Natural ability vs Hard work

[Power freak 2008]

It was interesting listening to Darren Lehmann on 5aa Crowshow talking about how kids sometimes come up a level if they are exposed to a higher level both in cricket and footy. There are a number of reasons why this may happen.

A lot of sporting experts say that there is no such thing as natural ability (see "The Myth of Natural Ability in Elite Sport", http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com/2010/01/the-myth-of-natural-ability-in-elite-sport/).

The boys that Port has looked at in the preseason and chosen in the draft may fit the criteria of a willingness to succeed at training. That desire comes out in the right environment with the right incentives. Motlop is a great talent but without the desire he is nothing.

Ben Jacobs is touted for his kicking abilities but he said he made kicking his priority as a junior. If you couple his desire from when players were young to their desire now you may get a good player. The good players often have good mental application. JP followed Salopek so that he could use him as a guage to know how hard he needs to work to be on par with the elite of this competition (that is one smart kid).

Williams is old school and believes that talent is inherent. If he doesn't see it in you he won't have that much desire to take you to the next level. Matty probably believes that as long as you don't have too many fatal skill deficiencies you can succeed with a good work ethic.

A lot of people are luke-warm about the new draftees and rookies that we have taken on board. I think we should be happy about the new direction that we are going towards. It is a more Port Adelaide type of side with enforcers mixed with skill. If those kids work hard a lot of them will be the best in the league. We need a kid who was like Ben Cousins and trained till he nearly passed out. I wouldn't advise it for everybody but such was his mental application. This Jeremy Irons kid could be the next Ben Cousins. His friend even described him as someone who will not give up. He will always run. That could be our next superstar.

Juniors who are good (as was pointed out in "The Myth of Natural Ability in Elite Sport") may be good because they developed quicker and matured faster. Daniel Rich may not ever be as dominant a player as he was in his junior times. Stephen Hill, on the other hand, has always played as a smaller player and has always had to use his speed and skill to win the footy. He trains and he is better because he gets more strength to cope with biiger bodies.

In sum I feel that we are on a path that will take us in a different direction. Our recruiters certainly seemed to have done their homework because we are choosing particular players even when we have the chance to pick up more touted players. daniel Motlop is setting the standard for training at the club? That has got to make you at least suspect that change is imminent.

Onwards and upwards this year and let us not fear the big teams. I think Matty will have them hungry not for September but just to play week in week out and to grind out the season be consistent and beat some big teams. Up the power!!

 

[Relativity]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

Thought provoking post PF. I'm inclined towards the "natural ability" camp though.
In my experiences I have seen skilled sportsmen switch from one sport to another, taking to the new sport like a "duck to water". eg someone picking up a golf stick for the first time an hitting the ball 300 yards up the guts with no coaching. To me they fall into the natural sportsman catagory and quite often their parent(s) were the same, indicating a genetic link to skill.

 

[Power freak 2008]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

Thought provoking post PF. I'm inclined towards the "natural ability" camp though.
In my experiences I have seen skilled sportsmen switch from one sport to another, taking to the new sport like a "duck to water". eg someone picking up a golf stick for the first time an hitting the ball 300 yards up the guts with no coaching. To me they fall into the natural sportsman catagory and quite often their parent(s) were the same, indicating a genetic link to skill.

You are not alone in that assessment. They do point out that parents whoare athletic also hand down their habits. Natural ability also can fall into the category of well rounded development. Good athletes have multiple skills because of their multi-variate training they may have recieved from the ages between 5-12 years old. They may have surfed, played footy, shot hoops, played cricket and took up boxing or martial arts at one point in their lives. This gives them the appearance that everything comes easy to them but when you have parents that can teach you to hit tennis at a high standard, you get at least a half decent tennis player because they have watched you their whole life.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

Now this thread has taken an interesting twist.

Earlier this year Matthew Syed brought out his book 'Bounce: How Champions Are Made' . He is an ex 3 times Commonwealth table tennis champion, twice an Olympian, and an award winning sports journalist - regularly writing columns for The Times and other newspapers.

I bought his book about 3 months ago and got about a 1/3rd of the way thru it, before I started reading a novel. I have to go back and finish it off.

Anyway he reckons the idea of God given talent is a myth and the key to achieving greatness lies in hard work, and the right attitude and training. He explains how memory and inspiration prime our brains for success. He says genes are starting to matter - but not in the way you would think - its about the parents and how they support and drive the champions properly, rather than the genes they pass on.

