Introduction to Athletic Motor Skill Competencies

It has been proposed that insufficient motor competency and physical illiteracy within youth populations are key contributors to declining physical activity levels.^{17, 24, 62} Motor competency is a global term to describe goal-directed human movement⁶⁰ and it is deemed foundational to the development of physical literacy.¹⁶ Physical literacy can be described as the competence, confidence and knowledge to be physically active throughout life.⁴ Unsurprisingly therefore, children with poor motor competency tend to engage in less physical activity^{8, 38, 64} and have an increased injury risk when partaking in sport and physical activity, in comparison to children with superior motor competency.^{43, 46, 56} This emphasises the importance of developing motor competency in children and adolescence.³⁰ Moreover, because young children have heightened neuroplasticity (which can increase motor leaning),^{2, 12, 22} childhood provides an opportunity to accelerate motor competency development.^{18, 36} 

The Youth Physical Development model³³ and the Composite Youth Development model³⁴ suggest the primary focus of training in early to middle childhood should be to develop fundamental movement skills in order to improve motor competency. Fundamental movement skills represent locomotor (walk, run and jump), manipulative (catch, overhand throw and kick), and stability skills (stretch, balance and land) and are considered the collective building blocks for sport-specific skills and gross motor skills.^{19, 36, 38} More recently, these fundamental movement skills have been expanded upon by the proposal of athletic motor skill competencies (AMSCs)³⁵ (Figure 1), which give practitioners a deeper set of suggestions relating to the movement skills they should be coaching for youth populations.⁵³ AMSCs integrate the fundamental movement skills and additional motor skills considered to be the foundation upon which underpinning (more complex) athletic movements are built.^{35, 53, 54, 55} It is suggested that most athletic tasks and sport-specific skills require a combination of several AMSCs to be performed competently.⁵⁵ Consequently, practitioners are recommended to coach and develop the full spectrum of AMSCs when working with youth populations, to prepare them for safe participation in sport and physical activity.^{32, 35, 53, 54} 

Developing the full spectrum of AMSCs, rather than solely focusing on developing specific movement patterns which mirror the actions of the sport a youth individual participates in, can help to defend against issues associated with early specialisation.^{28, 32, 55} Early specialisation occurs when a child plays a singular sport and completes intense sport-specific practice focused on optimising performance. This approach has been associated with increased injury incidence, increased likelihood of burnout, adverse psychological stress and heightened dropout rates from sport and physical activity.^{15, 25} In contrast, developing global athleticism broadens an individual’s movement portfolio, increasing the likelihood of success in sports they may pursue later in life,⁵⁵ thereby reducing the risks of early specialisation. This is key because in later life, there are several reasons why an individual stops playing their chosen sport, including retirement or not making it professionally. Consequently, providing an individual with the ability to successfully participate in a range of sports or activities, can provide them with the intrinsic motivation and capability to continue partaking in long-term sport or exercise, when they stop playing their preferred sport which was prioritised at a young age.⁴⁰ Furthermore, only focusing on sport-specific skills can increase the risk of overuse injuries^{15, 25, 28, 35} and result in a narrow movement portfolio which can further increase injury risk.⁵⁵ Developing the full spectrum of AMSCs can prevent the same movement patterns being trained continuously and develops a broad movement portfolio, which may reduce injury risks associated with early specialisation.⁵⁵  

The benefit of developing AMSCs in youth populations has been supported by several studies^{52, 54} For instance, Pullen et al.⁵⁴ used the Athlete Introductory Movement Screen to assess multiple AMSCs in 11–13-year-old male and female children. They observed that the ability to perform AMSCs in this screening protocol was positively correlated to standing long jump distance in males (r = 0.425; p < 0.01) and females (r = 0.397; p < 0.01). Furthermore, using self-assessment tools, Pullen et al.⁵⁴ found significant positive correlations between the ability to perform AMSCs, motivation to exercise (r = 0.248; p < 0.01), and physical self-efficacy (r = 0.336; p < 0.01) in males. Similarly, a significant positive correlation between ability to perform AMSCs and motivation to exercise was found in females as well (r = 0.260; p < 0.01). Collectively, despite these associations only being small to moderate in magnitude and not being causal in nature, indicates that improving AMSCs might increase physical performance and these psychological constructs in youth populations, which in turn, could increase participation in physical activity.⁵⁴ 

