What is skill?
Skill is one of the four aspects of physical fitness along with suppleness, strength and stamina. (We could use the word co-ordination but then that wouldn’t have made such a nice list of four ‘s’ which is easy to remember!)
Skill can be considered as neurological fitness, namely fitness of the brain and nervous system whereas stamina is fitness of the heart, lungs and muscle. We see people developing skills through childhood, for example the skill to walk, and then many people develop skills either for their occupation or for their hobbies, the skill to play snooker or to bake the perfect souffle. A skill is a set of coordinated activities which become unconscious with time and interviews with experienced sports people show that people in their late thirties still playing sport at the highest level do so because they have not only the skills of controlling their muscles but the skills of weighing up what is going on around them, anticipating when trouble might come and taking anticipatory preventive action all in a split second.
What is really exciting about recent research is that it is clear now that the brain can develop new skills at any age. In the past it was thought that the brain just simply lost skills and neurons or nerve cells year after year after year. It is true that some loss of nerve cells neurons occurs, but the really exciting news is that neurons can develop new connections when a new skill is learned. The brain is like the telephone junction boxes at the corner of many streets and if you are lucky you can see an engineer joining up the multicoloured wires in an astonishing feat. This is what happens when a new skill is being learned
This is how the brain develops, not so much by developing new brain cells, although that can happen, but by developing new links between cells. With ageing there is some loss of skill and of course some diseases such as Parkinson’s disease or stroke directly affect skills but for many people skills are lost because they are not used – use it or lose it is a very important principle.
Why are skills important?
Skills are obviously important if playing a sport but skills for everyday life are of great importance to all of us. The skill to recover from a trip for example becomes increasingly important because trips do become more common as we get older and fractures also occur more easily because bones get thinner. There is of course no single skill in recovering from a trip it depends which leg is affected, how the fall is occurring and a variety of other factors, so the best plan is to develop general skills and coordination ready for any challenge that comes.
What can you do?
You should aim for for at least ten minutes of brisk walking a day, primarily for stamina, and ten minutes of exercise with the exercise focusing on strength, suppleness and skill. To improve skill you can stand on one leg or even stand with your eyes closed on one leg if you are really feeling confident, but with something near by to hold onto in case you lose balance! However these activities can be built into every day life and for most people doing something simple like standing on one leg whilst cleaning your teeth or standing on one leg while watching the advertisements on television becomes a ritual to maintain, develop and improve skills.
Activity such as yoga, tai chi, Pilates or the Alexander technique are also very good for developing skills as is almost any form of activity with irregular movement and dancing is probably the single best activity to reduce your risk of falling.
Skill is one of the four aspects of physical fitness along with suppleness, strength and stamina. (We could use the word co-ordination but then that wouldn’t have made such a nice list of four ‘s’ which is easy to remember!)
Skill can be considered as neurological fitness, namely fitness of the brain and nervous system whereas stamina is fitness of the heart, lungs and muscle. We see people developing skills through childhood, for example the skill to walk, and then many people develop skills either for their occupation or for their hobbies, the skill to play snooker or to bake the perfect souffle. A skill is a set of coordinated activities which become unconscious with time and interviews with experienced sports people show that people in their late thirties still playing sport at the highest level do so because they have not only the skills of controlling their muscles but the skills of weighing up what is going on around them, anticipating when trouble might come and taking anticipatory preventive action all in a split second.
What is really exciting about recent research is that it is clear now that the brain can develop new skills at any age. In the past it was thought that the brain just simply lost skills and neurons or nerve cells year after year after year. It is true that some loss of nerve cells neurons occurs, but the really exciting news is that neurons can develop new connections when a new skill is learned. The brain is like the telephone junction boxes at the corner of many streets and if you are lucky you can see an engineer joining up the multicoloured wires in an astonishing feat. This is what happens when a new skill is being learned
This is how the brain develops, not so much by developing new brain cells, although that can happen, but by developing new links between cells. With ageing there is some loss of skill and of course some diseases such as Parkinson’s disease or stroke directly affect skills but for many people skills are lost because they are not used – use it or lose it is a very important principle.
Why are skills important?
Skills are obviously important if playing a sport but skills for everyday life are of great importance to all of us. The skill to recover from a trip for example becomes increasingly important because trips do become more common as we get older and fractures also occur more easily because bones get thinner. There is of course no single skill in recovering from a trip it depends which leg is affected, how the fall is occurring and a variety of other factors, so the best plan is to develop general skills and coordination ready for any challenge that comes.
What can you do?
You should aim for for at least ten minutes of brisk walking a day, primarily for stamina, and ten minutes of exercise with the exercise focusing on strength, suppleness and skill. To improve skill you can stand on one leg or even stand with your eyes closed on one leg if you are really feeling confident, but with something near by to hold onto in case you lose balance! However these activities can be built into every day life and for most people doing something simple like standing on one leg whilst cleaning your teeth or standing on one leg while watching the advertisements on television becomes a ritual to maintain, develop and improve skills.
Activity such as yoga, tai chi, Pilates or the Alexander technique are also very good for developing skills as is almost any form of activity with irregular movement and dancing is probably the single best activity to reduce your risk of falling.