ABSTRACT
Sporting excellence is unquestionably a consequence of many hours of practice. Expertise theorists have predicted that a cumulative investment of at least 10,000 hours (e.g. 10 years) of practice is a minimal requirement to achieve a sport-specific level of expertise (see Baker and Cobley, Chapter 3). Inherent within this commitment to practice is the completion of an enormous number of repetitions. A repetition is the lowest common denominator within the practice schedule, but is believed by many to have the greatest impact on skill acquisition. But, not all repetitions contribute equally to the attainment of expertise. Skill acquisition researchers have suggested that it is not only how much the performer practices (i.e., the absolute number of repetitions of a skill such as a tennis serve), but how the performer practices each repetition that is the more important variable in the contribution of practice to skill acquisition. In fact, researchers often classify practice as repetition without repetition, because it is not the mere repeating of movements over and over again that is most effective for learning. Rather, successful practice requires that each repetition build upon what was learned in the previous repetition. Therefore, each subsequent repetition is something that tries to explore the nature and consequences of the previous one.