The benefit of developing AMSCs has further been supported by an additional study by Pullen and colleagues,⁵² who assessed the effectiveness of a six-week intervention focused on promoting AMSCs in 11-14-year-old males and females. The intervention consisted of nine sessions, in which basic resistance training equipment was incorporated into games, challenges and periods of teaching. This allowed participants to practise a range of exercises and movement patterns targeting different AMSCs, including squat, lunge and jump variations. Important to distinguish, is that the control group completed routine Physical Education classes, consisting of sampling a variety of sports. Both groups completed a battery of assessments pre- and post-interventions, including a modified version of the resistance training skills battery (to assess AMSCs) and a standing long jump (to assess lower limb strength). The modified version of the resistance training skills battery consisted of body weight squats, lunges, front support (with chest touches) and push-ups. Participants performed each exercise twice for four repetitions and were graded out of either four or five, based on a specific set of performance criteria. A key finding was that the resistance training skills battery score significantly increased in both male and female intervention groups, yet no such improvements were observed in the control group.⁵² This finding is unsurprising considering the intervention group were essentially practising the movements that were assessed in the test. However, the findings are still of importance as the resistance training skills battery is an example of a process-orientated measure of motor competency, meaning it assesses the quality and technique of a movement skill,^{38, 52} rather than an external outcome measurement (e.g., jump height or sprint speed). This form of assessment is beneficial when working with youth individuals as it reduces the effect maturational status has on the outcome measure.⁶⁵ Interestingly however, the intervention did not improve standing long jump performance, suggesting there was not an improvement in lower body explosive strength.^{6, 52} It is possible that this was a consequence of the relatively short duration of the intervention; however, future research assessing the effects of a similar intervention over a longer duration is required to verify this suggestion. Overall, these findings highlight that such interventions can improve youth individual’s motor competency, which is beneficial because, as mentioned previously, motor competency play an important role in physical activity levels and injury risks in youth populations.^{8, 38, 43, 46, 56, 64} 

Coaching Athletic Motor Skill Competencies

Several progression frameworks have been put forward to help guide practitioners when planning interventions to progressively develop AMSCs.^{32, 55} For instance, Lloyd and colleagues³² proposed (when coaching motor skills aimed at developing AMSCs), that a practitioner should firstly ensure individuals can demonstrate a ‘competent shape’, typically referring to the extreme range of the motor skill being coached. They then suggested individuals should progress to ‘holding the shape’ isometrically before starting to move ‘in and out of the shape’. Once individuals are proficient in these stages, they recommended that the resistance, movement complexity or movement velocity should be increased to allow for further progression. Practitioners must be aware there will be individual differences in the rate of progression and physical capabilities of each individual they are coaching, which will result in individuals progressing through these stages at different rates.^{32, 55} Therefore, practitioners must have the expertise to tailor training prescription to the specific needs of each individual in front of them – something which represents the very art of coaching.

There are several challenges practitioners face when delivering interventions aimed at developing AMSCs to youth populations (Table 1). Firstly, practitioners must be able to coach these AMSCs in a fun and engaging manner because a lack of enjoyment is the primary cause of children dropping out of sport and physical activity.^{3, 11} To do this, practitioners should be aware that the constant use of strict repetition and loading sessions can be ineffective when working with children.^{10, 55} As a consequence, practitioners must alter the structure of training sessions based upon several considerations including the participants’ age, training age, socio-cultural factors and ability, in order to maximise enjoyment and engagement and subsequently improve motor competency.^{30, 51, 55} Practitioners can attempt to “hide the carrot in the burger” when designing drills and sessions to enhance engagement and provide an appropriate degree of structure to sessions, which they can easily adapt depending on the needs of the participants in the session. In essence, this analogy refers to masking the development of AMSCs in a fun task that individuals will engage with, without necessarily realising they are directly training certain AMSCs. Example activities practitioners can utilise include animal shapes, games-based activities, body-management exercises and obstacle courses (Table 1).⁵⁵

An additional factor that practitioners must consider is how they can increase the intrinsic motivation of youth individuals to partake in the sessions, as this can improve participation levels and motor competency development.^{16, 69} The self-determination theory suggests the degree to which three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competency and relatedness) are met, will subsequently impact an individual’s intrinsic motivation.^{13, 14} Moreover, it has been highlighted that athletes reporting higher perceptions of autonomy have a reduced risk of burnout-related symptoms or drop out from their sport.^{26, 29, 40} Therefore, practitioners should aim to employ strategies that enhance feelings of autonomy, competency and relatedness in youth populations to increase their intrinsic motivation and hence improve their engagement within the training intervention.

