[Closed] 10,000 hours thing by Chipps.

:o)

I've been cycling relatively consistently for 30-ish years and I am still totally devoid of any real skills apart from the ability to pedal & even that's a struggle right now.

I'm useless at everything, even after 49 yrs on this planet there's nothing I'm good at.

🤦

This will be my 26th summer of MTB riding. I'm shite.

This is probably 50% genetic - I'm pretty uncoordinated (as anyone who has seen me try to dance, swim fast, or keep a beat can attest), and 50% bad habits learnt back when they were good habits.

I've improved now that I live near a skills park, have had a bit of instruction, and occasionally think about how I'm riding, but I'm still deeply mediocre.

Problem with trying to master something is it doesn't help doing it it for 10,000 hours or even a million hours, if how you are doing it is wrong. And I think thats my problem. I've mastered the technique, just mastered it very badly!!

I'd probably class myself slightly above starter, but not quite intermediate. Basically i'm rubbish!

10,000 hours spent doing an activity isn't the key. It's 10,000 hours of constructive practice. You need to know what you're trying to achieve and there needs to be a feedback loop from a coach, peers, video, etc. Otherwise you'll just keep doing the same old shite. Just a bit smoother.

10,000 hours spent doing an activity isn’t the key. It’s 10,000 hours of constructive practice

This is the key thing. Complex skills are built on more basic skills. You have to automatize the lower-level skills before you can master the higher-level skills. That takes sustained practice. The automatization is much easier for young children (due to neural plasticity), so it's very difficult to develop advanced skill levels on something new that you started as an adult. Also, if you're like me, you just become satisfied with a basic level of skill and stick with that. In that case, you'll just stay at a basic skill level.

Also, sustained, deliberate practice is a prerequisite for becoming skillful, but once you reach a certain level, genetics and innate ability become decisive. An average person can become good at pretty much anything if they have coaching and are willing to practice, but the truly elite performers have a genetic advantage that no amount of practice can compensate for.

To add to the above, I think that most people don’t do deliberate practice - they just ride.

When people have a background in DJ/BMX/DH/trials they’ve often spent more time deliberately practising skills.

Going on a 20 mile XC ride regularly will get you fit but won’t necessarily make you fast or skilful, unfortunately.

Does it matter as long as you are enjoying yourself? That's what I tell myself anyway 🙄

Going on a 20 mile XC ride regularly will get you fit but won’t necessarily make you fast or skilful, unfortunately.

Yep. I developed a lot of skills between 8 and 18 as I was riding BMX pretty much every day and always trying to get new skills. When I got older I just rode bikes a lot but never really tried to do anything with any sort of practice at it. The only skill I have developed over the last 20 years is riding brakeless fixed gear but that was developed 10 years ago and no real room for improvement on it now.

Just "riding" is the skills equivalent of "junk miles" when trying to get fit. Those who are good at skills are good because they've practiced, either explicitly or implicitly, i.e. messing around trying things with mates. The latter gives feedback so less likely to be reinforcing bad habits.

I've never ridden BMX and never really did "tricks". Someone on here did follow me down a descent and commented how smooth I was but I've no idea where that came from as my recollection of the same was clattering along and being battered from head to toe!

The 10,000hr thing is one of those made up numbers like daily steps - basically it's just stating: practice, LOTS.

I've spent about 5,000 hours practising wheelies and manuals. Only another 5,000 to go until I can actually do it.

I misread part of the first post as "zen like chimp". That was where I was going to pitch myself. Having almost turned myself into a eunuch with my saddle last night on some doubles in the woods, I wouldn't even rate myself that highly.

The 10,000hr thing is one of those made up numbers like daily steps – basically it’s just stating: practice, LOTS.

It came out of an article by K. Anders Ericsson "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance"

One of the things it highlights is that differences in performance that are often attributed to innate "talent" can be explained by differences in amounts of deliberate practice.

I find this really interesting as people use talent as an explanation for so many things in life. It can work in both negative and positive ways - tell a child they are talented at something and they may work harder and become better at it. Or they may decide they don't need to work hard at it as they have natural talent. Other children who are not told they are talented and believe it is a prerequisite may not bother trying because they believe they don't have talent and therefore there is no point.

If the whole concept of talent is bollocks then this is all a corrosive myth.

I think the whole 10,000 thing has been soundly debunked by now.

NB I haven't read the article so don't know what context Chipps was quoting it in

Does it matter as long as you are enjoying yourself? That’s what I tell myself anyway 🙄

This ^^^

(I'm hopeless at everything).

One of the things it highlights is that differences in performance that are often attributed to innate “talent” can be explained by differences in amounts of deliberate practice.

