Perform the Skill. This is the first, and unfortunately for most athletes, the last step in their skills learning program. Coaches come up with a drill, athletes copy it, try it, learn it.

Sports Skills Step 2: Perform the Skill very well.

Skills mastery comes from regular practice combined with quality feedback from coaches and may incorporate the use of video and other performance analysis technologies – including the best one of all…the coach’s eye!

It is about here that most coaches stop coaching the skill, believing that if the athlete can perform the skill really well, and it looks like it does in the coaching textbooks then they have done their job.

Wrong.

The job is not even 30% complete.

Sports Skills Step 3:

Perform the Skill very well and at speed.

Name one sport where the ability to perform sports skills really slow is a winning strategy! Technical perfection at slow speed may look great for the text books, but unless the skill can withstand competition level speed (and included in that is competition accelerations, competition agility requirements and competition explosiveness) then it is not competition ready.

Looking technically perfect at slow speed is great for the cameras but it is even better for your opposition who will have run around you and scored while you are receiving accolades for winning the “best-skills execution” competition.

Sports Skills Step 4:

Perform the Skill very well, at speed and under fatigue.

Think of the “danger zones” in all competition sport. The last 20 metres of a 100 metres freestyle. The last 5 minutes before half time in football. The last play in the game. Many, many competitions come down to the quality of skills execution during the last 5% of time and being able to perform fundamental skills when tired, dehydrated, glycogen depleted and suffering from neuro-muscular fatigue is a winning edge in all sports.

Sports Skills Step 5:

Perform the Skill very well, at speed, under fatigue and under pressure.

How many times do you see athletes miss simple targets or drop balls or make errors at critical moments – “danger-zones” in competitions? There is no doubt that emotional stress and mental pressure impact on the ability of athletes to perform skills with quality and accuracy – (read more about the emerging field of “psycho-physiology!!”). But….this is a coaching issue. Incorporate the element of pressure in skills practices in training and ensure that training is more challenging and more demanding than the competition environment you are preparing for.

Sports Skills Step 6:

Perform the Skill very well, at speed, under fatigue and under pressure consistently.

Being able to perform the skill under competition conditions once could be luck, but being able to do it consistently under competition conditions is the sign of a real champion. Consistency in skills execution in competition comes from consistency of training standards. Adopting a “no-compromise” approach to the quality of skills execution at training is a sure way to develop a consistent quality of skills execution in competition conditions.

Unfortunately many athletes have two brains:

• Training brain– the “brain” they use in training and preparation. This “brain” accepts laziness, inaccuracy, sloppiness and poor skills execution believing that “it will be OK on the day” and everything will somehow magically be right at the competition;
• Competition brain – the “brain” they use in competition.

The secret to competition success is to use “competition brain” in every training session.

Sports Skills Step 7:

Perform the Skill very well, at speed, under fatigue and under pressure consistently in competition conditions.

This is what it is all about. The real factor in what makes a champion athlete is their capacity to perform consistently in competition conditions.

Performing a basic skill well is not difficult. But add the fatigue of 75 minutes of competition, the pressure of knowing the whole season is on the line with one kick, the expectations of the Board, the coach, the management, team-mates and tens of thousands of fans and all of sudden that basic skill is not so basic: it becomes the equivalent of juggling six sticks of dynamite.