Professional sport organisations are increasingly turning their attention towards talent development to gain a competitive advantage. At the heart of talent development is skill acquisition - the field of sport Science dedicated to understanding how skills are developed through exposure to different practice and competition environments. The competitive advantage, therefore, lies in organisations improving their knowledge of skill acquisition and using it to accelerate leaming through evidence-based practice techniques. However, a challenge for practitioners working in applied environments is identifying which areas of practice are sub-optimal, and how to intervene with appropriately periodised skill acquisition training programs. The aim of this chapter is to discuss current evidence and opinions in these areas and provide examples that can be used to inform skill acquisition training programs in daily training environments. Specifically, we focus on (1) how to assess the pertinency of the current practice environment, and (2) ways practitioners can intervene with skill acquisition training program s focused on skill periodisation and skill overload using the constraints-led framework.
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