# data[].attributes.headline
Fleishman's Physical Abilities as told by Triathlon

# data[].attributes.subject
Fleishman's Physical Abilities as told by Triathlon

# data[].attributes.body
A sport that I have come to really enjoy in the past couple years is triathlon. Ever since getting into the sport, I have become much more physically in shape, mentally healthy, and in general more comfortable and happy with myself and my life. I think one of the main reasons why I love competing and training for triathlons so much is the variety of abilities required throughout the course of the race. An ability is a trait or capacity of the individual determinant of the person’s achievement potential or performance of specific skills. Fleishman highlight nine physical abilities seen in people, and pretty much all of these abilities are on display throughout the course of a triathlon. Dynamic flexibility is repeated movements requiring flexibility. This is important pre race as you perform dynamic warm ups such as high knees and butt kicks. Someone with greater dynamic flexibility can get their body warmed up quicker and more effectively so their body is ready instantly at the race start with little adjustment period needed. Trunk strength involves strength in trunk and abdominal muscles. This is very important swimming. Since you use your legs for the rest of the race, it is best to engage your upper body and abdominal muscles during the swim. A person with a greater trunk strength will be able to generate more force with each stroke, moving themselves more quickly through the water. Another important physical skill in swimming is gross body equilibrium, which is the ability maintain balance in absence of vision. It is often extremely difficult to see when you are swimming, from dark water, to bright sun, to too many people, it can be very easy to lose your sense of position. Someone with this ability will not go through the initial “freaking out” one experiences when they feel out of balance and have to stop for a second and gather themselves. This ability can by applied to the bike and run legs as well. Gross body coordination, or performing a number of complex movements simultaneously, is helpful during transitions. Greater gross body coordination allows you to take off your swim cap and goggles while putting on your biking shoes at the same time, saving valuable time and making transitions run more smoothly. Probably the most important ability throughout the race is stamina, the ability to exert entire body for prolonged period. This is especially important during biking, as people are often on the bike for 1.5 – 2 hours depending on the race length. Someone with great stamina can exert themselves at a single discipline for this long and still have the energy to run afterwards. Dynamic strength is being able to continuously move or support body. This is needed running, and someone with great dynamic strength can keep their body moving the whole run leg despite the exhaustion from the previous two portions. Explosive strength, or maximum energy in one explosive act, come in as you are running towards finish line. Great explosive strength is needed to give everything you’ve got in that last stretch of the race – exerting all of the energy you have left to sprint to the finish and get the time you want. Extent flexibility, or the stretch body as far as possible, comes in with post race stretching. People with better extent flexibility can get their muscles stretched out and recover from a long race much faster than people who don’t have this ability. The last of Fleishman’s categories is static strength, or force against an unmovable object. Although this is really the only one of the 9 abilities not really applicable to the race istself, static strength is used after the race is over as you try and perform really any task – your body is so tired everything seems to be an unmoveable object.

# data[].attributes.body
One of my personal favorite things to do is watch football. Having football every week makes me actually look forward to Sundays most of the time. However, watching football with someone who doesn’t usually watch it or doesn’t know very much about the game can be very hard for me. Not only do they not know the rules of the game, but they also don’t have the correct visual search techniques to allow them to fully process what is going on. How visual search can help us process information, explained by the feature integration theory and movement filter theory, can easily be applied to this context. According to feature integration theory, we group stimuli according to features that act as maps for further identifying specific cues later on. This can explain why someone who doesn’t watch football very much has a hard time following the plays – they haven’t been able to establish these maps. For a frequent watcher or former player, they are able to group players by position – knowing the grouping and body size of the offensive linemen, or be able to pick out the running back based on where he is standing on the field. Experts can group player positions, plays, and predict what is coming next in a game by having these maps in their head of what movements look like.

Movement filter theory says that attention is drawn to moving objects. For experts and novices alike, our attention will always be drawn to the movement of the ball first and foremost. However, other important information can be picked out by an expert that a novice does have efficient enough visual search to be able to comprehend. An expert will often be able to tell where the ball is going to be thrown or what play is about to occur based on the movements of the other players on the field. They can often tell it is going to be a running play vs a throwing play based on movements of the blockers, quarterback, and running back. They can distinguish if there is going to be a long ball or a screen pass based on the movements of the wide receivers and tight ends. Even though there is movement everywhere an expert is able to pick out the important movements to make judgements about the skill. To a novice, they just see a bunch of players running around a field and their attention is grabbed as soon as the ball is thrown. I prefer to spend my Sundays watching with those of us who have more advanced visual search techniques.

