ABSTRACT
Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said, “the importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated” (Wooden 1997, p. 52). Indeed, reaching a stage where some skills can be performed “automatically” is thought to be one of the main goals of sport training and one of the defining characteristics of being an expert (e.g., Gibson, 1969; Abernethy, 1993). But what exactly does it mean for a sport skill to be “automatic” and how exactly is this desired state achieved through training? The goals of this chapter are threefold: (i) define the concept of automaticity in the context of sport, (ii) examine theories of how automaticity is achieved, and (iii) review sport science research, which has tested the combined predictions of skill acquisition and automaticity theories.
