Tip 6: Smart practice

It is well accepted that practice is important in developing sporting skills. But the quality and type of practice is more important than quantity alone. Executing and refining the same complement of sporting skills is vital.

A good example of this is limiting the use of ball machines when developing the batting skills of young cricketers. A ball machine does not offer the important visual cues for anticipating the line and length of an incoming delivery from a bowler in a game context. Expertise in cricket batting relies on a combination of anticipatory (i.e. reading the body cues of a bowler), decision making and technical skills. The best way to develop young batsmen and women is to get them to face a variety of bowlers with differing spin, swing and pace and a mix of left and right handed.

This concept applies equally to other interceptive sports such as tennis, hockey and water polo.

TIP: Practice, practice, practice but make it fun and relevant

• Encourage children to practice their sporting skills in an ecological manner, for example, practice the full complement of skills within a context similar to that in competition.
• Encourage children to embrace practicing under varying constraints (differing environmental conditions, under time pressure etc). This enhances skill progression and robustness, adaptability and coping skills and it can also be fun and challenging.