The e ective use of practice time is a critical consideration for many coaches, teachers, instructors, and clinicians in a broad set of recreational, amateur, and professional settings that have as their goal the improvement in skilled behavior or functional recovery through rehabilitation. For example, consider the high school volleyball coach who, every season, has to deal with a limited allocation of gym time in preparation for the year ahead. Or the soccer coach that has to share fi eld time with the rugby team because they both have seasonal play during the autumn. Practice is also an issue that is relevant to the physical therapist who, due to insurance restrictions, is limited to two hours of interaction every two weeks with a patient recovering from hip surgery. Despite this restriction the therapist is expected, and hopes, to work toward quickly correcting the patients perturbed gait kinematics in a manner that allows the patient to safely navigate their home environment after they leave the confi nes of the clinical setting. In each of these situations a core question entertained by the coach is how best to organize bouts of practice or training to maximize the functional capacity of the player or athlete. It is this very question that is the focus of this chapter with the intent being to highlight features of practice organization that can be used to facilitate the design and delivery of practice for successful behavioral outcomes.
