Talent Exists And Practice Is Overrated

Coolio

Coolio

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http://www.psychologicalscience.org...oming-an-expert-takes-more-than-practice.html

Interesting podcast talking about the subject: http://sportscoachradio.com/?powerpress_pinw=2375-podcast

Interesting study that Deliberate Practice only accounts for only 18% of individual differences in sports and less in other domains.

Other factors such as genetics, intrinsic motivation, innate abilities matter far more.

So much for the American dream, you can be anything if you work hard enough. This throws the 10,000 hour rule out the window.

Sorry to all you talentless posters out there working your as$ off on the practice courts! :D
 
I think the publication is behind a paywall, but just in case people do not benefit from their workplace or college to pay for access, I will briefly explain the important parts of the method used.

The authors, Mcnamara, Hambrick et Oswald, pooled together various studies published in peer-reviewed articles over the years that investigated deliberate practice and its impact on performance. They selected the studies to be included based on the availability of a measurement for deliberate practice, their reference to a specific set of early articles on the subject, a measurement of performance, sufficient available information to compute or report the size of the effect of deliberate practice on performance, their use of English as a publishing langage and the fact they involved human participants.

Once they picked those studies, they used the samples of those studies and performed their analysis with a fixed effect regression that did not include fixed effects. They also accounted for heterogeneity in samples. That probably means little to most of you, but it basically says they estimated a linear relationship between the variables they included in their study and the reported performance measurement. Assuming they did not omit relevant factors and computed their standard errors properly (because, believe it or not, there are many ways to produce an estimate of standard errors*), what they do get is the average treatment effect of deliberate practice on performance. However, given they didn't bother to present various models, I personally am very skeptical of the results they present.

*Choosing how to compute them depends on how you think the variables interact. If you are being too conservative, your test is less powerful (you'll reject null hypotheses too often when it's in fact true); if you are being not enough conservative, your test is invalid.
 
For sports, did the study take account of what techniques were being practiced?

Not all top 100 ATP players use techniques that the top performing ATP players use. What were the top 100 ATP players practicing? If we don't know that, what is known about what the general population of players practice?

For the general population of tennis players, the techniques used are all over the place and not very well accounted for.

In a pro tennis match, often the total points are say, 100 vs 110. How would the "18%" factor attributed to practice figure into the results of matches for pro players?

How did that study take account of what was practiced, the most important factor?

From about 1975 to 2011, for many periods I practiced the serve. The techniques practiced were in reality my own techniques. I'd estimate from practicing that usually my average performance went up 10 to 15% in pace and my consistency improved considerably. I'm sure that the timing accuracy and racket placement accuracy improved from practice. Practice is effective for improving results with any given technique. I was practicing the wrong technique, a Waiter's Tray.
 
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In most sports at elite levels, even a 1% advantage is huge.

I think what they have isolated here is the phenomenon of the "natural athlete." The guys who can pick up a sport they have never played within an astoundingly short period of time and be good at it. Some people are graced with superior eye/hand coordination, better muscularity, etc and some just seem to exhibit athletic genius that often compensates for average coaching.

I don't know how they could possibly isolate those kinds of factors in their study. If you take two guys or 200 and they are all average athletes, and you give one group world class coaching and the other poor coaching and the first group practices obsessively and the second does not, I put my money on the first group. If you take a group of elite athletes and a group of average joes, then I am no so sure about the effects of practice.
 
If the thread title was true, top players would not struggle so much to come back to form after an absence.

How long did it take Nadal to come to his present level after a simple appendicitis surgery?

You have to practice every day to remain competitive.
 
Ash_Smith said:
It never was and never has been a "rule"!!!
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I know that. The "claim" or "idea" that 10,000 will make you an expert then.

From your posts you are very much on the coaching and nurture side of the coin as opposed to the talent side, so how do you feel about this study diminishing the role of coaches and giving more importance to the Talent ID people?
 
She does not seem to understand practice very well in the interview and equates early specialization with deliberate practice. How is crosstraining not quality practice? It seems that definitions of practice is more the issue than the importance of practice.
 
