Skill acquisition and the theory of deliberate practice: It ain't what youdo it's the way that you do it!

The application of the theory of deliberate practice to the study of expert ise in sport by Starkes and colleagues mises a number of statistical, metho dological and theoretical issues. Further work is needed to verify the reli ability of the retrospective estimates technique. A complete test of refuta tion of the theory is needed by attempting to locate and study groups with small amounts of accumulated practice and high levels of performance and vi ce versa. A major weakness is the failure of deliberate practice to recogni se the variety of constraints on the acquisition of motor expertise in spor t.