does sport science make us slower ???

longshank

peter kern wrote: »

of course it is confused but that happens in the tri world on a daily basis.
its kind of funny i talked about it on the way to ahtlone, when I was told that girl x was at a training camp with a coach and they focused totally on power in training and all the people went wow this is so scientific....... they dont seem to think whats the real benefits they just go wow thats scientific training. so they see the gadget as science.


at the end of the day we dodnt discuss science we discuss why marathon runner are still slower than 20 years ago when there is so much more out there to help them.

2:05:38Khalid Khannouchi United StatesApril 14, 2002London MarathonIAAF,[39] ARRS[40]First "World's Best" recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations.[64] The ARRS notes Khannouchi's extended time as 2:05:37.8[40]2:04:55Paul Tergat KenyaSeptember 28, 2003Berlin MarathonIAAF,[39] ARRS[40]First world record for the men's marathon ratified by the International Association of Athletics Federations.[65]2:04:26Haile Gebrselassie EthiopiaSeptember 30, 2007Berlin MarathonIAAF,[39] ARRS[40]2:03:59Haile Gebrselassie EthiopiaSeptember 28, 2008Berlin MarathonIAAF,[39] ARRS[40]The ARRS notes Gebrselassie's extended time as 2:03:58.2[40]2:03:38Patrick Makau KenyaSeptember 25, 2011Berlin MarathonIAAF,[66] IAAF[67]
but the marathon world record has gotten faster in the last 20years?? so somebody is using the right science?

sconhome

Correct me if I'm wrong, as I understand it Peter is arguing that to achieve these sort of results in Irish atheletes would be attributable to changes in coaching methods rather than an over reliance on science (gadgets).

I would argue that the improvements in coaching are getting results in athletes as a direct feedback of the scientific approach to knowledge and training which is aided by gadgets. Its a circular thing more scientific knowledge leading to better coaching methods giving better results which leads to more scientific investigation of the causes of such results and so on.

peter kern

I am not really arguing anything ;-) all Iam arguing the fact that most people believe training has to be complicated to be effective.

when you look how brother colm is coaching his athletes.......very basic but with an fantastic eye what needs to be done. still very effective.Sutton the same.

At the same time Krueger or Dixon (if he dosnt make joekes that chris lieto would run a sub 3 marathion each race he starts) gets super results using science.


training has to be good to be effective and as we see with huff n puff it works for him his way . and when tunney trained it worked his way . now since he dosnt train his way dosnt work and my way dosnt work either when I dodnt train ..

Zuppy

I think the argument could be made that the Irish coach is still more an artist than a scientist. We do have a national coaching authority (coaching Ireland) but the science dissemination is still lacking. A coach should be supported by his/ her sports NGB or some other method with the interpretation of the science in relation to his sport.

The coaching skills and the technical abilities of the coach are another discussion. Few NGB take continuing education of their coaches seriously. They are still trying to get coaches and retain them.

This inhibits the coach as he or she should be focusing on the athlete and no maintain his knowledge base or an overview of the daggers available on the market.

peter kern

last week i spoke to a runner and he told me someting quite interesting he said 2o years ago a coach in a club worked with about 10 people those days its more 100 people, so could be that coaches just dont have enough time to focus on the individual .

Zuppy do you believe coaching can be learned better in a class room ?

Zuppy

peter kern wrote: »

last week i spoke to a runner and he told me someting quite interesting he said 2o years ago a coach in a club worked with about 10 people those days its more 100 people, so could be that coaches just dont have enough time to focus on the individual .

Zuppy do you believe coaching can be learned better in a class room ?

I believe we can teach coaches all the necessary tools of the trade. Some coaches need a bit extra help but on the whole if you have the trust of your athlete and you can communicate effectively then all else can be taught to some degree. coaching to me is a two way street and if the highway of communication fails then it doesn't matter how good a coach you are.

If coaches are having time management issues then we need to either have more coaches or support them so that they can cope or a combination of both. Because the majority of coaches (in any sport) are entry level participation coaches and not the high end performance experts with a high performance development team focusing on a few athletes. And even if you are a high performance professional coach you need these guys on the ground developing the masses so that you can spot the gem that might have potential. Our experts and all our energies should be on developing the base or masses of the sport so that the pyramid can be built higher.

And in my opinion we need to be realistic and recognise that these coaches and the self trained athletes need the science distiled into bite sized chunks to aid them.

