results showed that after this period of time, both the soccer and hockey players realised
that a significantly greater investment of training time would be required to enable them
to achieve further success. Second, as expected, there was a direct linear relationship
between the amount of deliberate practice undertaken by these athletes and the level of
proficiency that they attained. But an anomaly also emerged from this study. In
particular, these researchers found that contrary to Ericsson’s model, those practised
activities which were deemed to be most relevant to skill development were also seen by
the soccer and hockey players as being most enjoyable. Again, this finding contradicts
Ericsson’s assertion that deliberate practice of basic skills is not inherently enjoyable.
Influenced by such findings, Young and Salmela (2002) assessed middle-distance
runners’ perceptions of Ericsson’s definition of deliberate practice. Briefly, these
researchers asked the runners to rate various practice and training activities on the
amount of effort and concentration required to perform them and the degree of enjoyment
to which they gave rise. Contrary to what Ericsson’s theory predicted, Young and
Salmela (2002) found that these runners rated the most relevant and most effortful of
these training activities as also being the most inherently enjoyable. This finding led these
authors to conclude that the construct of deliberate practice in sport should be redefined
to refer to activities that are highly relevant for performance improvement, highly
demanding of effort and concentration—and highly enjoyable to perform. In summary,
there is evidence that top athletes differ from expert musicians by appearing to enjoy the
routine practice of basic skills in their domain.
To summarise, we have learned that the work of Hodges and Starkes is generally
supportive of Ericsson’s claim that deliberate practice is crucial to athletic success.
Nevertheless, doubts remain about at least one of the criteria specified for this form of
practice—namely, the alleged lack of enjoyment shown by experts when engaging in
basic training drills. In order to explore this anomaly further, however, additional
research on the “micro-structure” of athletic practice is required.
Implications of Ericsson’s researchAt least six interesting implications arise from Ericsson’s research on deliberate practice.
First, his stage theory of expertise suggests that practice by itself is not sufficient to
achieve excellence. Specialist advice and corrective feedback from a skilled instructor are
essential for the development of expertise (Ericsson et al., 1993). Second, Ericsson’s
research raises the intriguing possibility that continuous improvement is possible in skill-
learning—even among people who have achieved the proficiency level of experts. This
proposition challenges conventional accounts of skill-learning in at least one significant
way. In the past, automaticity, or fluent, effortless and unconscious performance, was
regarded as the end point of all skill-learning. In other words, it was believed that once
this state has been achieved, no further progress is possible. This assumption is
challenged by Ericsson who suggests that experts’ performance “continues to improve as
a function of increased experience and deliberate practice” (2001b, p. 18). In this regard,
Ericsson’s theory is controversial because it suggests that “expert performance is not
fully automated” (ibid., p. 39) because most experts prepare consciously, deliberately and
strategically for impending competitive encounters. The fact that experts can also
remember their performances in great detail also challenges the idea that expertise is
What lies beneath the surface? Investigating expertise in sport 177