Several of you have asked me explain what I mean by sport
appropriate training. I use the sport appropriate to differentiate from sport
specific training. Sport specific is the actual movement of the sport. In swimming
it would swimming a specific stroke, in basketball it would be shooting,
dribbling, passing and defending, it is practice of the sport. Sport
appropriate would consist of training methods and activities that are
similar but not the same. Working on component movements, for example running
or swimming with resistance. Bounding for a sprinter would be appropriate
during certain phases of the year, but not specific, because of the longer
ground contact time. The distinction is sometimes fine but I think it is an
important distinction. I think that sometimes we get caught up in trying to
imitate the movements of the sport and those imitations have very little
direct transfer. I always want to be efficient with my training; I want the
highest degree of transfer possible. I have found that using the sport
appropriate concept as a filter has helped me have a better focus to my
training. Once again I can spend time on the need to do rather that just kill
time with the nice to do.