What is a special sport?

Specialized sports are specialized training and participation systems built around a specific sports event, combining the rules, technical characteristics, and ability requirements of the event. The core goal is either to improve the competitive performance of the event, or to help participants systematically master the standard movements and ability framework of the event. It is essentially different from casual leisure sports.

The phrase "just move when you have nothing to do" that many people usually talk about has nothing to do with special sports. In the past two years, I practiced badminton for half a month with a friend who wanted to do individual sports, and I was deeply impressed. When playing wild ball, I always feel that I have a good touch in front of the net. During the special training class, the coach only corrected my wrist to pick the ball. I changed it for a whole week, swinging the air racket a thousand times a day, and using a 1.5kg weight-bearing wristband to practice stability. It was then that I realized that the purpose of special training is never "how to play", but "how to carve this movement into the muscle memory, so that even after three rounds of high-intensity confrontation, the movement will not be deformed." Specialized training for professional teams also follows the competition cycle. Before the competition, they focus on speed and confrontation, and after the competition, they focus on recovery and basic improvement of shortcomings. Each content is designed to meet the needs of the project, and nothing is redundant.

Nowadays, in the sports circle, there are actually quite different opinions on whether ordinary enthusiasts should engage in specialized training. Many senior coaches believe that special events are tailor-made for professional athletes, with high intensity and strong pertinence. Ordinary people do not have the support of team doctors and rehabilitators, and blind copying can easily lead to injuries. I have met an enthusiast who has been running for half a year and a half. He randomly found a special interval running schedule for a professional team on the Internet and followed it without considering that his basal heart rate was already higher than ordinary people. After running three times, he had chest tightness and went to the hospital. It was found that myocardial enzymes were much higher than the standard. However, there are also many young coaches who are engaged in mass sports training. They feel that there is no need to praise specialized sports so highly, and removing the high-intensity content arranged for performance, and the logic of movement correction and basic ability adaptation in specialized training can help ordinary enthusiasts avoid many detours. I have a person who has been skating for three years. A friend of mine, who always got his blade stuck and fell all over his body, signed up for a 10-session special basic class. The coach first took him to practice the special basics of core and ankle control for three weeks. He understood the logic of exerting force clearly without going on the snow. After half a month of snowing, he switched to an advanced carving skateboard, which is much more efficient than trying to figure it out on his own.

In fact, the boundaries of special sports have been broadened in the past two years. Only content in professional team training grounds no longer counts. Special youth fencing introductory courses held in shopping malls and special rock climbing improvement camps held by outdoor clubs are essentially based on the logic of special sports, but the goal has been changed from "winning medals" to "efficiently mastering skills and avoiding sports injuries." To put it bluntly, there is no need to worry about whether it is "professional". If you exercise just to sweat and hang out with friends, you can just play casually. If you really want to learn something about your favorite projects, learn some special-related content and you may avoid a lot of pitfalls.