He was on Lateline at the end of the World Cup. Below is the introduction to a long and very interesting interview. He takes the same attitude to success outside sports ie business, the professions etc. You can watch or read the full transcript at the link below. His personal website, where there are links to some of his articles, is at

http://www.matthewsyed.co.uk/

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2951668.htm

Matthew Syed, thank you for joining us.
MATTHEW SYED, AUTHOR: Thank you for having me on.

LEIGH SALES: In people who become highly successful at something, world class in fact, what weight do you give innate talent versus hard work and opportunity?

MATTHEW SYED: I give innate talent almost no weight at all, and that's a controversial view and I know it's a radical and rather subversive view, but I think the evidence backs up that assertion.

If you dig down into the narrative histories of anyone who has reached a high level in virtually any task with a certain level of complexity, what you find is they have spent many, many hours, many months, many years building up to that level.

There is no shortcut, even if sometimes we look at young performers and it seems as if they've short-circuited that long road to excellence, when you actually find out about what they did, you find that they started super-young.

Tiger Woods as a two-year-old, the Williams sisters at three-year-olds, Mozart, who was dazzling the aristocracy with piano skills at six and a half. His most eminent biographer assesses that he had already practiced 3,500 hours.

The process of ingraining excellence is long-term, but what the evidence suggests is that almost all of us who are healthy have the potential to get there, provided we're willing to stick at it for all those many hours.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2951668.htm

and a bit more

LEIGH SALES: You write in the book that the accepted amount of hours required to practice something to become world class at it is about 10,000 hours. How does - it's one thing to start off with motivation, but how does one sustain motivation over that period of time?

MATTHEW SYED: Well, as I say, one of the aspects is that you need to believe that excellence hinges on effort, because that is gonna motivate you to continue striving. The other thing that you need is to care about the destination.

You need to want to be excellent at tennis or golf or being a ballerina, whatever it happens to be, or being a journalist or a chess player. This applies to things outside of sport too. If you have that belief and you have the desire to get to the destination, they both count a great deal.

The problem often comes when parents are pushing a child to become excellent, but they don't care about it. The motivation is not internal, it's external, and in those circumstances, the evidence suggests very strongly, very persuasively that the young performer is on the road not to excellence, but to burnout.

what about how old you are when you start

LEIGH SALES: Is age any barrier to mastery? If you were prepared to put in the hours at any age, would you become equally as good as something as if you started putting those hours in when you were five or six?

MATTHEW SYED: Well this is very interesting. One of the reasons that initial talent doesn't really matter very much is that your innate structure is very much the starting point. Over time, as I say, with practice, you change dramatically, not just the body, but the anatomy of the brain.

Now there was a time when scientists thought that the plasticity, the adaptability of the brain, was limited to childhood. We now know that the brain can adapt, the anatomy can change dramatically even at late middle age.

So, in answer to your question, yes, you can become excellent if you start late. The one problem you have is a practical one, rather than a physiological one. The practical problem is if you start very late, you need to earn a living by doing a different kind of job; whereas if you start early, by the time you get to 18, you can do your job as a professional golfer and so you have a head start, but you can also push forward by, as it were, earning a living from the thing that you're excellent at.

 

[S.Patrol.G]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

Thought provoking post PF. I'm inclined towards the "natural ability" camp though.
In my experiences I have seen skilled sportsmen switch from one sport to another, taking to the new sport like a "duck to water". eg someone picking up a golf stick for the first time an hitting the ball 300 yards up the guts with no coaching. To me they fall into the natural sportsman catagory and quite often their parent(s) were the same, indicating a genetic link to skill.

Which is why, in a parallel universe, I would have loved to have seen Michael Jordan play AFL.

 

[Power freak 2008]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

Now this thread has taken an interesting twist.

Earlier this year Matthew Syed brought out his book 'Bounce: How Champions Are Made' . He is an ex 3 times Commonwealth table tennis champion, twice an Olympian, and an award winning sports journalist - regularly writing columns for The Times and other newspapers.

I bought his book about 3 months ago and got about a 1/3rd of the way thru it, before I started reading a novel. I have to go back and finish it off.

Anyway he reckons the idea of God given talent is a myth and the key to achieving greatness lies in hard work, and the right attitude and training. He explains how memory and inspiration prime our brains for success. He says genes are starting to matter - but not in the way you would think - its about the parents and how they support and drive the champions properly, rather than the genes they pass on.

