Thursday, February 18, 2010

Skill Development Needed for Olympic Athletes

If your like me you must marvel at the skill needed by the elite Olympic athletes your watching nightly on your TV. When observing a great downhill skier like the U.S. Lindsay Vonn or Julia Mancuso or speed skater Apollo Ohno or snowboard elite Mr Shawn White - I immediately think of all the practice hours, training in the weight room etc needed to get to that point.
I came across a great article in the Journal of Physiology about The Olympic brain and the memory needed to perform various motor task. Check it out - I will be on the hunt for additional papers and post them when I see them. Have fun watching the Olympics and just think of the more than 10,000 hours needed to master a specific skill when "playing" at that level.

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