The problem with stuff like this is that people take very simplistic views of it, but it's a very complex thing. Having wealthy, well educated parents gives you a huge advantage in life and studies of twins who have been adopted by different families (allowing comparison of genetically identical kids raised in different environments) shows that environment makes a huge contribution to success. However, just because genetics isn't everything doesn't mean it isn't something. To be truly gifted, you need innate talent plus an environment that allows that to develop.

Any sport or academic field will be the same, but Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are excellent examples. Hamilton's family weren't rich, but they did give him an environment where he could pursue karting. He had a big dose of luck in getting the attention of Ron Dennis, which led to a drive with McLaren. As soon as he got into an F1 car, it was obvious that he was exceptionally gifted, if a bit unpolished in his early days. He was just astoundingly fast and has beaten some top caliber teammates, as well as destroying teammates who were only ordinary. He just has coordination and reflexes that drivers like Nico Rosberg don't have. Rosberg was a very good driver whose father was a world champion, so he grew up with every advantage available. He was probably closer to Hamilton than many of Hamilton's fans care to admit, but he never looked as effortlessly talented as Hamilton does. The same with Verstappen. He had the benefit of a father who drove in F1 and had connections, but he just has balance and reflexes that set him apart from drivers who are merely very good. I don't like Verstappen as a person, but you have to admit that his success is down to being astonishingly gifted, not just a matter of practicing a lot because the other drivers he has beaten have been older and had more experience.

So, yes, you must do thousands of hours of practice to become skillful, but to be truly great, you also need some innate ability on top of the practice.

So, yes, you must do thousands of hours of practice to become skillful, but to be truly great, you also need some innate ability on top of the practice.

I don't think I agree. In your example of Lewis Hamilton where you say his success is down to his coordination and reflexes I would argue that it's nothing to do with "talent", but because of "hunger" that makes him train harder, focus more and make more sacrifices to be the best he can.

I would argue that it’s nothing to do with “talent”, but because of “hunger” that makes him train harder, focus more and make more sacrifices to be the best he can.

"Hunger" is like "resilience" or "motivation". They are extremely difficult to define without getting into circularity. Elite sports is full of people who are "hungry". How do you measure "hunger" without just defining it in terms of success? It just turns into a version of "poor people are poor because they don't try hard enough."

Look at other areas of genius. There are plenty of kids who are quite competent musicians because they had rich parents who paid for music lessons, but no amount of practice will turn them into the next Mozart. Language is maybe the best example because everyone is bombarded by their native language from the day they are born, so practice isn't really a problem. We all become amazingly good at our native language (just try learning a second language to see), but some people just have natural talent far beyond what practice will give you. That's not a difference of practice time, it's just that there are genetic factors underlying those skills. That's why chimpanzees cannot learn human languages but pretty much all humans can, human language ability is innate to humans but not to other species. Humans cannot jump around like cats, even an average cat with no training is the equal of an Olympic gymnast. That's because of genetics, not practice.

I think we agree theres a number of factors at play, genetics, nature, nurture etc. I'm always intrigued by the twins examples, a) theres a morality element but more importantly twins that grow up together in exactly the same environment are often different, in terms of personality and preferences. so what does being separate actually prove. the same genes might tell you how tall they will be and what colour their eyes and hair will be, but it wont tell you who they will be. and who you are surely is key to success, failure or indeed something in the middle where most of us sit.

RE: practice, like some of the above I know practice will improve me, but it doesnt motivate me, so I ride, and get marginally better over time, and suck at the things i say I want to improve at, manuals, bunny hops, jumps, drops, occassionally even spend money to get people to help me improve, which is supervised practice but fail to follow up and build on it. I believe this is my personality driving or "anti-talent" if you like.

Sorry waffle friday, been on a course all week and fried my brains.

twins that grow up together in exactly the same environment are often different, in terms of personality and preferences. so what does being separate actually prove

If you have decent sample sizes, the individual differences will be random chance. Therefore, you have evidence of the effect of environment. Environment (i.e. the quality of coaching and practice) is incredibly important, but genetics is also a major factor. My physique is ok for XC racing, but I would never make it as a boxer or wrestler or rugby player. Practicing won't change that, that's genetics.

Some years ago I read this and found it interesting.... its called  "The Myth of Talent"

https://shrewshutters.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/a-very-special-guest-shutter-craig-tanner/

 that makes him train harder, focus more and make more sacrifices to be the best he can.

What about other fields. The original study by Ericsson was about musicians IIRC, as @thols2 touches upon, what about people like Lennon/McCartney, yes they learned their instrument craft in Hamburg playing night and day, but the song-writing? Where does that come from?