Coolio said:
http://www.psychologicalscience.org...oming-an-expert-takes-more-than-practice.html

Interesting podcast talking about the subject: http://sportscoachradio.com/?powerpress_pinw=2375-podcast

Interesting study that Deliberate Practice only accounts for only 18% of individual differences in sports and less in other domains.

Other factors such as genetics, intrinsic motivation, innate abilities matter far more.

So much for the American dream, you can be anything if you work hard enough. This throws the 10,000 hour rule out the window.

Sorry to all you talentless posters out there working your as$ off on the practice courts! :D
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You could have learned all that simply by watching the latest Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Training is nothing. Talent reigns supreme! ;)
 
5263 said:
She does not seem to understand practice very well in the interview and equates early specialization with deliberate practice. How is crosstraining not quality practice? It seems that definitions of practice is more the issue than the importance of practice.
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I didn't get that, from what I listened to she initally answers some questions about early specialisation, the dangers of it and the benefits of playing multiple sports.
Then later on she talks about her study and deliberate practice.
She says that deliberate practice is still essential just not as important as we previously thought it was. Genetics, Cognitive Skills, Intrinsic Motivation and other things make up the rest of the equation.
 
Coolio said:
I didn't get that, from what I listened to she initally answers some questions about early specialisation, the dangers of it and the benefits of playing multiple sports.
Then later on she talks about her study and deliberate practice.
She says that deliberate practice is still essential just not as important as we previously thought it was. Genetics, Cognitive Skills, Intrinsic Motivation and other things make up the rest of the equation.
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I guess what I'm trying to say is that she doesn't seem to understand how learning to throw the long ball correctly with a football can be excellent deliberate practice for serving in tennis, Or receiving the ball in soccer or the patience of scoring in soccer by repeatedly setting up shots on goal....How these cross training skills can be very deep and deliberate practice for tennis. How can you have deliberate practice without Intrinsic Motivation?

I can accept maybe she is correct given the definition as she understands it or even as it was intended, but if anything can be used to improve your particular skill, then that can be deliberate practice.

She also seems to blow it a bit on the result side of the equation as well saying that the practice won't make you the best ever.....Well That was also not part of the claim either. If you become masterful of the activity due to the practice, then it has worked. Only one can be the best, but thousands are masterful at activities.

In the end, these things are tough to isolate and prove, but Practice is the big thing we can seek to control, so it becomes the most important piece of the puzzle Imo.If this man can become a marksman archer, then what can man not do?

 
Coolio said:
I know that. The "claim" or "idea" that 10,000 will make you an expert then.

From your posts you are very much on the coaching and nurture side of the coin as opposed to the talent side, so how do you feel about this study diminishing the role of coaches and giving more importance to the Talent ID people?
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As I said on the other recent thread on talent - Talent is a combination of traits or characteristics that manifest uniquely depending on the environment or situation they interact with.

I haven't listened to the SportsCoachRadio piece yet, but Glenn usually has great guests who know their subjects ( I did record an interview with Glenn a couple of weeks back myself - not sure when it'll air yet though!) - I will have to listen before I pass any observations.

As for the study, my understanding is the researchers amalgamated many other research papers to reach their conclusions - so it depends on how they interpreted those studies.

We know that time on task is vital to the performance of secondary skill activity. How you understand the concept of "deliberate practice" is relevant too - for many it involves blocked, repetitive practice - by which definition other modes of practice or environmental training may be discounted from the time on task equation.

There are of course many other factors which come into play in the pursuit of mastery - a great number of psychosocial developments as well as the athletes physical suitability for the demands of the task. The recent Great British Medalists study looking into the sporting and psychosocial development of 2 groups of British athletes - 15 Elite and 16 Super-Elite (those being medalists at Olympic games and Multi-medalists at Olympic Games - 100 World and Olympic medals were won in the careers of the athletes in the study). In total the athletes had spent some 435,276 hours of specific training in their main sport. There were many highly significant psychosocial factors evident in the Super-Elite group, including significant negative trauma at a young age, prior to a positive sporting experience, a key commonality between both groups was being exposed to family values which emphasised a 'culture of striving' from an early age along with significant milestone turning points that led to increased motivation. Personality traits tended towards adaptive perfectionism in the Super-Elite group, remembering personality develops in childhood and isn't "set" until adolescence.

