blasphemy... or is it really this simple?

[Q.]

The following is a post copied from the Supertraining discussion list:

I'm not sure I agree with all or the way Jerry puts things but I certainly agree with his main point. I have won over a hundred state and regional titles, 18 national titles, and three world master's championships and I can't say I ever consulted any research for training ideas (of course you pretty much get good at anything if you do it for 35 years).

On the contrary most of the research I have read simply reinforced what I learned with sweat and blood training by trial and error. I doubt Louie Simmons has a significant amount of formal education but he has put out more useful information to the powerlifting world than any scientist I know of. One of the things he reiterates time and time again is nothing works for everyone and what works does not work forever. Thus we must constantly try new things and even if they don't work the first time they may later.

I've been in training for some kind of sport since I could walk and yet at the age of 53, I constantly learn something new. I don't care to read mounds of research written in a specific discipline's jargon that usually can be condensed in theory to common sense. For instance one of the in vogue theories postulated in a recent post was very profound in stating that if you take some time off from peaking out and then start back out in periodization peaking scheme again you will get stronger. Hello, we've been doing that along with all the little mesocycles and minicycles, etc. for the past twenty years.

It really boils down in layman's terms to variations in speed, intensity and volume in order to stimulate the body to lift heavier and heavier weights. You can dress it up any way you want but every routine or training theory I have ever used with any success was based on that. Louie doesn't waste words or say things most people can't understand; he puts it very simply "Train what is weak and you will get stronger". The secret is in identifying what is weak, muscles, technique, psyche, etc. and honing in on making it stronger.

When I get information on the how to and some reasonable-understandable language as to why then I have to immediately absorb that information. I think what Jerry is saying is there are a lot of good ideas out there that could be evaluated by the members of the group if people were not intimidated about sharing those ideas. I agree and implore anyone who has input to get on this list and share your thoughts. Not all of us are Rocket Scientists, some of us are just dumb old powerlifters who want to learn as much as we can. But that's just my thoughts.

[bryanc]

As a researcher, I'll pipe up here.

Research in sport performance has been probably fueled by two factors: 1) Some sadistic individuals actually want to know, for the sake of knowing (and really, not much else), how something works and 2) The state of competition in sport, and its payoffs demand that athletes train as efficiently as superhumanly possible.

Research is a tool of reductionism. It takes global, amorphous concepts and boils them down to digestable categorizations. This is how we, as an intellectual species, come to understand the world around us. It's not enough to know that an apple is "red", but what kind of "red" is it? For that matter it's not enough to know that an apple is coloured differently than an orange, but to put a name to that colour, and call it "red" so that we can talk to one another about other "red" things as opposed to "orange" things.

The demand on performance brings research into the picture. If everyone was happy to take 53 years to become a world champion by trial and error, there would be no demand for research. Similarly, if cancer patients were willing to be treated by trial and error, and we didn't have this odd sense of self-preservation, there would be no demand for research.

Research, applied properly, makes it easier to make decisions. Do you take drug A or drug B for a headache? Well, you could try drug A and see if it works and if it doesn't, you can then try drug B. In the meantime, you'll have this nagging, possibly largely uncomfortable pain in your head. It is said that asprin was discovered by the Native Americans who used to chew willow bark to relieve pain. How many centuries of Native Americans did it take to stumble on chewing the bark of a willow tree?

If you're a young athlete with some great raw talent ('cause that's probably the one prerequisite to becoming an elite athlete these days), how long do you realistically have to spend in your sport? If you're a gymnast, identified at age 6, maybe, MAYBE 10 years. If you're a swimmer, identified at age 8, maybe 10 years, maybe 15. If you're a powerlifter identified at 15 years, presumably 38 years. How many of those years do you want to spend training in futility (trial followed by error)? How much of your training time (which is substantial) do you want to spending doing training that is going to lead to performance improvements (trial, followed by success)? If someone were to quantify the likelihood of trial-followed-by-error and trial-followed-by-success, would that not make your training time better spent?

So, this is why we have coaches. These are people who, through training many people (perhaps through trial and error, and trial and success), learn what works and what doesn't. But like it or not, coaches are biased. Whether it's intentional (they have an alternate agenda about their program) or unintentional (people in general, tend to remember what works rather than what doesn't), the bias is still there. The same bias exists in surgeons whose decision making process on what surgery they should perform is HIGHLY based on their previous education (where they were trained and with who) and their recall of successful cases. This has resulted in, what is essentially, medical practice from the 1950's, carried forward to today's surgical practices.