I think if you rode downhill, bmx or dirt jumped as a kid, many of those things don't leave you. People who did can still bunnyhop, wheely and drop in on things far better than those who learned it later on.

From my experiences of taking up Mountain Biking and also Piano at around the age of 50 that I couldn't say that 10,000 hours is a 'real' threshold or a 'theoretical' one but on the mountain biking side I think that great mountain bikers practice a FEW skills lots and lots and lots and become really really good at those few core skills, I think a lot of the skills we think we need we don't and that belief generally overwhelms us and we end up not being good at even the basic core skills.

Starting young also helps greatly I'm sure ....

Read Bounce by Matthew Syed Waterstones link He'll say all of the above but much better with great examples in a very readable format. Excellent book, highly recommended.
Edited because first link didn't work as I wanted!

Not read the article yet, but if it's about the old 10,000 hours makes you good at something, then as many say, it's all based on how you utilise and progress that time, also remembering 10,000 hours is 1 hour a day for 27 years.

As an old coach in another sport told me a long time ago, practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent, if you practice the wrong thing, then you will develop faults in your skills, if you have the ability to actually change then you will be able to progress a lot faster, i've seen it in so many sports, you have a student who can actually be coached to learn new skills without fighting their old ways, then you have those who can't.

So many factors though, i used to play tennis, golf, snooker, etc and found that having the ability in one sport helped in another, but if you had a fault in your swing, then it would leak into other sports, and hinder progress, or worse, leak into your other sports.

Oh yeah, forgot to say, the biggest thing for me in mountain biking that limits progress is simply risk and reward, i'm 44 now, have broken myself a few times and when i hit something new i tend to think 'can i afford to risk injury for this', yes i want to do bigger jumps, bigger gaps, etc, but do i want to run the risk of stacking big time and being off work for weeks or worse?

I decided I wanted to learn (street) trials riding around the age of 43, two and a half years ago.

The automatization is much easier for young children (due to neural plasticity), so it’s very difficult to develop advanced skill levels on something new that you started as an adult.

My experience would confirm this. Not only that, but it takes longer for the body to adapt to the physical stresses. I video myself every so often with the idea being to check form, but you also have to learn how to read that form for recording yourself to be useful. There's always a massive mismatch between how it feels while doing it, and what you're actually doing. So I put my videos on youtube and facebook from time to time and hope a more experienced rider will comment, as well as subscribe to more experienced riders, but also subscribe to riders of all levels, so there's riders I'll watch on youtube at a similar skill level. Which is where I've also learnt that even riders only ten years younger (ie early thirties) progress faster than I do.

Then there's the risk factor involved in starting a risk taking activity at an older age. I won't do anything risky unless I've worked my way up to it and am reasonably confident that if it goes wrong I can avoid injuring myself.

So I practice in my garden a lot of no-speed small technical bike handling skills and build things like that not-skinny skinny I was slightly mocked for when I posted pictures of it.

Does it matter as long as you are enjoying yourself?

A high proportion of time I've spent trying to learn trials hasn't been all that enjoyable to be honest. So no, if you want to learn a difficult skill don't stop because it's not always fun. It's frequently frustrating because progression can feel glacial. But is two and a half years really that long to be expecting to get good at something? Not really.

I managed to ride over some tree trunks today, it doesn't look impressive, but I was happy with it as it took something like 25 attempts to get it.

rexated
Full Member

I think the whole 10,000 thing has been soundly debunked by now.

Absolutely. I mean, it barely needed debunking at all- Malcolm Gladwell made it up to sell books, it's a classic pop-sci misrepresentation of real but boring science by slapping big bold headline claims on it.

The underlying work and "theory of expertise" is mostly Anders Ericsson, and it stands up- that's where you find the concept of deliberate practice best explained- but it doesn't contain the mythical "10000 hours". Gladwell invoked him constantly, but Ericsson himself quickly went on the record and said Gladwell was misrepresenting his theory and study.

(Ericsson found that in one study of a group of extremely talented individuals, there was an average of 10000 hours deliberate practice to attain a similar level, some were way under 10000 and some were 25000 hours or higher. The point of the study was to prove that while meaningful practice is what gets results, there is no "tipping point" but basically all Gladwell took from that was the words "tipping point". He also did further studies demonstrating the deliberate practice theory applies to easily mastered tasks just as much as it does lifelong ones.

Gladwell also pretty much ignores the purposeful/meaningful practice disclaimer when it suits him, and his most famous examples have literally no evidence- he just says "this is an example of someone becoming an expert after 10000 hours" and the only support for the 10000 hours is generally "well it must be, because that's when they became an expert". See: The Beatles.