Essentially, environment plays a massive part along with psychosocial development and time on task.
 
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For rec tennis specifically - conditioning, lessons, and repetition will get you to 4.0. After that, it's "born with it" talent and general athleticism that will boost you to 4.5 or 5.0. But your athletic ceiling will cap you out at some point. That's why it's important to play and enjoy the game and not get too worked up over your NTRP rating. Just find the rating where the game is competitive and fun for you, then settle down and play.
 
Im pretty sure that 10000 hour thing refers to effective practice. You wont get very far hacking away with old 3.5's, eating an average diet, and doing very little athletics. There are people with certain affinities, but where most of the difference takes place is in between the ears. Its a difficult thing to teach and sometimes is just down to luck.
 
I guess you have to be controversial to become famous..... I bet I can take that same data set and manipulate the definition of certain terms like "athlete" and conclude just the opposite that talent only accounts for 18% of the of individual differences in sports. Call me skeptical.
 
Coolio said:
Other factors such as genetics, intrinsic motivation, innate abilities matter far more.

So much for the American dream, you can be anything if you work hard enough. This throws the 10,000 hour rule out the window.

Sorry to all you talentless posters out there working your as$ off on the practice courts! :D
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I *think* what you're getting at here - and correct me if I'm wrong - is that the notion of 10,000 hours by itself is not sufficient to be truly exceptional ("world class") at something - the talent must be there as well. But once you gather a group of folks who are objectively talented then the hours put in will make a big difference in outcomes (although not all of the difference) between them.

I also believe that without talent, the hard work will only get you so far. But even if you do have talent, you're going to have to work your a55 off to get to a world class level because there are a lot of other folks with commensurate talent who are working hard as he11.

I think that most folks develop an intuitive understanding of their relative level of natural athletic ability at a pretty young age - certainly before 12 years of age. Before anyone is lifting weights or running or "training" - as it were - some kids are just better at sports than others. It's pretty obvious. The other kids can practice all they want but it's highly unlikely they're going to be world class.

Just my observations, of course.
 
navigator said:
I *think* what you're getting at here - and correct me if I'm wrong - is that the notion of 10,000 hours by itself is not sufficient to be truly exceptional ("world class") at something - the talent must be there as well. But once you gather a group of folks who are objectively talented then the hours put in will make a big difference in outcomes (although not all of the difference) between them.

I also believe that without talent, the hard work will only get you so far. But even if you do have talent, you're going to have to work your a55 off to get to a world class level because there are a lot of other folks with commensurate talent who are working hard as he11.

I think that most folks develop an intuitive understanding of their relative level of natural athletic ability at a pretty young age - certainly before 12 years of age. Before anyone is lifting weights or running or "training" - as it were - some kids are just better at sports than others. It's pretty obvious. The other kids can practice all they want but it's highly unlikely they're going to be world class.

Just my observations, of course.
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There is no rule for 10K hours. This gets misinterpreted badly. Someone can become an expert with 20K or 30K hours of practice or 3K hours of practice. Do you consider someone talented who is an expert with 30K hours? Or what about someone talented but wastes their ability and never becomes an expert? What if you don't want to be "world class", but maybe just the best player at your club, the best in your high school, or the best regionally.

I think there are factors we can control and worry about, and training is one of them. Some don't even meet the minimum for this and don't practice, or they balk at advice given to them (either by coaches or advices here). When told to improve cardio, fitness, diet, speed, they say not that. I don't need to lose weight even though I'm obese. I don't want to change my diet because i enjoy eating bad food. I don't like cardio cause it's boring. I'm fast for a fat guy, so don't worry about my speed. Etc. I don't want to change my forehand even though everyone says i need to because it works for me.

Point is, I think if you train properly and stop making excuses, anyone can get pretty far in whatever they want whether it be music or a sport. I take this to heart, and I take lessons and practice every day. This is one of the biggest things that an amateur can change and easy to do, but they don't. I believe there's a multiplier effect when you train everyday meaning if someone trains 3x a week, vs let's say training 6x a week. The guys training everyday will get gains that are more than 2x the other guy. If you're a weekend warrior, I don't think there's even a multiplier. Meaning your growth won't be 3-4x slower than someone who trains almost every day. The weekend warrior gets stuck at his current level. I really can't think of anything more important that will affect how fast someone improves, besides maybe general fitness (like cardio, speed, balance, hand-eye).
 