Gone off topic a bit but in the end if you want the science and not the gadgets to work then we need better ways to share it all

peter kern

Not that I disagree with you , in fact I agree a lot with you. But dodnt you think that an apprenticeship with a very good coach is much better
than having (i cant find the right word now ) but you know that most coaching educaters are not the best coaches.

when I did an Itu course it was class there was a course coordintor who did the managment of the course, there was the two coaches of vanessa fernandes at that time and there was a sport scientists that worked with tour de france teams. and the best of it there was coaches from 8 different countries and it was great to see what they thought.
the problem is very few times do you have such a great team most of the times they are coaches that dont produce results that are the 'educators'.
So if there is good educators i totally agree with you.the problem is most of the time the educators are very poor and the really good people dont want to get their hands dirty coaching beginners coaches.

Zuppy

But if you want to produce a large number of coaches and maintain quality (of any standard) the classroom is the only viable option. Your kind of course would be impossible to deliver for level one coaches. And a number of sports demand a logbook of coaching under supervision. Kayaking level one looks for an "apprenticeship" of 25 hours under a higher level coach or national coach post level one course. Any more effort would be a waste as the retaining of these coaches is an issue, I would guess.

Anyone motivated will educate themselves further but can we not make this easier? And maybe at a level where they are in charge of other coaches or coaching clubs that we invest the time and money then in the coaches that show promise.

peter kern

so you are saying quantity over quality. I think this is an issue though I have way less experience in this than you but I think in coaching it is a serious issue so i cant really see how it can not be an issue in coaching coaches.
for me high quality is the way not any kind of standart to be maintained as you say the standard is not high enough it seems a bit odd you want to maintain it.
the talk Triathlon Ireland organized a few years ago in ucd was class
top level speakers. I would prefer having a few of those and have many people listen than having an 'educator' educating coaches in a small class room.
Having big coaching days with top guys- in my mind- is better than having small class with ok educators. Me thinks or at least they could be supplemented more often with top experts in their field.
it could even be webinars.
At the end of the day I think coaching is like everything something you never stop to learn. and most I learn from communicating with other coaches and talking to athletes etc but most of all coaching.
Maybe more full time coaches are the solution.

peter kern

longshank wrote: »

2:05:38Khalid Khannouchi United StatesApril 14, 2002London MarathonIAAF,[39] ARRS[40]First "World's Best" recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations.[64] The ARRS notes Khannouchi's extended time as 2:05:37.8[40]2:04:55Paul Tergat KenyaSeptember 28, 2003Berlin MarathonIAAF,[39] ARRS[40]First world record for the men's marathon ratified by the International Association of Athletics Federations.[65]2:04:26Haile Gebrselassie EthiopiaSeptember 30, 2007Berlin MarathonIAAF,[39] ARRS[40]2:03:59Haile Gebrselassie EthiopiaSeptember 28, 2008Berlin MarathonIAAF,[39] ARRS[40]The ARRS notes Gebrselassie's extended time as 2:03:58.2[40]2:03:38Patrick Makau KenyaSeptember 25, 2011Berlin MarathonIAAF,[66] IAAF[67]
but the marathon world record has gotten faster in the last 20years?? so somebody is using the right science?

so are you guys saying that 3rd world countries have better sport science ? ( ps kanuchi was not born and developed in the USA)

longshank

peter kern wrote: »

so are you guys saying that 3rd world countries have better sport science ? ( ps kanuchi was not born and developed in the USA)

i'm not saying anything other than marathon running is getting faster...in fact what you are saying backs up my point that genetics is the main element and performance is just the icing on the cake.

tunney

amphkingwest wrote: »

Over reliance & dependence on HRM, power meters etc is just another form of misguided belief. The electronic gadgets are a means of tracking information and evaluating the data (if you want) to help with the tailoring of training plans or workouts.

IMHO this is half the problem - using things just for tracking and evaluating - should also be used to guide.

amphkingwest wrote: »

I think the lines between sports science and sports gadgets are being confused through this whole thread.

Yes it has. Not everyone on this thread feels comfortable reading and interpretating scientific documents and as such it has been dragged well off topic.

peter kern

longshank wrote: »

i'm not saying anything other than marathon running is getting faster...in fact what you are saying backs up my point that genetics is the main element and performance is just the icing on the cake.

so than you are saying white people have less talent now ? as the european marathon record is 9 yeas old....
and then you cant realy explain why the africans did not set world recods 30 years ago if you say its all about genetics.

longshank

peter kern wrote: »

so than you are saying white people have less talent now ? as the european marathon record is 9 yeas old....
and then you cant realy explain why the africans did not set world recods 30 years ago if you say its all about genetics.

sociology and genetics!!.....and I didn't say ALL genetics!.... and as previously discussed any records set in last 20/30 years should probably discarded if analysing human performances anyway:(

longshank

tunney wrote: »

Yes it has. Not everyone on this thread feels comfortable reading and interpretating scientific documents and as such it has been dragged well off topic.

of course only your interpretation is the right one ..

