Achieving Goals In The Sport Gene By Epstein

A man most people know for his incredible but challenging basketball career, Michael Jordan, once said when giving tips on how to be successful like himself, “You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way. Get the fundamentals down and the levels of everything you do will rise. I’m not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat.” Although some may disagree and say that quality practices do not go hand in hand with quantity practice for successful people, I disagree. Successful people practice with a purpose: to be successful. Bill Gates had intentions of becoming successful when spending endless hours in the computer lab. The Beatles always had it in their plans to become better each performance when they would play eight hours a day in Germany. Based on evidence, it seems to be a pattern that a successful individual does have both a practice of quality and quantity in their vocabulary to mean the same thing. These individuals have therefore taught themselves hard work, because this idea of 10,000 hours of practice has allowed them to learn how to work for what they

In the article “The sports Gene” Written by David Epstein published by the penguin group talks is about how an individual’s athletic success is depended on your genes. How much of what happens in our lives do we actually control? In our lives we can’t control everything that happens because things happen in our lives.

The question people have been asking forever is; How much of what happens in our lives do we actually control? Two articles try to respond to this puzzling question, “The Sports Gene” and “The Outliers”. “The Sports Gene” by David Epstein is about a high school student named Donald Thomas trying high jump for the first time, and eventually becomes the world champion. “The Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell is about studies and experiments proving that hours of practice lead to success. Of the two articles, “The Outliers” best answers the question of how much control do we have of our lives, because it uses more reliable sources and scientists and experiments to support their answer.

When a defining moment comes along, you define the moment, or the moment defines you. -Kevin C. This quote from Winning Balance by Shawn Jonson has had a great impact on my life along with Shawn Jonson, an Olympic silver medalist in gymnastics. The book is about a teenage gymnast who went to the Olympics and some of her struggles along the way.

How much of what happens in our lives do we actually control? This is a question that mankind has been pondering for thousands of years. There are two different articles that could answer the question. David Epstein, the author of “The Sports Gene”, writes about a true story of fate, in which an amateur high jumper makes it to the top due to his god-given gift of a large Achille’s tendon. Malcom Gladwell argues in his piece, “Outliers,” that success depends on one’s willingness to practice or try again. Using extensive research and solid evidence, Malcom Gladwell creates a better argument that success is a result of hard work and dedication, and therefore better answers the question, “How much of what happens in our lives do we actually control?”

How much of our lives do we actually control ? Everyone has and will always have different outlooks on this question that can’t possibly be proven, we can solely try to persuade and convince each other otherwise.For example two authors had two different viewpoints on this controversial question.David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene, argues that physical ability formed at birth out ways hard work and success achieved through years of practice.The opposing author William Ernest Henley wrote a poem called Invictus that is strong and powerful to anyone that reads it, claiming that you are the master of your own destiny. These are both reasonable claims but I believe William Ernest Henry has a more convincing argument therefore he better answers the question, How much of our lives do we actually control ?

Early specialization is characterized by year-round training in a single activity, beginning at a young age, apart from other activities with the goal of developing expertise (Ericsson et al., 1993). Ericsson and his colleagues studied pianists and violinists of varying skill levels and discovered that the expert musicians typically began training between ages four and five while the non-experts started training later in life. Moreover, a pattern emerged indicating that the level of performance attained related to the amount of deliberate practice. By age 20 the best performers had spent over 10,000 hours, an intermediate group had put in 8,000 hours, and the least accomplished group only 5,000 hours. In their theory of deliberate practice, Ericsson et al. (1993) suggest that talent plays no role in the development of expertise, rather it is an effortful activity motivated by the goal of improving performance. Typically, deliberate practice requires a high amount of concentration and must be carried out over time. The obligation to significant amounts of deliberate practice in one sport from a young age has been demonstrated as one approach to developing elite athletes (Helsen et al., 1998).

Some people believe that dedication, persistence, and time people can accomplish any goal. Everyone should have goals when striving to achieve a specific task. Goal setting is used by top level athletes, successful business man, and achievers in all fields. A wise athlete once said, “Without time and effort put towards ones goal for the sport, you are nearly wasting your time and your teams time and you will never achieve ones goal for that

What makes an athlete so great at what they do? Are they just born with athleticism or do they learn it? Is it Nature or nurture? It has always been a question when it comes to sports because people either think your born with a natural talent where others think you have to learn it. For example, there are a few anecdotes that believe that anyone from Kenya and Ethiopia are long distance runners or Jamaicans are amazing sprinter but that is all believe that athleticism is from Nature.

Every elite athlete makes it look easy. Splashing through the water or striding gracefully down the track making it look effortless. Some people assume they are “naturals,” that their perfect DNA sequence is what has brought them to this level. Others argue that hard work and drive is what has made the difference, separating the elite from the average. These thoughts are the ones that give rise to the age-old nature vs. nurture debate. Countless hours of studies and research has concluded: it’s both. High performance sports consultant Ross Tucker puts it this way, “The science of success is about the coming together of dozens, perhaps hundreds of factors” (1). The relationship of such factors, including genetics, types and lengths of

For this assignment I will explain the effect of personality and motivation on sports performance.

While many say that practice makes perfect, is that true? Does a person need to put in such a vast amount of time in order to get better and excel in something? In a chapter of his book called “The 10,000 Hour Rule” in Outliers author Malcolm Gladwell believes that a person needs to put in a least 10,000 hours in order to excel in their area of practice. Contrary to Gladwell, fellow author, Daniel Goleman states that the hours of practice doesn’t matter but the concentration and focus is what makes a difference. Using evidence from his book, “Focus:The Hidden Driver of Excellence,” Goleman concludes that a person doesn’t need to practice hard, but practice deliberately. After reading the theories on repetition and how it relates to success, I think that it’s not the of hours on studying or training that is important, but the concentration and attention to detail that makes a person great. I conclude that a person doesn’t need to worry about putting in a unreasonable amount of hours, but they need to focus on concentrating and in

The rule quoting a practice time equivalent to 10,000 hours to attain virtuosity belongs to Malcolm Gladwell (Gladwell 2008). The 10,000 hours rule is extremely well-known and often quoted during discussions about the dichotomy between needing talent and needing work. This myth has been recently debunked by a Princeton study (Macnamara et al. 2014). The study showed that practice accounts for a difference of only 26% in games, 21% in music, 18% in sports and under 5% in education and professions. This study goes to show that hard work is not enough to bridge the gap between talent and the lack thereof. However it can be argued that talent requires practice to reach its full peak. As a working hypothesis, this must be especially true in areas

In earlier days sports psychology was mostly concerned with developing assessment methods that would identify those people with the potential to become serious superior athletes. Today the focus is on psychological training, exercises that strengthen the mental skills that will help athletic performances on the path to excellence. These skills include mental imagery and focus training. If an athlete is serious about becoming the best he or she can possibly be, the most essential ingredient is commitment to practice the right things. It takes incredible commitment to reach the top: a commitment to rest and train the body so it can perform under the most demanding conditions and a commitment to train the mind to

However, despite the importance of practicing, the action of doing it has been a continuous