Efficiency is the very basis upon which the entire evidence-based paradigm is founded (whether it be for medical treatment or sport performance). There is something to be said about tried and true techniques that have never been "research-validated". Eastern medical traditions are perhaps one of the most salient examples of this. However, as very little of it HAS been research-validated, we are still at a loss as to which parts of Eastern medicine TRULY works (certain forms of accupuncture) and which parts don't actually work, but are a part of the tradition as a result of association with the tradition (e.g. eating chicken legs to get stronger/healthier/faster legs. Funny how that example never comes up when people talk about how effective Chinese medicine is...).

So while Coach Z may carry a lot of effective information with him, and has trained many successful athletes, we often don't know a) how many non-successful athletes he's trained, 'cause you don't often hear about them, or perhaps he lets them go if they're not showing the typical response to his program (or they leave for the same reason) and b) which bits of information he has are the important ones and which bits are the equivalent to eating chicken legs.

And thanks to the incredible pressure to perform AND win, it always, always, always boils down to the question, "Can we achieve the same result, but faster?"

I can't remember who said it (or even if I have it entirely right), but I think perhaps it draw attention to the ethics and social reprecussions of societal demand for victory and how this has spawned an entire realm of research in sport. The Olympics is the only event in the world where feats of superhuman magnitude are trivialized.

[Q.]

Originally posted by bryanc:
The Olympics is the only event in the world where feats of superhuman magnitude are trivialized.

Bryan,

As you probably already know, my post was intended to just create some interesting discussion. WHEW, you got it off to a great start! I certainly agree with you but my take on it is a bit more brief. It's all in the application. You hit the nail on the head (a few times) but, if you want to wait 58 years to get there, fine but there's a lot on the line for some people to advance as quickly as possible.

... and just to show that I actually read your post to the end , I was really curious by the last comment. Could you elaborate?

Q

[bryanc]

Heh.

Basically, there is such pressure to Gold, that there is virtually no recognition to the fact that silver, bronze, or even _making_ it to the Olympics is a significant achievement of human performance. Every single competitor at the Olympics has dedicated their lives to their sport and accomplishes feats that are literally on the superhuman level. Yet, all of those feats are trivialized simply because someone else, on that particular day and time, managed to perform better. A good example of this would be the Canadian speed skater, Jeremy Witherspoon, who, in his first race, fell right off the start. Why he fell doesn't really matter. The next day, Jeremy skated the fastest 500m race of the entire games. I believe Casey Fitzrandoph of the US won the gold in Salt Lake, and deservingly so, but all anyone remembers is that Jeremy fell (the winner in speed skating is determined by averaging the times of the two trials). Virtually no one recognizes Jeremy's achievement--or the fact that any of the non-gold, non-medalling athletes is incredibly fast. It's like we're saying, "If you don't win, we don't consider your performance to be of worth.", hence the word trivialize.

[russ]

It's like we're saying, "If you don't win, we don't consider your performance to be of worth.", hence the word trivialize.

On a lighter note, l , like most Canadians, would have trivialized anything less than a gold from the men's hockey team in Salt Lake City (Joe Sakic's performance in the gold medal game was superhuman [img]tongue.gif[/img] )
I was living in the US at that time and would have had great difficulty handling a US victory over Canada (I realize that most Americans didn't really care) [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Q.]

Originally posted by bryanc:
Basically, there is such pressure to Gold, that there is virtually no recognition to the fact that silver, bronze, or even _making_ it to the Olympics is a significant achievement of human performance. Every single competitor at the Olympics has dedicated their lives to their sport and accomplishes feats that are literally on the superhuman level. Yet, all of those feats are trivialized simply because someone else, on that particular day and time, managed to perform better.

So, the result is intense pressure to WIN at any/all costs including the use of performance enhancing drugs, at least for the individual vs. team events.

Any ideas as to how to do it differently and, as a result, perhaps reduce the pressure to "dope," that is, if you agree with that premise?

Q

[Q.]

Originally posted by Quercus:
"Train what is weak and you will get stronger". The secret is in identifying what is weak, muscles, technique, psyche, etc. and honing in on making it stronger.

How about this: how do you think this approach will work for the average Jane/Joe noncompetitive athlete?