He was on Lateline at the end of the World Cup. Below is the introduction to a long and very interesting interview. He takes the same attitude to success outside sports ie business, the professions etc. You can watch or read the full transcript at the link below. His personal website, where there are links to some of his articles, is at

http://www.matthewsyed.co.uk/

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2951668.htm



http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2951668.htm

and a bit more



what about how old you are when you start

Great lin!! Thanks, I will read it a little more in depth when I have time. When people see Daniel Motlop do his tricks in a game and then when you saw what he could do just mucking around you have to think that mucking around was just his way of rehearsing

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

An interesting article in today's SMH by Peter Roebuck about Mitchell Johnson and the whole nature vs nuture debate.

Anxious Johnson's mission improbable

When everything is in perfect working order, Johnson looks superb. ....

But there is another Johnson lurking under the clothes of the champion, a stuttering, nervous, hesitant man who knows that the whole thing is held together by a thread. .....

Every cricketer is insecure. Although they didn’t show it on the field, Dennis Lillee and Shane Warne endured moments of doubt, and they count among the game’s finest exponents. Just that some players deal with it better than others. Partly it is because they have a stronger sense of destiny. As Muhammad Ali once put it: ‘‘Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, and a vision.”

Johnson never had that vision. Cricket chose him, and it was the same with fame. In his youth he’d wander past a park and observe a few fellows mucking about in the nets. If he felt like it he’d join them but he could take it or leave it. He never studied the game, never absorbed its workings. Experience is a great teacher. As a result he knows little about the mechanics of bowling. When things go wrong he does not know how to put them right and therefore panics. And then he feels small.

Anxious Johnson's mission improbable

 

[Natman]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

An interesting article in today's SMH by Peter Roebuck about Mitchell Johnson and the whole nature vs nuture debate.

Anxious Johnson's mission improbable



Anxious Johnson's mission improbable

A good and interesting article - in essence, the nature v nurture argument - which has been and will be debated forever. I think it is a combination of both, with luck and opportunity other factors that make up a "champion" or whatever tag that you want to apply.

 

[Power freak 2008]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

The person who comes to mind in this topic is the Hoff. His last few games were exceptional. He was taking Marks, he was running around the ground, he was kicking goals. What had changed in such a short time. obviously something upstairs.

Some people may think that talent is something that is in your DNA. In genetics both sets of parents have gametes (the sperm and female egg/oocyte) which contains half of the genetic information of each parent (half the information of your genes). They unite and exchange information in a process called crossing over which forms what zygote which is the beginning of our lives. Our genetic information comes from our parents such as height, color and metabolism. Does this mean that they bestow agility, footy smarts, balance?

Another point is that studies by Dr. Weston Price (1847-1948, http://journeytoforever.org/text_price.html) who was a dentist and he visited remote areas. He found that how we live can actually change even our facial features. People who ate a western diets started to develop straighter noses and more dental caries. If you get a kid from the farm their strength, coordination and abilities are often better than city boys. They seem to have natural strength which we all attribute to bucking hey or wrestling with sheep all day. Research by Price seems to think that the food that is closer to nature is a factor so generations of farm boys are healthy, until someone breaks the cycle. Mind you, not all farm boys buck hay and live rough either so I am generalizing.

My point is that our parents may give us height and appearance but we all have a set of circumstances from lifestyle to self belief that gets us to where we are today.

The mind controls the muscles. I look at the Hoff. He seemed to turn it around pretty quickly at the end of the year. Jay Schulz had a bad day at the office when we played Richmond when he was a dead eye *** for most of the year. Have you ever left home, gone back and felt like you're 15 again. It doesn't matter who you become, you fall into the same roles. Strong minds can control these things. They train harder. They have the confidence to think for themselves and know what works best for them. They are adaptable and they get the best out of themselves on and off the field.

 

[Toots Hibbert]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

So if only I'd dedicated myself I could have been another Russell Ebert?

 

[Peck]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

I didn't read much from this Syed bloke. Though I sure as hell can't say I agree with him.

I would agree that natural talent doesn't help much if you don't work hard. Though IMO its pretty damn clear that some people are just better at some things than others.

Hand eye coordination is an obvious component for footy. Kinesthetic learning ability also tends to help a lot with sport.

His use of Tiger Woods as an example seems obviously wrong as well. He beat his dad when he was 4. If that isn't proof of having a natural talent for golf, I'm a monkey's uncle.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

His use of Tiger Woods as an example seems obviously wrong as well. He beat his dad when he was 4. If that isn't proof of having a natural talent for golf, I'm a monkey's uncle.

