The Differences Between Skill, Ability and Technique in Fitness

The Differences Between Skill, Ability and Technique in Fitness

Skill, ability and technique are linked together in the fact they all

enable us to perform an activity productively, however each of them

means something different.

Skill: consists in the ability to bring about an end result with

utmost certainty and smallest outlay of energy, or of time and energy.

A top athlete can produce the required skill with only one attempt,

for a movement to be classed as a skill it has to have a objective,

and for the athlete to be classed as skilful this goal has to be

achieved with certainty. There are different skill classifications,

which occur along continuum lines (sliding scale)

· Open-------closed

· Self paced-------externally passed

· Discrete --------continuous

· Serial skills: is the combination of a number of skills.

To improve any skill using drills, guidance methods must be used,

these can be manual or mechanical, and this builds on the athlete’s

confidence, visual, this involves the use of coaching. Drills can

improve all skill technique and ability, as skill is a mixture of

technique and ability. Technique can be enhanced by specific practises

and athletes usually chose their sport according to their natural

abilities for example someone with good suppleness and balance and a

small body composition would take up gymnastics. This natural ability

contributes to skill levels and technique can be worked on through

practises. If the ability levels are high for a particular sport, the

performer has a diverse advantage as the technique will be more easily

learned and therefore contribute to the overall skill inte...

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learner applies the skill to number of different environments in

practice, allowing both the development of the skill and the ability

to adapt that skill to a range of possible situations. This is vital

for open and interactive skill , as they are never the same twice.

Initially the movement pattern required to perform the skill is

learned and then the adaptations required.

From this I can conclude that skill, technique and ability on the

surface appear to be virtually the same thing. But if you look deeper

into them you can see that they yes are similar and all link together,

but there is a significant difference between the three. Also there

are many different structured practices to enhance these components of

fitness, it just depends on which you are trying to enhance, what for

and which suits you best.