After some time I went to see one proffesor at faculty. He is one of the most “scientificall” and methodological proffesors, and also one of the only scientifically published proffesors.
After some chit/chat he asked me: “Mladen, are you still interested in science?”.
I didn’t know what to answer… and I said “I don’t know. I am more for practice at this moment”!
Then we discussed some of mine issuess for one seminar paper regarding RSA testing…
I talked about scientifical research being contradictory regarding the influnce of aerobic/anaerobic system in HIIE/RSA. Then my proffesor told me: “Mladen, you allways pick sides? Why are you doing it?”
Then it crossed my mind!!! Coaches must pick sides and scientist don’t! . Scientist may allow for contradiction and quote different research and result, but coach must PICK ONE he believes in. How can coach go to players and say: “Well, research is contradictory, XXX says this and YYY says that, so I don’t know what to do…”??? Yes, there is a lot of ways to skin a cat, but you must pick one… Scientist don’t have to!
Exactly. Science is about understanding (even when a method is non-optimal or non-useful) and it is a logical fault to pick sides. The coach has to pick the optimal solution based on the situation often without all of the information present. An apt analogy revolves around the differences between those who use math and those who study math. Most mathmaticians could not care less how useful some method is for solving a problem. They care about why it solves the problem (or why another method doesn’t solve the problem).
Excellent post and good analogy. Science is about data and facts which although a factor in coaching is only a part. Noone trains in a lab and intuition and senses play a big part. CF has related many times about science confirming what coaches already knew.
A funny aside…we have a small bit to do with researchers at work and 2 of the people had a meeting with one the other day. He was someone we have been at odds with at times over delivery (he insists we should have a control group and we just want to make a difference to as amny people as possible),anyway…I said to one of them
I heard your meeting with Professor X went well
his response was
Yes I just sat there the whole time and said nothing letting Y do all the talking. At the end when Professor X asked why I told him I was the control group :eek:
Wow. That is priceless. That really is the problem with good stastistics and exercise science, you have to put some subjects in a sub-optimal state in order to have good results. I am really happy that i am not in that research area (my field is not exercise related) as it would be difficult to purposely make someone train sub-optimally.
Its pretty simple. Scientists are looking for statistically signficant results. But in a 100m final there is NO statistically significant difference between any of the athletes there. So where does that leave sports scientists?
There are stastically significant differences, the problem is that it is hard to make those observations (good sensors etc.) and connect them to 100m performance. The other issue is that in order to test stastical validity, you need a control group. Who is going to risk a world class runner on a control group? Probably the most optimal solution (for both coaches and sport sci people) is to find a way to “sensor” the heck out of world class (and other) athletes in a way that doesn’t hinder performance. If you can track a heck of a lot of markers from a large number of athletes from the beginning of their career to world class status, there could be a lot to be learned. Although, i admit that the practicallity of this solution is rather low and i have a bias towards data mining and processing. Sensors of all types are getting smaller and cheaper each year though…
Coaches allow for contradiction also and scientists usually do “pick sides” - everyone has personal biases etc. Some scientists i have met can be just as bad as coaches of “picking sides” - researching one specific area…
Any good coach / scientist should look at the pros and cons of each method and then conclude. “pick a side”?
I agree with your general approach and as you said its just a matter of sensitivity. As for the statistically significant difference thing, I am lucky enough to talk to a few of the worlds top sports nutrition researchers occasionally and every time they tell me there is no point using certain supplementation because they don’t make a statistical significance in the lab. Well thats all very well but quiote often i only want an extra 0.001s and with a few million dollars on the line in an olympic final I’m not looking for a even a 1% improvement. Still they assure me there is no need for anything except carbs, caffine and creatine and perhaps protein pre workout!
Some MDs and research scientists are now arguing against the emphasis on “statistically significant” and instead emphasizing whether something has results that are “clinically significant”. If you have a drug that extends a cancer patient’s miserable last days in almost everyone by a few weeks, that result can be called statistically significant. But is it helpful to the patient really? OTOH, you may test a treatment where there may only be a small change in a few people, so that may be dismissed as not statistically significant. But what if you are one of the ones who need that little bit of difference?