If you watched Jacques Peretti's doco Tiger Woods: the Rise and Fall - which was on SBS at the end of September/early October in their Friday 10pm erotica time slot - you would see that Tiger Woods old man drove him rather more so than him being a super naturally gifted player.

His old man at 2 years of age manipulated his mind and muscles like no another 2 year old has ever been done before. The doco has a lot of salacious sex details - not that there is anything wrong with that - but the first 15 minutes or so is the real interesting bit, it talks about how his old man - a green beret from Vietnam who wasn't a golfer- used military mind control techniques on Tiger from 2 years of age. He saw golf as a way to progress his sons life in a white mans world.

This review of the doco gives a glimpse on how his old man trained him. Unfortunately if you do a You Tube search for the doco you don't see the doco but a link to where you can download it for a fee.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...malone-goes-to-glyndebourne-bbc2-2003592.html

Earl, Woods's late father, seemed to have set about parenting as if it was some kind of messianic project. He wanted, said Peretti, to raise a son who would be like Gandhi or Buddha. Naturally, this meant teaching him golf; sending him to "golf boot camp" at the old naval course, finding an instructor to draw up military-style SOP training rituals, hiring a hypnotist to keep him on track – not to say on message. In an unusually candid interview, the 15-year-old Woods reflected on his race. Everyone stares, he said. It was an aberration not to be repeated....

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...malone-goes-to-glyndebourne-bbc2-2003592.html

Bottom line is that it was those military mind control techniques more so than his physical techniques that allowed him to dominate golf and his opponents like no other player. Now that his old man has gone and all his personal issues and the questions he never had to worry about to occupy his mind, IMO he will never dominate golf like he used to. He doesn't have that comparative advantage any more. His technique will mean he is a world class golfer and will win tournaments but he will not dominate and have ranking points more than double what the number 2 has.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

That smacks of an 'I read Playboy for the articles' comment REH.

I remember reading about another obsessed father like that in Sports Illustrated in the 1980s. Can't remember the name any more, but his son was a quarterback and his daughter a gymnast.

The son went on to play NFL, and the old man had put them thru what would have been termed back then a Soviet-style training and diet regime almost from birth. And that regime and the single-minded obsession of the old man was the basis of the article.

I guess that also raises the point that a lot of gymnasts, swimmers and other athletes went through Soviet-style training regimes from very early ages. Not all - probably very few - of them became champions. Somewhere along the line, natural talent and aptitude kicks in. Hard work will differentiate between athletes of similar talent, and in some cases lesser talent over greater.

Over the years, it usually seems to be the people who excel at a sport that think it is almost exclusively due to hard work. I'm sure Russell Ebert held that view, he just couldn't understand why if he trained players as hard as he trained they weren't as good as him.

 

[Asgardian]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

I read Playboy for the articles

Don't we all ...

 

[Asgardian]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

I remember reading about another obsessed father like that in Sports Illustrated in the 1980s.

Sport is littered with the side line obsessed father and mother of kids

Damir Dokic

A 4 year old weightlifter

[YOUTUBE]fpgukrEeEoU[/YOUTUBE]

JonBenet Ramsey was pushed beyond the realms of sanity

 

[Power Raid]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

NATURE VS NURTURE

I probably sit in both camps.

No man is equal physically as we are all unique. Therefore there is no doubt that genes play a role to start with. Otherwise the premise behind the Darwin's theory is flawed.

However, genes alone will not take you to the top of elite level competition. It takes, amongst other things, hard work, practice and experience.

Then you have to take into consideration personality. Someone who is good at sport is usually focused, determined and competitive. Some of this is inherent and some of this is a product of their environment.

 

[Natman]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

That smacks of an 'I read Playboy for the articles' comment REH.

I remember reading about another obsessed father like that in Sports Illustrated in the 1980s. Can't remember the name any more, but his son was a quarterback and his daughter a gymnast.

The son went on to play NFL, and the old man had put them thru what would have been termed back then a Soviet-style training and diet regime almost from birth. And that regime and the single-minded obsession of the old man was the basis of the article.

I guess that also raises the point that a lot of gymnasts, swimmers and other athletes went through Soviet-style training regimes from very early ages. Not all - probably very few - of them became champions. Somewhere along the line, natural talent and aptitude kicks in. Hard work will differentiate between athletes of similar talent, and in some cases lesser talent over greater.

