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Opher Donchin (opherdonchin) wrote:
but it's a long way from that to the claim that learning other sports is useless for learning your own sport.
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Who said that - certainly not I. I specifically do Judo to improve my Aikido.
I just don't think that the bulk of Aikido training is that useful for football and the part that may be is best quickly adapted and taken out onto the practice field.
I will say that professional sports training does not involve just playing the sport but lots of other physical training in the form of drills, weight lifting, etc. Some are designed to enhance certain skills, some condition certain muscles, and others just even out the body. I know one semi-professional tennis player that does certain weight lifting exercises with his left arm only to even out the size of his forearms. I can easily see as part of some training scheme that an athlete is required to let's say swim a few laps - I mean they do it to race horses don't they - but that really is in context of training rather than sport.
A professional athlete will concentrate on one maybe two sports - in Canada we have some great winter/summer switchers. When they are not training for their chosen sport(s), they are resting.
A good athlete will most likely be competent in a number of sports and probably varies them for pleasure rather than any idea of enhancing them all.