The concepts of deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993) and deliberate play (i.e., informal youth-led sport play with peers, but without a coach, such asbackyard soccer, basketball in the driveway; Côté, Baker, & Abernethy, 2007) have been influential on research into the acquisition of ath-letic expertise. Deliberate practice was defined to be undertaken for the extrinsic motive to achieve an improved performance, with the further criteria that it be physically and mentally highly effortful and not inherently enjoyable. Deliberate play was defined to be highly enjoyable and to be undertaken for the intrinsic motive to maximize enjoyment. However, the authors ascribedthese attributes a priorito athletes` involvement in the activities but did not empirically measurethe ascribed attributes. In this study,we examined whether these a priori pre-supposed attributes are underpinned by empirical corre-spondence in youth athletes. A total of 208 athletes (13.6 years; SD= 2.6) from several sports reported their motives and inherent enjoyment of coach-led practice and youth-led sport play in a questionnaire. The empirical findings did not provide support for some of the premises of the definitions of deliberate practice and deliberate play. Inherent enjoyment was high in both activities and did not differ. Youth athletes` motives to engage in both sport activities comprised a broad multi-dimensionalspectrum in-cluding health, general fitness, aesthetic experiences, social interaction, and recreation from daily hassle, not just performance or inherent enjoyment. Within theperformance motive for coach-led practice, the intrinsiccomponent was very pronounced while the extrinsiccomponent was not. Furthermore, more successful youth athletes showed lessempirical correspondence with premises of the deliberate practice conceptthan less successful athletes. The findings suggest that the definitions of deliberate practice and deliber-ate play should be empiricallysubstantiated, rather than defining them by untested a prioripremises.
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