Over the years, it usually seems to be the people who excel at a sport that think it is almost exclusively due to hard work. I'm sure Russell Ebert held that view, he just couldn't understand why if he trained players as hard as he trained they weren't as good as him.

Thanks Ford, you have placed the penultimate piece of the same puzzle that has had me going for 30 years - I always wondered whether that same kid ever got to play NFL, but like you, I can't for the life of me, remember his name - I reckon it started with a B or M, but it still drives me crazy.

 

[Power freak 2008]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

Soviet style training is a great model for developing young athletes. They do not let the kds specialize until they are a certain age. Gymnasts are the exception because puberty for women hinders their development as a gymnast.

They train their kids in a range of sports before they specialize. In Australia the kids who play a mixture of sports are the ones who appear to be great sportsman. Playing decent level basketball and cricket seems to make the athlete a more rounded athlete because their strengths from the other sports help their sport of choice.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

Thanks for the clues Natman. The player was Todd Marinovich and his father was Marv Marinovich.

Todd Marinovich played for USC and the Raiders, but his career fell short as he ran wild after escaping his father's control.

link

After harming his own NFL lineman career by overtraining and focusing too much on weight and bulk, Marv studied Eastern Bloc training methods and was hired by Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis as one of the NFL's first strength-and-conditioning coaches. Marv later opened his own athletic research center and applied the techniques to his young son, introducing athletic training before Marinovich could leave the crib and continuing it throughout his childhood and adolescence. Marv saw an opportunity to use techniques, focusing on speed and flexibility, that later formed the basis for modern core training. During her pregnancy, Trudi used no salt, sugar, alcohol, or tobacco; as a baby, Marinovich was fed only fresh vegetables, fruits, and raw milk.

link

There's plenty of links in the Wikipedia entry, including the Sports Illustrated Bred to be a Superstar article.

What's fascinating about Marinovich, a 6'4½", 212-pound lefthanded redhead, is that he is, in a real sense, America's first test-tube athlete. He has never eaten a Big Mac or an Oreo or a Ding Dong. When he went to birthday parties as a kid, he would take his own cake and ice cream to avoid sugar and refined white flour. He would eat homemade catsup, prepared with honey. He did consume beef but not the kind injected with hormones. He ate only unprocessed dairy products. He teethed on frozen kidney. When Todd was one month old, Marv was already working on his son's physical conditioning. He stretched his hamstrings. Pushups were next. Marv invented a game in which Todd would try to lift a medicine ball onto a kitchen counter. Marv also put him on a balance beam. Both activites grew easier when Todd learned to walk. There was a football in Todd's crib from day one. "Not a real NFL ball," says Marv. "That would be sick; it was a stuffed ball."

link

It's an extraordinary story.

 

[Natman]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

Thanks for the clues Natman. The player was Todd Marinovich and his father was Marv Marinovich.

Todd Marinovich played for USC and the Raiders, but his career fell short as he ran wild after escaping his father's control.

link

link

There's plenty of links in the Wikipedia entry, including the Sports Illustrated Bred to be a Superstar article.


link

It's an extraordinary story.

Thanks for the info - it fills a knowledge gap

It certainly goes to show that it takes a lot to make a champion, no matter which way you look at it - above all luck and good judgement helps along with mental toughness, irrespective of genes or basic physical make-up and inate skills.

Surely this is a movie, coming to theatre near us soon.

 

[Power freak 2008]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

I forgot about Leyton Hewitt. That was one child who was pushed to play high level sport by his parent or parents

 

[FishingRick04]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

I forgot about Leyton Hewitt. That was one child who was pushed to play high level sport by his parent or parents

Until he met the blonde bomb, now he says tennis who? He should have retired 5 years ago. Or quit for 1 1/2 years to let his body completely recover and then start again.

 

[Power freak 2008]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

The question I've got to ask is, "does 'natural ability' allow the sportsperson to excel or hard work"? Have the past Brownlow Medalists or even Norm Smith medalists been the the most gifted or are they hard workers?

What makes the player great within the context of our game?

 

[Asgardian]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

Hard work, every day of the week and twice on Sundays

David Granger was as gifted a key position player as most recognized key position AFL champions, but he wasn't a hard worker.

 

[RonSon]

Re: Power freak's Power training thread

I forgot about Leyton Hewitt. That was one child who was pushed to play high level sport by his parent or parents

Yeah I know people who played with and against him when he was younger and some of the stories about his Dad are hard to believe.