis (repeated swinging of the arm to hit the ball) and swimming (repeating the stroke).

Body Composition:

Body composition is the amount of muscle, fat, bone, cartilage etc that makes up our bodies. In terms of health, fat is the main point of interest and everything else is termed lean body tissue. The amount of fat we carry varies from person to person and healthy averages vary with gender and age. A healthy amount of fat for a teen male is between 12%-20% and for ten female is higher at 22%-28%. It is important to maintain a healthy percentage of body fat because:

• Excess body fat can contribute to developing a number of health problems such as heart disease and diabetes
• Places strain on the joints, muscles and bones, increasing the risk of injury