Watch a few videos of Maradona playing football you will instantly feel that there is such a thing called talent!
 
sureshs said:
If the thread title was true, top players would not struggle so much to come back to form after an absence.

How long did it take Nadal to come to his present level after a simple appendicitis surgery?

You have to practice every day to remain competitive.
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Stuggle to come back? Ridiculous statement. They come back to form very quickly. Nadal has come back from injury several times to be seen at the world tour finals amonst the very best in the world, after being under the knife only months before. Del Potro didnt play competitive tennis for years and bang he's matching it with the top 50 - already an unbelievable level of tennis.

Oh, and Martina Hingis. She RETIRED, and is now a mixed doubles champion.
 
But so many of the all time Greats like Chuck Norris and Air Jordan were not considered talented or athletic early on, and went on to greatness via hard work and effort.
 
navigator said:
I think that most folks develop an intuitive understanding of their relative level of natural athletic ability at a pretty young age - certainly before 12 years of age. Before anyone is lifting weights or running or "training" - as it were - some kids are just better at sports than others. It's pretty obvious. The other kids can practice all they want but it's highly unlikely they're going to be world class.

Just my observations, of course.
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Exactly. Early on, you can tell who can truly play ball and who just needs to learn to enjoy playing the game and hanging out with friends.
 
The Unknown said:
Stuggle to come back? Ridiculous statement. They come back to form very quickly. Nadal has come back from injury several times to be seen at the world tour finals amonst the very best in the world, after being under the knife only months before. Del Potro didnt play competitive tennis for years and bang he's matching it with the top 50 - already an unbelievable level of tennis.

Oh, and Martina Hingis. She RETIRED, and is now a mixed doubles champion.
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They came back and practiced again
 
5263 said:
But so many of the all time Greats like Chuck Norris and Air Jordan were not considered talented or athletic early on, and went on to greatness via hard work and effort.
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The study uses a regression model which basically seeks to estimate a specific conditional expectation. In plain english, this simply says that, assuming they did things properly, their results hold on average -- it's the average effect of doing more or less deliberate practice. For some people, the effect could be higher or lower, but we unfortunately lack the information to estimate effects for individual people for reasons I will not get into here, we'll never be able to be very assertive on that front.
 
Tight Lines said:
I guess you have to be controversial to become famous. I bet I can take that same data set and manipulate the definition of certain terms like "athlete" and conclude just the opposite that talent only accounts for 18% of the of individual differences in sports. Call me skeptical.
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Their sample is very large and diverse, so I wouldn't expect there would be much difference from simply shifting a bit the useful subset of studies they used. However, there could be issues if they didn't include all the relevant factors in their estimation. If something is tied to higher performance independently of talent and also is tied to talent, there is a bias in their estimation -- and the same goes for other factors they include.

Suppose for a moment that, for some reason, wealthy people are unusually likely to detain more potent genetic traits -- that would happen if genetics played a great role in someone's likelihood of acquiring sizable assets. I do not have a hard time being convinced that wealth may help performance in various ways that have nothing to do with how talented a person could be: maybe the social environment better prepares the individual socially and psychologically, maybe it takes less of a big cut into his health, etc. In that event, the estimation of the impact of talent overstates its impact by capturing the effects of those omitted variables, for instance.
 
It seems axiomatic to me that talent and practice are independently important elements of achieving high performance. If two individuals are equally talented, the one more devoted to developing the skills need for performance will achieve a higher level of performance. If one individual is less talented than another, he may still achieve a higher level of performance if his devotion to developing his skills is sufficiently greater than the individual with greater talent.
 
Ash_Smith said:
It never was and never has been a "rule"!!!
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You can thank Malcolm Gladwell and lazy logical reasoning of the masses for this common quote.

