Transferability: What it is, and Why it’s Important in Sport
In today’s post, I’d like to explain the concept of transferability and it’s importance in sport. Transferability generally describes how well skills in one area of life or work translate and impact another area of life or work. For example, communication or leadership are skills that generally transfer to all areas of life. In sport, transferability refers to how well your training translates and impacts your performance on the field. In other words, how well the drills and exercises you do off the field or at practice actually impact what happens on gameday. This is a great question for coaches to ponder when reflecting on their training programs, and is something that has dramatically influenced my philosophy and approach.
This concept of transferability encompasses all facets of your holistic development program, from the practice field, to the weight room, and everything in between. To answer the aforementioned question, the factor coaches should analyze is whether or not what they do at practice or in the weight room actually looks like what their athletes are doing on the field. If the answer is no, then coaches must ask themselves why they are doing it. With this approach, coaches will be able to improve upon their programming, and eliminate the exercises that don’t actually impact the outcome of the game.
On the flip side, there are also plenty of exercises (particularly in the weight room), that at first glance may not necessarily look like what the athlete does on the field, but still translates to and positively impacts performance. This is because these exercises still mimic the demands of the game. For example, loaded plymotrics and Olympic lifts are not exercises that you will ever see occur in the run of play, however, these exercises develop power, which is a fundamental pillar of success in pretty much any team sport. Coaches must be able to identify how their programming actually translates to gameday, and logically explain why they are including that exercise within their programming.
On the practice field, this concept gets a little more gray. Soccer is notorious for running players through low-intensity repetitive technical exercises, beginning at a very early age. The problem with this approach is that while the skills being executed may occur in the game, they do not occur at the speed or intensity that the game demands, and are occurring without any involvement in decision making, meaning that they don’t actually look like what is occurring on the field. Repetition is great to build confidence, and pretty much anything has a place if implemented soundly and with good reasoning/intentions, however, it often doesn’t lead to the skills translating to the game when the whistle blows and bullets start flying.
So what’s the solution? How do we train soccer players in a systematic and organized way where they develop skills that will actually translate to the game? In the weight room or in your physical preparation, it comes down to understanding the physical demands of the sport, and making sure your training program prepares athletes to meet those demands. On the field, it means going against the norm, and reducing the time spent on low-intensity repetitive exercises. These exercises work great as a technical warmup, or for players to use on their own to develop their technique and confidence, however, in order for them to actually translate to the game, they have to be practiced at game speed.
When you do incorporate a traditional technical warmup, try to use it as a teaching tool. Rather than having players pass in a diamond, I like to make the warmup a little more functional, and have them pass in sequences that they may see on the field in an attempt to stimulate thought or ideas for when we progress past the technical warmup.
Lastly, “gamifying” the technical warmup (for example, using passing sequence relay race), will lead to an immediate improvement in transferability. Doing this still allows for players to get many touches on the ball to prepare for practice while simultaneously increasing their speed of play and staying mentally checked in.
With all that being said, if I do choose to go with a more traditional technical warmup, I make sure to limit it to no more than 10 minutes, because I do not want to waste valuable practice time doing something that doesn’t actually translate to the game.
So, in conclusion, coaches should begin to reflect on their practice design and programming to ensure that what they are spending time doing actually translates to the game. This means mimicking both the movements and demands of the sport, and practicing at a speed and in situations that will lead to better results on gameday.
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