OK you have managed to put my thoughts into words much better than I have with this example. As a researcher myself I dispare of the system that demotes things because of such problems. While I havn’t read up on what you are saying I think it sounds like someone is starting to get the right idea - especially when it comes to trails involving humans. Traditional scientific ideas of epistemology are fine for physics but are lacking in other ways I believe.
Yes, you are probably right Steve (if that is your name )…
According to my (current) viewpoint: a “real” scientist should not pick sides, should give more questions than answers…Coaches should provide answers, practical ones, and by doing this they “pick sides”…
Anyway, this is highly debatable (I am sure you can argue with this above), so I am saying that both scientists and coaches must question their beliefes, ask crittical questions and get good answers. Both can pick sides, and both can have unresolved issuess, but coaches must do something-to coach! I think that every coach have some unresolved issues, how he adress this in his coaching is something that I would love to know… Scientist can wait or design a reasearch, but coach must work… must provide results! I don’t think that using a “shotgun” approach is the answers etc…
For example, I have a “confilct”, wheather or not a bball players should do tactical metabolic conditioning (simmulating work/rest), repeated 300yards, or only tempo and practices and when??? I can’t wait with my hands crossed for some research to solve this for me… I must go to the kids and do something! By doing something I actually “picked a side” (don’t you think)!
Exactly. This is exactly the problem of stastics education. Most researchers do not use it properly (whether this is purposeful or not is up for grabs). The problem is that without good stastistics, the results can be poisoned by the experimental design (especially when the exact mechanism of the study is not well known).
In the end, stastics should be used to disprove results (due to experimental design issues) rather than support them. A stats prof once told me that the point of stats was to ruin the dreams of the experimenter, if it does anything else, it is probably used improperly.
Right. The researcher’s proper place is in the position of assuming nothing. It is ok for the athlete if supplement X is helping .00001% and 99.9999% placebo, but it isn’t good for scientific understanding.
What other methods are there though? If the design of the experiment only allows for a certain sensitivity, then one shouldn’t be able to make conclusions based on anything greater. Now this put human trials researchers in a bind, but the is little other choice. Besides, most of the stastical attacks against most studies could have been addressed and avoided during the planning phase of the experiment.
Guys,
Can you suggest me a good, digestable and usefull statistical book?
What about…
Research methods in kinesiology — Human Kinetics
Measurement and evaluation in human movement — Human Kinetics
Statisics in Kinesiology — Human Kinetics
I haven’t read any of those, so i can’t comment. I personally like Montgomery, Design and Analysis of Experiments. It is fairly good at explaining things. The only problem i had with it was that it didn’t cover the bootstrap (which might not be as useful for you). You should be able to find it at any university library. I would lean more towards general statistics books rather than a field specific book. Often the field specific books have a bad case of tunnel vision. Probably the best option is to talk to an actual statistician to find out what branch of stastics to concentrate on.
For anyone interested, a bit of a debate at trackandfieldnews.com current events forum. Bolt vs. Spearmon thread.
Guy on there disputing various coaching directives and training from his scientist’s view on things. Know it all scientist who knows nothing about coaching but is willing to tell why coaches and athletes have it wrong. He said he is very disappointed in the quality of coaching. His experience with track seems to be watching meets and plugging in equations to determine what performances are actually worth with regards to wind, etc. Laughable.
Had a quick read and saw that someone quoted hmi as saying he makes 250,000 peanuts a year.
If we consider that the average bag of honey roasted peanuts from http://www.fredlyn.com/product.asp?ProductID=6936 is $2.95 with a weight of 1lb, and an average peanut seed weight of 0.0011lbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut) that means that there is approx. 909.99 or 910 peanuts per bag. 250,000/910 = 274 * 2.95 gives an again approx income of $810.43 US per year which by norm is extremely eligble for welfare.
Seems like if coaches that don’t make that much are not to be trusted, neither are scientists that are on welfare. Sounds like he was very sucessful in his life!
Sensors of all types are getting smaller and cheaper each year though…