Moveforwardalways said:
For rec tennis specifically - conditioning, lessons, and repetition will get you to 4.0. After that, it's "born with it" talent and general athleticism that will boost you to 4.5 or 5.0. But your athletic ceiling will cap you out at some point. That's why it's important to play and enjoy the game and not get too worked up over your NTRP rating. Just find the rating where the game is competitive and fun for you, then settle down and play.
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I would put the number higher at around 5.0.

If you take someone with below average physical athletic attributes and give them good training I'd say they can reach d1 level if they started as a young kid.

Currently tennis doesn't attract as many athletic kids as several other sports.
 
Limpinhitter said:
It seems axiomatic to me that talent and practice are independently important elements of achieving high performance. If two individuals are equally talented, the one more devoted to developing the skills need for performance will achieve a higher level of performance. If one individual is less talented than another, he may still achieve a higher level of performance if his devotion to developing his skills is sufficiently greater than the individual with greater talent.
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Never underestimate the power of the human spirit and drive.
 
To maximize capability, knowing what the objective truths are regarding how it happens is not that important in actually realizing the capability. Becoming a great player, it's a creation out of thin air by belief and willpower, not following step by step guide for dummies.
 
Doesn't matter what study comes out OP - you will get hate for this post. The thing about tennis is that most can't see the talent. Tennis players aren't exceptionally strong - they don't look amazingly fast and the best thing about them is that they make the game look easy. This leads to widespread denial by the playing public.
 
GuyClinch said:
Doesn't matter what study comes out OP - you will get hate for this post. The thing about tennis is that most can't see the talent. Tennis players aren't exceptionally strong - they don't look amazingly fast and the best thing about them is that they make the game look easy. This leads to widespread denial by the playing public.
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Tennis is a damn hard sport. Maybe the hardest there is I think.
 
To give an example of talent. There was a guy in my high school
who didn't play tennis at all except during the school season. He also played basketball, football, and baseball. He still played #1 for the team and the team was one of the best in the state. He was good in all of the sports he played. I think he may have eventually played minor league baseball.

In a tournament he barely lost to a top 5 player in his age category in the state.

He was nowhere near the athlete of the stars who havr played multiple pro sports. Also, imagine if someone like that trained from a young age in tennis. LeBron James would have a ridiculous serve. I've seen his casually toss a basketball the length of a court with hardly any effort.
 
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So just the amount of practice one does accounts for ~20% of performance (only skimmed the paper).

That's pretty huge considering the other variables that will also act on performance like athlete support (personal, educational and sport), access to quality coaching, access to quality facilities, funding opportunities, not having a governing body who thinks they know what talent looks like despite developing very few through their own system, etc. Not to mention the meta-cognitions that will need to be developed in conjuction with the physical skills themselves (goal setting, emotional control, external focus of attention etc).

Oh but of course the rest (80%) is down to 'talent' or working memory or age or something sensationalist.

'and Sternberg (1996) observed that “deliberate practice may be correlated with success because it is a proxy for ability: We stop doing what we do not do well and feel unrewarded for” (p. 350).'

I would argue that we stop doing what people tell us we do not do well and are not rewarded for.
 
Chas Tennis said:
For sports, did the study take account of what techniques were being practiced?

Not all top 100 ATP players use techniques that the top performing ATP players use. What were the top 100 ATP players practicing? If we don't know that, what is known about what the general population of players practice?

For the general population of tennis players, the techniques used are all over the place and not very well accounted for.

In a pro tennis match, often the total points are say, 100 vs 110. How would the "18%" factor attributed to practice figure into the results of matches for pro players?

How did that study take account of what was practiced, the most important factor?

From about 1975 to 2011, for many periods I practiced the serve. The techniques practiced were in reality my own techniques. I'd estimate from practicing that usually my average performance went up 10 to 15% in pace and my consistency improved considerably. I'm sure that the timing accuracy and racket placement accuracy improved from practice. Practice is effective for improving results with any given technique. I was practicing the wrong technique, a Waiter's Tray.
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The literature wasn't just limited to tennis. It was holistic meta-anaylsis looking at deliberate practice against performance crossing many areas including games, music, sports, education and other professions. Not a micro-analysis of the most effective teaching techniques for deliberate practice specific to one sport.
 
