Deliberate practice and the acquisition of expert performance in Canadian middle-distance running.

The present research, comprised of two affiliated studies, specifically tested the Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Romer (1993) framework for the acquisition of expertise in Canadian middle distance running. The conceptual framework posited that performance level was a monotonic function of accumulated amounts of deliberate practice. Ericsson and colleagues initially defined deliberate practice as domain-specific training activities that were highly relevant to improving performance, highly effortful in nature, and not inherently enjoyable. Study 1 tested this definition according to the runners' own perceptions of training. Contrary to the original conception of deliberate practice, results indicated that the most relevant and the most effortful training activities were also perceived as inherently enjoyable. Findings indicated that the definition for deliberate practice was not transferable from music to sport, but, rather, a modified conception of deliberate practice was required for athletics. Study 2 retrospectively compared accumulated amounts of deliberate practice between national, provincial, and club level runners across the initial nine years of their careers. Results indicated that attained performance levels were governed by a monotonic relationship with accumulated practice variables according to an inverse power law. Trends demonstrated that the national level runners began to invest more time into practice after nine years. Early in their careers, accumulated practice proved to be the primary predictor of running performance and the amount of supervised practice with a coach differentiated between the elite and club level athletes