My experience - used to do those 20-40 miles XC rides on rigid bikes back in the day, every weekend, no matter the weather. Learned how to control a bike offroad and go down stuff, but not many "show off" skills. I think I learned more bike skills when taking my son to Rogate DH park over about 10 trips (20-30 hours). Then it all went away, due to one too many old man crashes (the recovery time, is just too depressing (I used to literally crash my bike just for the hell of it)), so bottle gone, and then physical ailments (the dicky heart excuse). So I'm worse now than I ever was. I tried to enjoy a long ride today, spent a lot of it calling myself a useless old ****. Fun 😀

Ericsson found that in one study of a group of extremely talented individuals, there was an average of 10000 hours deliberate practice to attain a similar level, some were way under 10000 and some were 25000 hours or higher

Very much this. There is a distribution curve to all such "averages". On the musical front it is often said 2000 hours of "deliberate practice" are required to reach grade 8. Well it took me about 2500 hours and a lot of "farting about" hours. 10000 hours seems a reasonable average to reach a professional standard when you consider the many hours put in by a serious music student from the early years through school and then onto conservatoire level.

As far as "talent" goes, my view is that those we consider to be talented are the ones who have sufficient interest to practice far harder and far longer than "the average".

As far as “talent” goes, my view is that those we consider to be talented are the ones who have sufficient interest to practice far harder and far longer than “the average”.

This is ultimately obscurantist. You have to practice for years to become good at anything, so talent alone isn't enough. However, despite spending tens of thousands of hours practicing, some people only become good, while others become brilliant despite spending less time practicing. What you are saying is that the mediocre people are just not trying hard enough. This is the old "poor people just don't try hard enough" thing in a different guise. The problem for this is that some people really are geniuses and average people will never be geniuses no matter how hard we practice.

I do believe that people who get very good at something are the ones who have the ability to put in the relentless, endless daily practice , that is their talent as such. People who, as you say, only become good probably haven't done the required amount of relentless, endless daily practice. If we could follow say a top pianist through a year we would more than likely be totally gobsmacked by the huge amount work they put in to achieve perhaps one or two flawless performances.

Maybe some people are more gifted with certain attributes that give them a better start in something but without massive amounts of practice they still wont achieve greatness.

Maybe we are all gifted with something, but more often than not never discover what that gift is because we can never try everything to discover where our gift lies. Maybe the people who shine in some activity or another are just fortunate enough to have found that thing that their innate gift gives them a helping hand for. Maybe most of us just try to learn something because we like that thing, but its a struggle because our innate gift lies somewhere else.

Geniuses are people with high IQ that have a mental skills that help resolve quantum gravity and other things that a normal humans brain can't get get around.

Does it matter as long as you are enjoying yourself?

All depends what your goal is in whatever you are doing. I started playing bass about 15 years ago, for the first year I was practicing a lot but after that was good enough to then just play for enjoyment and could play everything I wanted to play.
I am probably still at that level now 14 years later whereas if I had put effort into structured practice I would be getting close to some sort of virtuoso but what would be the point of that as not something I want to be.

Geniuses are people with high IQ that have a mental skills that help resolve quantum gravity and other things that a normal humans brain can’t get get around.

You're thinking of "genius" in a very narrow way. In any ability there will be some cognitive processing involved. Some individuals (human or other animals) will have genetic advantages for that specific ability. They are geniuses at that thing. Cats are geniuses at acrobatics in comparison to humans because they are genetically wired for it, but some cats are better at acrobatics than others because they have faster reflexes or better physiques for it. An Olympic gymnast hasn't just practiced harder than others, they were born with a physique and cognitive abilities that makes them a genius at gymnastics. Average humans can become good gymnasts if they receive training when they are young, but getting an Olympic gold medal requires lucky genetics as well as years of hard work.

I was calling it gifted , you are calling it genius, but I would like to think other than that difference in labels we both mean the same thing. (Certainly the dictionary definitions of both terms are equally valid for the way in which we have used them 🙂)

I think the whole 10,000 thing has been soundly debunked by now.

The notion that all it takes is 10,000 hours practise at something has been debunked but that was always a misconception from the original research anyway.

As I remember it, they tracked the hours spent practising by classical musicians already playing at high level that involved incredible talent. They then extracted conclusions from showing that the ones who practised the most, with 10,000 hours being a benchmark, being the most successful. The control factors are an absolute minefield with such a study.

That it's been extrapolated from this study to pretty much anything goes from amusing to harmful. Yes, lots of practice helps but I'd still pick a George Best ahead of a Mark Albrighton for my 5 a side team.

Talent, or innate potential, is a massive factor. I'm a teacher and see it daily whether it's a race across the school field or maths assessment, there are different levels of natural ability out there.