See also my even narrower question about the "psyche as a weakness" under the Mind/Body heading

[bryanc]

It's a massive debate on some levels on the pressure to win at all costs. On some level, the IOC would have to make some decisions about the entire philosophy of the games--why do we have them at all? Historically, the Olympics were a celebration to the gods. They stopped wars to have the games (which, when you really think about it, is incredibly remarkable). We don't seem to do that now--and the world has changed since then, so maybe that's not something that we're interested in doing. BUT, no one's actually had the debate in a meaningful, productive way.

This self-inspection is something I've advocated at the collegiate level, while I was involved in student politics--why do we have college sports teams at academic institutions? Realize that I'm not saying that we shouldn't, but that no one has an answer to this question other than "tradition". And while "tradition" is fine and good, when "tradition" starts to comprimise the academic quality of a school; when "tradition" starts to shift the spending of resources away from academically related activities in favour of sport tradition (eg. we'll build a new stadium instead of upgrading the chemistry department), then I think it's incumbent upon universities to look inwards to really justify those activities. But I digress.

Why do people cheat? Because the perceived payoff is greater than the perceived risk of cheating. So, in order to really answer the question, "How do we reduce doping?", one has to ultimately address (perhaps not answer) the question, "Why is the perceived payoff that high?" and "What exactly, is the payoff?" Some countries have financial incentives for their athletes to win. Companies pay winning athletes to endorse things. These are just part of the issue. Once you've identified the major factors, then you can start to address them. And you have to be willing to look at _all_ of your options. Perhaps athletes should not be allowed to receive corporate sponsorship, or to endorse products. Perhaps it should be against the rules of the IOC for countries to provide incentives (financial or otherwise) for winning (I underline the word winning, as opposed to training). Theoretically, you can address the issue from both sides of the equation: Lower the payoff, or increase the risk; but I'm not sure that the risk will ever outweigh the payoff, because the payoffs right now are so damn high. You get to places (not just geographically) by winning that you just can't get to (EVER) if you don't win.

It would require a massive global cultural shift to change things from the way they are (not impossible, but just unlikely to happen very quickly). The value of winning is determined societally. Companies wouldn't ask athletes to endorse things if the endorsement didn't increase their sales. Endorsements wouldn't increase sales if people, in general, didn't put value in the endorsements of athletes. People wouldn't put value in the endorsement of athletes if they didn't put as high a value on athletes. People wouldn't put as high a value on athletes if they put more value in other things. People would put more value in other things if they saw the worth of those other things. And down the iterative garden path we go.

There was a time when society didn't put a whole lot of value in athletes. Athletes didn't get paid multi-million dollar salaries. They didn't get endorsements. And perhaps, athletes played their sport because they really did love it and it wasn't as tainted as it is today. Not to say that athletes today don't love their respective sports, but did you ever wonder why there's never any doping issues in lawn bowling (A Commonwealth games sport) or curling (An Olympic sport)?

[bryanc]

Sorry, folks, my laptop is running really slow, and well, I can't do any work while I'm "optimizing it", so my posts are exceedingly long today, 'cause I'm bored.

"Train what is weak and you will get stronger."

Ever see the movie Mystery Men? There was a character in it called "The Sphinx" whose superpower is to basically say phrases that sound really wise and profound but are actually incredibly formulaic and pithy (well, that and being able to break guns in half with his mind). But he would have said things like that. The statement is completely indefensible. You can't argue with a statement like that. It's like saying, "Defeat the enemy and you will win." or "Eat, and you will not be hungry." or, "Sleep when you feel tired, and you will awake more rested." It's not like I'm going to say, "Oooo..no! You should train what is strong to get even stronger!" Of course you'll get stronger if you train what is weak!

Heck, I could do him one better, "Do something different than what you do now, and things will change." And you don't even have to figure out what your weaknesses are.

In a way, however, the phrase is useful for the average Jane/Joe; but because so many people aren't willing to change much of anything at all, never mind go prying around for their weaknesses. The premise is simple--if what you're doing isn't working, then doing something different is going to change that, for better, or for worse. So unless you're happy getting no results, then you'll have to change _something_. If a principle like training what is weak, is incentive for you to probe around to change what you perceive to be weak, then all the more power to the principle.

[Q.]

Originally posted by bryanc:
This self-inspection is something I've advocated at the collegiate level, while I was involved in student politics--why do we have college sports teams at academic institutions? Realize that I'm not saying that we shouldn't, but that no one has an answer to this question other than "tradition". And while "tradition" is fine and good, when "tradition" starts to comprimise the academic quality of a school; when "tradition" starts to shift the spending of resources away from academically related activities in favour of sport tradition (eg. we'll build a new stadium instead of upgrading the chemistry department), then I think it's incumbent upon universities to look inwards to really justify those activities. But I digress.