# data[].attributes.body
After working for the Milwaukee Brewers for four years, I have come to really get to know the game of baseball. Baseball is crazy sport because, at the professional level, games are played 162 times per year per team. With so many games played, and 9 innings played in each game, there is a huge variability game to game exactly what plays need to be made. One of the things that allows these professional baseball players to keep their jobs is by developing solid movement parameters for certain skills, allowing them to adequately perform these skills no matter what context it may come in. These parameters stem from the generalized motor program theory, which accounts for the variations of a particular skill by adjusting parameters rather than creating a whole new program. Parameters are aspects of a skill that can be adjusted according to the goal of the particular movement, including overall timing, overall force, and muscle selection. This can be easily seen for a shortstop fielding a ground ball in a baseball game. They have to adjust the duration of their throw depending on how quickly the ball gets to them and how quickly the runner is approaching first base. If the ball is hit hard and right to them, they may have time to set their feet, square up, and throw the ball. However, if it’s a softer hit or the opposing runner is particularly fast, they have to execute their throw quickly. The overall force of the throw will change too depending on where on the infield they pick up the ball. If they field a ball closer to third base, its going to take a lot more force to throw it to first than if they field a ball more towards the pitchers’ mound, closer to first base. Muscle selection would be different depending on how the ball is fielded as well. The muscles recruited to throw a ball that rolls right to the player and allows them to stand and set their feet will be a lot different than if they were to have to make a diving stop and throw across their body from their knees. All of the variation seen in simply picking up a ball and throwing it forces people who play baseball for a living to develop these incredibly strong motor programs, so that when needed, they can easily adjust their parameters and get the out no matter what timing, force, or muscles are needed to do so.

# data[].attributes.body
The main sport I played growing up was soccer. I started playing when I was in kindergarten, and throughout my childhood attended a variety of clinics, practices, and camps. Every time I would go I always wanted to be the best no matter who I was with. However, what I didn’t realize at the time is there are some traits that no matter how much I practice I just cannot acquire to make me more proficient than those around me who may excel in part due to these factors. These are the individual difference variables at play, which is some definable trait that can be measured in people including age, gender, and intelligence. For example, if I were to scrimmage against 16 year old kids at age 9, it would not turn out well. This is not just because they have more experience. Even if they had only been playing for 4 years and I had been playing for the same amount of time, large systematic gains occur in motor control as you get older. The older kids would be better able to process information, and are better able to form coordination patterns with age. They would have the perceptual, motor, and cognitive abilities that would make them better at the skill without more time experience.

Another factor – gender – is also something that I didn’t take into account at age 9. Males tend to outperform females in motor tasks. Whether this be due to hormones, biology, or better spatial information processing, the boys would most likely be able to outperform me in this or many other motor skills just due to the fact that they were boys. This allows them to not only be able to perform the physical aspects of soccer better, but with better handling of spatial information can create better passes, get themselves open, and read defenses better than girls can. I guess if I would have had the knowledge of individual difference variables at this age I wouldn’t have been so set on being better than everyone at the camps despite many of them being much older than me, and many of them having the advantage of being a boy.

# data[].attributes.body
Skiing is a big tradition in my family. When I was about six years old, it was time for me to learn. I remember driving up to Sunburst Ski Area on my first day skiing and looking at all the people around me who were already proficient. All I wanted was to get off the bunny hill and go down the big hills on the chair lift. However, being so young and jumping right into a brand new skill, it was obviously going to take me some time to learn the basics. This is where Fitts and Posner’s Three Stage Model of Learning comes in to play. When I first started off, I was clearly in the associative stage, where much of my learning came through verbal instruction and step by step manipulation of the skill. Here, my dad gave me the cue words I needed to adequately perform the skill as I determined the strategies that worked for me. My performance was incredibly inconsistent – sometimes I would make it all the way down just fine, sometimes I would fall, and my form was all over the place as I tried to take in everything I was told. However, I made it through this stage very quickly. This is where I entered the associative stage, where I could further establish my motor patterns and determine exactly what strategies were most effective. My dad no longer had to tell me how to position my feet or when to use my poles. As I skied more and more, I would continue to improve, but these improvements were much more gradual compared to when I was first learning. However, I was not able to fix my own errors. For example, as I was attempting to switch from snow-plowing position to parallel ski position, I knew that I was not quite paralleling correctly. It was not until I asked my dad for help that I could correct this. After a while, I reached the final phase of the model – the autonomous stage. Here skiing became automatic and I did not need to devote all my attention to my form or movements. If something was wrong with my form for a while I could detect it and correct it myself. Instead of focusing on the movements of the task itself, I was able to process information from my surroundings for other things – for example choosing the best route down the hill. I haven’t skied much lately and I have definitely regressed since the days of going all the time, but I still find myself in that third stage – for now.