In the past I have been doing so-so on the action shots. For some reason I have lost all capability to get anything other than a total blur. In my cameras defense I have been playing around alot with different settings so I know I am responsible for this disruption.
I am using a Fuji Finepix S5000 if that helps at all.
Any hints, suggestions or words of advice?
Thanks in advance!

There are two ways to take action shots,one way is to set the camera on manual or Shutter priority AE and set at the max shutter speed that you can get of your camera(1/1000th).Very helpful is the flash that along with the max shutter speed will freeze the action
I would say to shoot with 400-800 iso but i'm afraid that it will increase the noise

The other easier way is to set the camera at Sports on Shooting mode. :)

set the camera on manual or Shutter priority AE


In my curiosity I may have inadvertanly switched something along the lines that you mentioned but I still can't get anything that resembles a picture with my sports shooting mode?

Look in your camera's manual to see if there is a way to set the camera back to the manufacturers defaults. I recall reading a book where is said that there is a way to do this with all digital camera's. I haven't figured out how to do it with my Pansonic though.

You have to go >menou>and set default settings,as Jan said,but if you set the camera at auto sport mode and you would still taking blur photos,then there is something wrong with your camera and not the settings that you played around,because even if you changed the settings it couldn't affect the auto modes of your camera
The only thing that i would think is that you try to take action photos in low light conditions
Try this..open your best action photo on pc and check the EXIF of the photo (f /sutter speed/ISO)and then take another photo with exactly the same settings and if it's possible in the same light conditions,also try another photo at the auto sport mode and see :)