What does special sport mean?

Specialized sports are systematic training and competitive activities that revolve around the underlying laws of specific sports and target the core abilities such as physical fitness, technology, tactics, psychology, and special cognition required by the project. The core logic is that all content is fully adapted to the unique needs of the specific project, and is clearly distinguished from generalized fitness and basic physical training.

If basic physical training is compared to general dry food that everyone can eat, then specialized sports are exclusive nutritious meals customized for different events. Marathon runners need to replenish slow carbon reserves for long-distance endurance, and weightlifters need to replenish explosive high-protein supplies. Only if they are exactly right can they be effective. To give you the most intuitive example, I have a friend who has been practicing amateur badminton for three years. He always felt that he was not strong enough, so he went to the gym to practice bench press and deadlift. As a result, when playing, his shoulders were stiff and he could not swing the racket at all. Later, he found a retired coach from the provincial team to adjust the plan, and changed it to targeted content such as the stability of the small muscle group of the rotator cuff, the explosive power of the ankle when stepping, and the core control after consecutive multiple shots. These are typical badminton-specific training contents.

However, there is actually no completely unified view on the boundaries of special sports in the sports circle. Many coaches from the professional competitive system believe that only training with clear competition performance goals and systematic planning on a periodic basis can be considered a special sport. Ordinary people who practice casually two or three times without any advanced plans can at most be regarded as casual sports.； However, there are also many public trainers who believe that as long as targeted improvements are made around the needs of a single event, even ordinary people who practice weight-bearing climbing stairs and downhill buffering skills two months in advance in order to complete their first Mount Tai hike are still in the category of specialized sports. After all, the core logic is to make precise preparations that meet the needs of the project, which is completely different from casual leisure sports.

In fact, for ordinary enthusiasts, there is no need to be too picky about the definition. As long as you have identified a certain event and want to go deeper, whether you want to compete in a local amateur basketball game to get a ranking, or you want to complete your first half marathon, all the training, tactical research, and psychological preparation you do to adapt to this event for this goal are actually included in the category of specialized sports. For example, I have been practicing Jiu-Jitsu for almost six years. In addition to actual combat on the mat, I also take time every week to practice position control in the gi and the core force mode when being suppressed. These contents are not practiced at all in ordinary fitness, but for Jiu-Jitsu projects, they are real and special content.