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Limpinhitter said:
It seems axiomatic to me that talent and practice are independently important elements of achieving high performance. If two individuals are equally talented, the one more devoted to developing the skills need for performance will achieve a higher level of performance. If one individual is less talented than another, he may still achieve a higher level of performance if his devotion to developing his skills is sufficiently greater than the individual with greater talent.
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Intrinsic motivation - she discusses this in the podcast as being a factor in performance
 
2forehands said:
Is that the same motivation that is heavily influenced by the learning environment?
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Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are influenced by the learning environment I think. If player is in an environment where they are constantly offered material rewards like money to succeed (extrinsic) then this has been proven to be less effective than a learning environment encouraging the setting of realistic goals related to their development as a player and as a person, and consequently building a drive, passion and desire to succeed within, so to speak (intrinsic).
 
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If talent didn't exist we wouldn't need to separate the guys from the girls. We do this because intelligent humans understand that in the world of sports being bigger and having more muscle mass genetically is an inherent advantage that practice and effort will not overcome. This gap exists among men and women as well where someone like Serena is huge different from another woman - but because we don't have some easy clear way to pick out these players - we don't separate them this way..

This is very obvious if you stop and think about. And its the same with intelligence. Some people are smarter then others. There are some people that are well below average intelligence and will not be able to achieve certain careers no matter how hard they work. Again this is common sense. Almost all people get this.. Cept on message boards where the nonsense flows. The good news is that USTA has various skill levels so you can find a challenge for you! Tennis for rec players needs to be about overcome your own personal challenges.
 
Coolio said:
http://www.psychologicalscience.org...oming-an-expert-takes-more-than-practice.html

Interesting podcast talking about the subject: http://sportscoachradio.com/?powerpress_pinw=2375-podcast

Interesting study that Deliberate Practice only accounts for only 18% of individual differences in sports and less in other domains.

Other factors such as genetics, intrinsic motivation, innate abilities matter far more.

So much for the American dream, you can be anything if you work hard enough. This throws the 10,000 hour rule out the window.

Sorry to all you talentless posters out there working your as$ off on the practice courts! :D
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Okay, so I just read the article, but didn't listen to the podcast. Your title is very misleading. The study does not compare talent vs. practice. It just says practice can only explain 18% of the difference in performance of athletes. In fact, the authors speculate that when the athlete starts the sport matters. That is not "talent".

Here is the quote: "Macnamara and colleagues speculate that the age at which a person becomes involved in an activity may matter, and that certain cognitive abilities such as working memory may also play an influential role."
 
Tight Lines said:
Okay, so I just read the article, but didn't listen to the podcast. Your title is very misleading. The study does not compare talent vs. practice. It just says practice can only explain 18% of the difference in performance of athletes. In fact, the authors speculate that when the athlete starts the sport matters. That is not "talent".

Here is the quote: "Macnamara and colleagues speculate that the age at which a person becomes involved in an activity may matter, and that certain cognitive abilities such as working memory may also play an influential role."
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Exactly. She says so many things like birth month, etc. If you reverse the title, and say that talent only accounts for 18% of performance, you would say the same thing about practice. Birth month sounds genetic and something you can't change, but just hold the kid back a year. Or the same thing and have her skip a grade and watch the reverse happen. I agree, birth month is not talent.
 
onehandbh said:
LeBron James would have a ridiculous serve. I've seen his casually toss a basketball the length of a court with hardly any effort.
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I tend to agree with you here, but didn't MJ prove with his attempt a baseball that talent doesn't always translate? Isn't what he needed was more hours of deep practice under his belt and bat?
 
The Unknown said:
Tennis is a damn hard sport. Maybe the hardest there is I think.
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Overall, I tend to agree with you. Between the: (1) physical side: conditioning and level of skill required to succeed, and (2) mental side: the facts that (a) it is a one on one sport (you are on your own, no teammates to rely on or blame), (b) there is no clock (you can build a huge lead and still lose, you can't build a lead and run out the clock, you have to finish and win the last point), and (c) there is no coaching allowed, tennis may be the most demanding/difficult sport of all.
 
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