Martyn Rothwell, Joseph A. Stone, Keith Davids, and Craig Wright The Big Idea In the pursuit of producing “expert” sports men and women, there is a myth worth exploring. It is common to take for granted that the number of years or hours of practice are predictive of becoming expert. For example, there is something called the 10,000-hour rule. The psychologist K. Anders Ericsson studied how people become experts in their field. He concluded that 10,000 hours of practice was a reasonable rule of thumb. …