The difference between special sports and physical fitness sports

The core difference between special sports and physical fitness sports is that "the goal orientations are completely opposite" - the former is to "extremely explore the performance limits of a single sport", while the latter is to "balancedly improve the basic operational capabilities of the overall body". There is no distinction between high and low between the two, but the applicable scenarios, training logic, and risk-benefit models are completely different.

Let me tell you a true story that I encountered at a youth sports hall two years ago: A parent brought his 8-year-old son here and said that his son had been practicing table tennis for a year, but now his right shoulder always hurts and he was leaning when doing homework. I did a basic assessment on my baby and found that not only was his right shoulder almost two centimeters higher than his left shoulder, he was shaking badly even when he stood on one foot for 10 seconds, and his core strength was so poor that he couldn't even do sit-ups. To put it bluntly, special training is too early. In order to fix the swing movement, the body exerts force on one side for a long time, and the basic ability cannot keep up, and movement compensation directly occurs.

Speaking of this, some people may want to argue: Didn’t those Olympic champions start practicing special events when they were five or six years old? It’s really not a generalization. There are two parallel views in the industry: one is for good talents who want to take a professional route. It is really necessary to solidify the movement muscle memory from an early age. For sports such as gymnastics and diving that require extremely high age and flexibility, it is too late to practice at the age of 10. ； The other group is aimed at ordinary sports enthusiasts who just want to keep fit through exercise. No matter how old they are, it is recommended to supplement basic physical fitness for 3-6 months before engaging in special events. This can help you avoid 80% of chronic sports injuries.

Let’s use an easy-to-understand analogy. Specialized sports are like a state banquet-level Buddha Jumping Over the Wall. You practice the ingredient ratio and heat control to perfection, and you can win prizes when you go out to participate in professional competitions. But if you just fry homemade cabbage with vinegar, it may not be as delicious as the aunt who cooks it every day. Physical fitness is like if you have mastered the basic skills of knife skills, spooning, and seasoning. No matter what ingredients are given to you, you can make a 70-80% taste. However, if you really want to participate in a professional cooking competition, you still have to spend time honing the skills of a certain dish.

You can also find patterns by observing the people around you who love sports: a master who runs marathons all year round can complete the marathon in 3 hours. If you ask him to lift an iron, he may not be able to bench press 20 kilograms.； For a young man who plays basketball every day, his knees may feel sore if he touches the basket with half a palm or squats down to tie his shoelaces. These are the characteristics of specialized training: in order to adapt to the action chain of a single sport, your body will actively adjust the distribution of muscles and even the position of bones, allocating all resources to the parts required by the specific sport. Naturally, the abilities of other parts will have shortcomings. In the long run, it is easy to develop "specialized occupational diseases" - tennis elbow, runner's knee, swimming shoulder, which are basically caused by repeated wear and tear of the same part.

Physical fitness training is just the opposite. If you go to a regular physical fitness class, you will rarely practice the same content in two consecutive classes: today you will practice walking in a straight line and jumping on one foot on the balance beam, tomorrow you will practice medicine ball throwing and catching to practice explosive strength, and the day after tomorrow I may directly take you to run 3 kilometers outdoors to practice cardiorespiratory training. You have a little bit of everything, and you are not required to do anything to the extreme. I hope you have no obvious shortcomings in your whole body. I once had a student who had been practicing amateur badminton for three years. His right shoulder hurt for more than half a year, and his ball-killing speed could not be improved. Later, he changed it to twice a week for physical fitness training, focusing on strengthening the left shoulder and back strength and core stability. After practicing for less than half a year, the shoulder pain disappeared, and his ball-killing speed was actually 10% faster. To put it bluntly, the previous basic ability was holding back the specialization.

You really don’t have to worry about which one is better, it all depends on your own needs: if you just want to hit a marathon PB, win a unit basketball championship, or even want to play a certain sport to the top of your amateur level, then you must leave most of your training time to specialize.； If you just want to wear clothes that look good, climb the fifth floor without gasping for breath, carry a 20-pound baby for a walk without back pain, and just run and play ball without getting injured easily, then pure physical fitness training is completely sufficient. If you have enough time, the benefits of combining the two will be much higher than focusing on one of them.