Introducing the Science of Skill

A newsletter that explores the 'it' factor

Hi, I’m Zach. A few years ago, I wrote a book, The Performance Cortex, because I was tired of hearing experts tell me sports superstars are great because … they’re just great. Or they have great parents. Or they lift great weights or eat great breakfasts. All those things are probably true, but I suspected neuroscience could tell me a little more about the underpinnings of great performance.

I’m carrying on this endeavor with a newsletter that tries to examine performance on the biggest stages with a focus on how great skills arise (or, in some cases, crumble).

Every other week or so, I’ll post here about something in sports or culture that caught my eye, something topical and fresh(ish), and use relevant research I’ve read and reporting I’ve done on the brain, mind, and body to unpack what’s maybe actually occurred. I’ll try to probe beneath the surface of what we all see on our screens and cheer at from our seats.

I’ve found that some of this type of analysis has been lost amidst the erosion of longform sports journalism (RIP, Sports Illustrated). Some of it was just never there to begin with.

Regardless, scientific research can be dense and intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be dull.

Take this, for example: Muraskin J, Sherwin J, Sajda P. Knowing when not to swing: EEG evidence that enhanced perception-action coupling underlies baseball batter expertise. Neuroimage. 2015 Dec;123:1-10

It’s the paper that started me on my journey to understanding the brain’s role in performance because it showed there are identifiable cognitive differences in expert baseball hitters vs. everyone else.

Or, this: Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406

Surely, you know this one. It’s the paper that ultimately introduced the world to the “10,000 Hours Rule.”

My goal with this newsletter is to offer a different perspective on performance, inspire some new appreciation, and even offer a few tips along the way.

I started my career as a sportswriter for The New York Times where I routinely witnessed greatness up close (other times, I was covering the Jets). Something always nagged at me when writing about great performers, mostly because I just always seemed to suck at whatever sport I tried. I’m not a natural. Some people are. It killed me to know why.

The first step is admitting there is no single ‘it’ factor — not genes, not the muscles, not nutrition, not the brain — but a confluence of factors that rely and build upon each other. The big revelation about this, for me, came during an interview with a Johns Hopkins neuroscientist named John Krakauer, who’s an excellent tennis player, and had been asking the same questions about elite athletes that I had (albeit his questions were far more sophisticated than mine).

He laughed when I told him I’m a sportswriter. “You sportswriters,” he said, “you don’t even have a definition of the word ‘skill.’”

“Why is Steph Curry so good? Does he have better muscles or joints? Is he very smart? People would probably say ‘no.’ So what do you put on the other side of ‘very’? He’s very skilled? That’s nonsense. It’s saying he’s very skillful and being skilled.”

I still haven’t gotten over that verbal knockout, because, of course, John was right. We don’t have any clue what it means to be skilled.

• We know it takes practice, but what kinds of practice?

• We know it takes ability, but how do you learn that ability?

• We know it takes training, but how do you benefit from that training?

Science can begin to answer some of these questions, but it can also lead to more of them. And that’s kind’ve the point. I’m not here to offer a definitive thesis on “what is talent,” and I frankly would have a hard time trusting anybody who did.

I hope to promote some contemplation of skills beyond box scores and betting lines. That’s all this is. And please consider it an open forum — I want to learn from you, too, since many of you have years of experience in this field. Send me your thoughts, your questions, and your own examples of what you think creates the ‘it’ factor.