Dear Hunter Allen

Dear Mr Allen,

I would like to thank you for the personal email you sent me. I was very excited when I saw that you sent me the "March Power Tip."

Unfortunately, I have rather bad news for you. There really isn't such a thing as "Anaerobic Capacity repeatability." There is Anaerobic Power and Anaerobic Capacity. What you call "Anaerobic Capacity repeatability" is really... Anaerobic Capacity. What you termed as "endurance at Anaerobic Capacity" is again... Anaerobic Capacity.

Your strategy to build Anaerobic Capacity is of course debatable, since for example, I would take the opposite route. But I admit that I don't have any evidence pointing to the validity of either approach.

Other than this, I really enjoyed reading your email, so thanks again!

Sincerely,

Paulo

I am shocked! (once again...)

"The principle of core stability has gained wide acceptance in training for the prevention of injury and as a treatment modality for rehabilitation of various musculoskeletal conditions in particular of the lower back. There has been surprisingly little criticism of this approach up to date. This article re-examines the original findings and the principles of core stability/spinal stabilisation approaches and how well they fare within the wider knowledge of motor control, prevention of injury and rehabilitation of neuromuscular and musculoskeletal systems following injury."


Lederman, E., "The myth of core stability." J Bodyw Mov Ther. 2010 Jan;14(1):80-3.

http://www.cpdo.net/myth_of_core_stability.doc

Weird looks

I still get weird looks when I tell people that I don't want my athletes to stretch and that I strongly dislike yoga...

http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Abstract/publishahead/Effects_of_Static_Stretching_on_Energy_Cost_and.99440.aspx

Oh no... not again...

Some of you might remember a couple of blogs I wrote in May of 2008 regarding the use of O2 Metabolic Assessment tests and "metabolic efficiency." (if not, go back and read Mythbusters and Chewing the fat).

In this last one, I started out by saying:

"Apparently, the fat utilization myth is alive and well"

Well folks, it seems that almost two years after those blogs, the fat utilization myth is still going strong. More and more "coaches" are getting in the business of acquiring the necessary equipment for this testing and getting in the bandwagon. Of course athletes are getting mislead and some people are making a lot of money under false pretenses, but we all know that the World is not fair and it's "buyer beware" out there.

It is important to remember that using O2 Metabolic Assessment tests to guide your training is a self-fulfilling prophecy. After you do the first test, the usual advice is to train at your “maximum fat burning zone”. Often you also get nutritional advice that in reality increases your % of dietary fat intake. When you repeat the test, you will be hopefully more fit and have a diet with more fat. So the results of the test will show that you’re better at burning fat at absolute intensities. The “obvious” conclusion is that the advice that was given was spot-on and you’re better at burning fat. Coaches using these tests get artificial validation in the eyes of the athletes, that first are impressed by the use of (pseudo-)scientific methods, and later are convinced of the coach's competency by the fulfillment of the initial prophecy.

This subject wouldn't bother me much if it wasn't for the growing trend of having elite athletes involved in this fad. More and more professional athletes are getting in the bandwagon, and "metabolic efficiency" is the latest holy grail in endurance sports. This bothers me because (most) elite athletes have made a commitment to the sport and it pains me to see them being advised by people that either don't know what they're doing, or if they do, they are misleading them on purpose.

Having athletes that are looking to win an Olympic medal or podium in Kona work on their "metabolic efficiency" is simply ludicrous. But champions distinguish themselves from the rest not only because of talent and hard work, but also because they make good decisions. Athletes that show poor judgement by working with incompetent coaches are not good decision-makers, and therefore curtail their chances of ever being champions.

Word of the day: miljø

I got this link from Josef, really good stuff. Here's a quote:

"The thing that blew me away is that it was immediately apparent that he comes from a COMPLETELY different world than we do. He’s right, we aren’t even close. Nowhere near it.
When guys like him talk about training it’s not about getting faster or making some team, it’s about 'winning world cups'."

Nature

As if all the fake research was not bad enough, Nature has now officially jumped the shark with this paper

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7280/full/nature08723.html

Simply sad.

Sports Science at its best

I'm a little late to the party, but I found really good quotes in this paper:

'While arguments can be made that tradition, resistance to change and even superstition may negatively influence training methods of elite endurance athletes, sports history tells us that athletes are experimental and innovative. Observing the training methods of the world's best endurance athletes represent a more valid picture of “best practice” than we can develop from short-term laboratory studies of untrained or moderately trained subjects. In today’s performance environment, where promising athletes have essentially unlimited time to train, all athletes train a lot and are highly motivated to optimize the training process. Training ideas that sound good but don't work in practice will fade away. Given these conditions, we argue that any consistent pattern of training intensity distribution emerging across sport disciplines is likely to be a result of a successful self organization (evolution) towards a “population optimum.” High performance training is an individualized process for sure, but by population optimum, we mean an approach to training organization that results in most athletes staying healthy, making good progress, and performing well in their most important events.'

And I like this one particularly:

'It may be a hard pill to swallow for some exercise physiologists, but athletes and coaches do not need to know much exercise physiology to train effectively. They do have to be sensitive to how training manipulations impact athlete health, daily training tolerance, and performance, and to make effective adjustments.'