Zuppy

peter kern wrote: »

so you are saying quantity over quality. I think this is an issue though I have way less experience in this than you but I think in coaching it is a serious issue so i cant really see how it can not be an issue in coaching coaches.
for me high quality is the way not any kind of standart to be maintained as you say the standard is not high enough it seems a bit odd you want to maintain it.
the talk Triathlon Ireland organized a few years ago in ucd was class
top level speakers. I would prefer having a few of those and have many people listen of the day I think coaching is like everything something you never stop to learn. and most I learn from communicating with other coaches and talking to athletes etc

I am not saying that a large number of badly trained coaches is the way to go. :-)
I do believe that your method of high quality coaches with proper continuing education is the gold standard but unfortunately reality and NGB's mean that any sport needs numbers out on the track or poolside etc.

So what's the answer? How about a number of really good coaches spread out across the country helping develop coaching and organising further training and bringing the sports science to all the coaches for use with all the athletes? A sort of high performance development unit. (not just a unit named as such but doing the actual job). Athletics seems to have it with the RDO's and coaching structure and workshops. not ideal but getting there.

As for gadgets and reviewing the science. Well of course the gadgets will win out as the marketing is much slicker and reading the science is hard and sometimes contradictory. It is definitely easier for me to buy a gadget than read a paper. :-)

peter kern

for this would you not need to have a few really good coaches and in triathlon we only have 1 very good coach and he dosnt life in Ireland.
So first you need to built up a few till then you need to maybe bring external ones in.
very much what the Uk did. and they also brought in australian athletes . something so resented in ireland as people think very small.

Coming back to science and going to the brownlees, dosnt the tree go like this? sutton working with smith in australia , smith becomes nat coach in scotland , assitant is coach jack maitland, jack maitland coach of brownlees....
on the other hand Loughbourough the science capital of the uk has lost quite a bit of influence in triathlon in the last few years .
In fact I dodnt think any of the uk tri olympians trains in Loughborough.( not quite sure were lucy hall trains) ps I checked she trains in loughborugh but still the best dont train there anymore.

couerdelion

In the UK the National training centre is in Loughborough. there are 3 satellites in Leeds, Stirling and Brighton so the whole country is more or less covered.

With the Brownlees being from Leeds I guess there was only one place they were going to train.

Stuart Hayes, Vicky Holland and Lucy Hall are all Loughborough or ex Loughborough.

Helen Jenkins I aren't sure about.

peter kern

jenkins in wales with her husband
holland long time with smith
hays with Dillon.

couerdelion

peter kern wrote: »

jenkins in wales with her husband
holland long time with smith
hays with Dillon.

Holland was at Loughborough though before she went her own way.
Same with Hayes.

I don't know if the British system is designed just to identify and then take them to the next level or is meant to be a support and coaching system for their career. The Brownlees seem happy to stick with Maitland, but if they weren't winning would they have been looking for a different coach.

Are coaches the new garmins/power meters in that people expect a coach to perform miracles but there is only a certain level that a person can erach if they don't have the talent or the correct work ethic?

peter kern

and when she made her own way she improved like when clark made his own way.
anyway i am not making an argument against sport science here what i am saying is that the capital of science dosnt seem to do a better job and many have people left. People leaving is never the best sign.

Haug who left the German Loughborough would be another one to note.

Naturally we would find many cases that would be the other way round but it just shows different folks different strokes.

peter kern

btw having said this what the Uk does is outstanding work

Zuppy

But are they leaving because they have plateau'ed or because it is time to go with something different? A kind of global overload system. You just need to change it up.

pgibbo

I'm finishing Iron War at the moment and found it interesting to read that Dave Scott still has the 2nd fastest marathon time for Kona. Apparently his attitude was train hard, often and long. Little to no easy sessions and no gadgets.

peter kern

Zuppy wrote: »

But are they leaving because they have plateau'ed or because it is time to go with something different? A kind of global overload system. You just need to change it up.

hard to answer some overtrained it seems some did not ge the best support for THEM maybe, others do .

All i can really say is that the most scientific places do not prevent all athletes to impove more once they leave them.
if you read what holie avil had to say about l borough that might give some indications. and iam speculating again.

haug gave up free coaching free hausing lost all her funding when she left saarbruken ,and is one of the most improved athletes in 2012.
so she would maybe be a prime example that too much science in the wrong environment CAN hold people back

Zuppy

I know a bit late but on the topic of coaches being mentored to develop better coaches.

Apprenticeship and Mentoring Relationships in Strength and Conditioning: The Importance of Physical and Cognitive Skill Development
Magnusen, Marshall J PhD; Petersen, Jeffrey PhD