I work at a State university (staff and faculty) and this really hits home! I've seen this happen all too often. We just finished an addition to our football stadium and the new office complex is underway at a time when the State is going through huge budget deficits, including within our university.

The concensus seems to be that VERY FEW universities can actually make money on athletics overall (read they have to have support from somewhere else). Being a State school, State money can't (at least, isn't supposed to) assist in the support of Athletic functions, since they are considered auxiliary to the academic purposes of the university. Yet, practically every school around here has a team even if the stands remain mostly empty, as ours are.

[gardener]

How many centuries of Native Americans did it take to stumble on chewing the bark of a willow tree?

Small but significant point: how many of our ancestors perished in trying to figure out what they could eat without it killing them?

[kuri]

Quote "There was a time when society didn't put a whole lot of value in athletes. Athletes didn't get paid multi-million dollar salaries. They didn't get endorsements. And perhaps, athletes played their sport because they really did love it and it wasn't as tainted as it is today."

Yes, and ties in nicely with the Univeristy sports programs issue.

At U of Wisconsin, Madison many football players can be seen riding around in Hummers, Escalades or whatever big $ SUV you please.

Do they legitimately complete degrees? Some, no.

Does anything change after a scandal? no, not really, and there were a few while I was there.

Players commiting crimes or academic fraud attracts some quick media play, but always is quickly forgotten and everyone gets back to the business of attracting sponsors and making money.

As with most fields it comes down to money vs. you name it. When money becomes the overriding factor then much that was good goes right out the window.

So many good issues in this thread!

[bryanc]

Originally posted by gardener:

quote:

---

How many centuries of Native Americans did it take to stumble on chewing the bark of a willow tree?

Small but significant point: how many of our ancestors perished in trying to figure out what they could eat without it killing them? [/quote]Heh, I always find that kind of thinking kinda funny, gardener (funny weird, not funny ha ha). Unless you consider the common ancestor to the Homo genus (and its ancestors) to be ancestors, then it's likely that not many of our ancestors died while trying to figure out what they could eat (most people when they use the term "our ancestors" are usually referring to Homo erectus or Neanderthal, and not to precursors to those). This is one area where I really think the bible, and other creation myths do more harm than good. It's not like Homo erectus was formed, when a monkey decided to stand up and walk on its hind legs one day (and suddenly its brain made this giant leap foward where everything in the world was different than it was when it was leaping around on all fours a moment ago). Or that the first Neanderthal woke up one day and looked down at himself (or herself) and thought, "Ohmigosh, I'm hairy, bipedal and...what are these...things! Hmm..I'll call them tools! Now, what to eat..." Even if you subscribe to the "punctuated equilibrium" theory of evolution, the moments of rapid evolution still occured over thousands of years.

We don't see monkeys dropping out of the trees because _they're_ trying to figure out what they can or cannot eat. If we consider that our common ancestors were monkey, or ape-like, then at some point (the point being over thousands of years) our ancestors learned what they could or could not eat (and "our ancestors" possibly not even being in the Homo genus. Perhaps this goes as far back the common ancestor humans share with rats!) due to evolutionary adaptations that allowed them to detect "bad" from "good". It is posulated that the human fear of snakes is somehow genetically linked (probably through some really bad studies =P). However, those individuals who didn't have an inborn fear of snakes (whenever that became an evolutionary advantage) would have had a higher risk of dying before passing their genes on. If it was a really important trait to be afraid of snakes (and one can postulate that it was, since humans today are almost universally afraid of snakes) then technically, our ancestors never died to figure out snakes were bad because the individuals who didn't figure it out died sooner and likely didn't pass on their "snake-fright" genes and therefore aren't our ancestors =P. (I think only another evolutionary biologist is going to think that one is funny.)

Evolution can be a difficult concept to really grasp because we don't think in continuums. We like things to be black or white. Even in "shades of grey" discussions, it comes down to "Which shade of grey? Storm cloud grey? Or cement grey?" We differentiate Homo erectus from Neanderthal, but the wise biologist understands that we do this only so we can talk about two different periods in time that are sufficiently separated that when Neanderthal existed, what we define as Homo erectus probably did not. And the wise biologist also realizes that there is a continuum between Homo erectus and Neanderthal--that while we talk about them as distinct entites, the common ancestor to both gradually, and generationally became the other over a long, long, long period of time.

But I've taken this thread firmly off the tracks now =P.