What is the difference between special sports and physical fitness sports?

The former aims at skill specialization and improvement of competitive performance in a single sport, while the latter focuses on building universal basic physical abilities to complement all-dimensional sports shortcomings such as strength, flexibility, coordination, cardiopulmonary, and reaction. There are no directly bound project attributes.

To put it bluntly, it’s not difficult to understand. I met two young students of the same age in the gym last week, which is very typical. One has been practicing table tennis for almost three years, and has won the provincial youth competition. His serve spins so much that many adult students can’t catch it. However, the last physical fitness test in the gym showed that his ankle joint strength was too weak to pass, and he always missed when changing directions. He has sprained his foot three times in the past six months, and the coach is now forcing him to add two fitness classes a week to make up for his shortcomings. Another child has just practiced physical fitness for a year and a half, and only recently started playing table tennis. He learned moves so quickly that the coach was surprised. He could understand everything from turning the waist to exert force and adjusting steps. His movement framework was more correct than many children who had practiced special sports for half a year. But if he were to be dragged into a competition, he would definitely not be able to compare with the one who had practiced for three years.

In fact, there are always different opinions in the circle. Many people who advocate focusing on special events early believe that early training will help you to finalize your skills quickly and make it easier to achieve results. Especially in gymnastics and diving, which are youth-oriented events, you will not be able to catch up with the golden development period if you practice them later.； There are also many sports rehabilitation specialists and senior youth training coaches who insist on building a foundation of physical fitness for two years before engaging in special events. This can avoid sports injuries to the greatest extent, and the subsequent technical upper limit will be higher. There are many practical cases to support both sides, and there is no absolute right or wrong.

Not only children, adults are also easily confused when choosing. I had a client a while ago who had been practicing weight lifting for four years. He could press 110 kilograms on the bench press and his chest and arm muscles were very well trained. Last time I went for a ten-kilometer hike with a friend. My knees hurt for half a month after I got back. After checking, I found out that the strength of the lower limbs was unbalanced, the gluteal muscles were not activated, and walking was all compensated by the knees. This is a typical strength training that is too biased and the shortcomings in physical fitness are not made up.

In fact, the analogy becomes clearer when you put it into study. Specialized sports are like studying a certain competition class, practicing specific types of questions every day, and the goal is to score high in this subject and win prizes.； Physical fitness is like learning to read words, practice logic, and practice understanding skills. Once these foundations are laid, whether you take competitive classes or other interest classes later, you will learn faster and it will not be easy for you to fall apart due to poor foundation.

Of course, there is no need to separate the two. Nowadays, 15 to 20 minutes of targeted physical fitness training will be added to many special courses, just to supplement the corresponding special foundation. Ordinary sports enthusiasts can choose according to their own needs. If they just want to If you want to play badminton as a daily hobby, there is no need to spend more than half a year practicing physical fitness. You can just take special classes. If you want to rank in amateur competitions, or you are prone to backache and tiredness after just a few moves, it is definitely a sure profit to make up for your physical fitness first.