Individualised Approach to Developing Athletic Motor Skill Competencies

When developing AMSCs, training should be tailored to the specific needs of an individual.^{32, 55} To inform this individualised training prescription, where possible, motor competency should be periodically assessed via process-orientated methods.^{20, 37, 45} However, there is currently not a single screening tool that assesses the whole spectrum of AMSCs and so practitioners must likely consider using multiple screening tools.⁵³ For example, Pullen et al.⁵³ recommended practitioners used the tuck jump assessment⁴⁴ alongside either the resistance training skill battery³⁹ or the athlete introductory movement screen,⁶¹ in conjunction with a strength assessment,⁵⁰ to help inform individualised training prescription. However, when working with large groups, this will be a time-consuming process and therefore, practitioners may have to consider using more qualitative and less structured methods of assessment such as their own coaching eye. Coaching eye refers to a practitioner’s ability to identify limitations or movement deficiencies when observing an athlete complete a specific movement or skill.³¹ A limitation of using this method is that developing a good coaching eye requires experience and practice, therefore, practitioners should be mindful that relying on this may be subject to larger degrees of error in some early-career practitioners. Furthermore, once a practitioner has identified an error, it is imperative they have the ability to use appropriate solutions to correct these errors.

When correcting movement deficiencies, practitioners should consider the use of task constraints. The task constraints of an exercise or activity can be manipulated by a practitioner to influence the outcome of a movement pattern.⁴⁷ For example, if a practitioner identified that an individual was not keeping their hips in line when completing a bear crawl, they could add a task constraint whereby the individual has to balance a cone on their lower back. The addition of this modification would enable the individual to find a solution to keeping the cone on their back and hence their hips, in line and correcting the movement deficiency. A benefit of such an approach is that task constraints provide an individual with external cues, rather than internal cues. Internal cues tend to include explicit information about a movement which can cause youth individuals to consciously think about specific components of a task, thus impeding performance.^{27, 55} Additionally, the removal of explicit instructions means the participant must work out an appropriate movement solution themselves, promoting the notion of self-organisation. Self-organisation can promote improved decision-making, greater retention of skills and increased intrinsic motivation, as athletes are given greater autonomy to explore and discover effective movement solutions.^{13, 14, 58} Furthermore, the use of external cues is thought to positively affect performance in youth populations^{7, 48} as they direct an individual’s attention towards the environment and external outcomes and away from their body movements,^{66, 68} thus allowing for unconscious information processing and movement control.⁶⁷ This is beneficial as it has been shown that when developing motor skills, implicit learning can be more effective than explicit learning.^{63, 69, 70}

In conjunction with task constraints, practitioners may have to provide corrective feedback to correct movement deficiencies. For feedback to be effective, it must be communicated in a clear and concise way, using age-appropriate language and avoiding explicit information relating to the process of performing the movement.³¹ With this in mind, the use of metaphors and analogies can be beneficial as they can make the feedback relatable to youth individuals, allowing them to process the information effectively.⁵⁵ Similarly to the use of task constraints, these techniques also promote self-organisation and implicit learning, which as previously highlighted, can be beneficial for motor skill development.^{58, 63, 69, 70} Furthermore, divergent questioning gives an individual the opportunity to find a solution to a technique error themselves, promoting problem solving and critical thinking which can enhance learning.⁴⁹ Using such an approach allows individuals to learn to correct their movements through their mistakes, linking to the method of amplification error, which has previously been identified as an effective method of correcting motor skill errors in youth individuals.⁴¹

Conclusion

In summary, AMSCs provide practitioners with a guide of the movement skills they should be coaching youth populations in order to develop motor competency.³⁵  Previous research has indicated that developing AMSCs in youth populations can improve motivation to exercise, physical self-efficacy and physical performance.^{52, 54} However, in practice, practitioners face several challenges when delivering interventions aimed at developing AMSCs. These challenges include maintaining enjoyment to sustain engagement and identifying feasible methods of assessing motor competency to inform individualised training prescription. Therefore, the present article has aimed to provide theoretical and practical examples of how these challenges can be overcome to support the safe, progressive development of AMSCs, which in turn, can improve motor competency and promote long-term participation in physical activity.