Yes, but at least long recoveries always had logical reasoning behind it (more quality). While some chinese medicine stuff is useful (some might be a bit generous, but i don’t want to condemn it all from a few crackpots), most of the people who write about it are the people who have a few screws loose. I have done jumping jacks in both ways (one of my earlier instructors liked a lot of variety in warmups) and i did not notice anything.
It’s actually not creepy 
, it makes logical sense if you read the book. I strongly recommend the book to anyone who has ever been interested in eastern understandings. The book is very straight forward with a ton of studies to back it up (mostly, some parts are creepy though I admit). Donna does a great job of taking the mystery out of it all and explains chakras, meridians, energy health, etc. She actually recommends energy testing each and every exercise you do (if you want) and see which exercises work with your energy flow system and which ones work against you. It is really quite useful.
And how does one measure “energy”???
TNT
That is my beef with a lot of that stuff, there is no attempt to connect any of these concepts with physical characteristics at all nor is there any nonsubjective way to characterise it.
With all of the Chinese mystics why are no chinese sprinters going 9.4s?
Simple…not enough energy.
TNT
Too many jumping jacks? or Did they fail to use the pose method of running? Maybe not enough strength shoes manufactured? Nope, got to be low on gakic!
To say Thomas Kurz is full of shit (or something like that) you better have good reason.
The Science Of Sports Training falls in my “must have” category.
Has anyone been dissatified with this book?
I think this might be another case of someone commenting without first reading the book.
Wow, a lot of people taking swings at stuff they don’t understand, or have ever tried for themselves.
Western Medicine rules all, 5000 years of real world work be damned.
Acupuncture apparently you suck too.
Why is it that unless something can be seen, touched or measured, it is automatically stupid, made-up and worthless.
Gee, I’m glad no one is close-minded on this subject 
.
Which sprinters have come from those 5000 years of real world work? Clemson seems to be talking about sprint performance here, as are most in this thread. If there have been people who follow these secret Chinese techniques, who are they? I don’t think anyone here is to tear things down, but sometimes common sense MUST be used for discussion to take place.
Mine was not a comment on sprinting but on a constant need for validation by science. Studies are almost always done on things that everyone has been doing for a long time. People use studies to validate if something is actually useful or not. Accupunture has been around forever and modern science dogged it for a long time, saying ‘there is no proof.’ Then they did studies and found ‘wow, this stuff actually worked’ and now it can make the Today Show and The Early Show and doctors can talk about how these studies prove it is useful. I simply don’t see the need to validate and prove everything to make us feel better about it. If we feel it works and or it does work for us, why must everything be proven. Just to varify what we already know?
The reason for the “constant validation of science” is that science by definition cannot accept anything as true. Logically it is impossible to prove something true, it is only possible to prove something false. To believe in the validity of a piece of information for no other reason than it is an old idea, is not only illogical, but irresponsible as a researcher and a contributor to human knowledge.
On the subject of accupunture, what about it worked? From the laundry list of “supposed benefits”, less than a handfull remains.
I have done Grad Work in Stats, I am aware of what research is about, but I still feel that most of it is redundant. Look at an NSCA research journal. A lot of those studies are on things that we have known about for a long time, science is just now catching up to tell us “why they believe it is so”. I wouldn’t base your training off of it, and I don’t believe to many actually do.
Example: The Oregon Training System uses the hard, easy approach (close to Charlies high, low). They have used this approach since at least the 30’s, but it was in the 90’s when some scientist decided to test it’s validity by doing daily blood work, and “wow, it actually works”. Am I to be impressed by science for cracking this code? I’m almost positive that Oregon could care less about this or any other study on there system because, through years of fine tuning it, they already know it works.
What I’m saying is, if you wait for science to validate everything that you do (in the future or even now), you will be waiting forever. And odds are, not much will even change in your training other than knowing that we can sleep easier because science says it ok with them.
To continue on this topic a little, I feel like if we just followed our instincts we’d be ok most of the time. Instead we (including me) get blinded and frozen like a dear in headlights because we don’t want to go against research. I am now trying to go back to simply following my and my athletes insticts.
It doesn’t take science (nor should it) to tell me that lifting heavy before my soccer players run is a bad idea. They hate doing it because it makes their legs feel like crap and their times agree. Same with my basketball guys. They refuse to shoot around after an upper body lift because it “changes their shot”.
Now I’m sure there are tons of studies on organizing training qualities along with tons of great information (N. Ozolin) but do I really need any of this. If basketball players won’t shoot after lifting that says enough to me that their skill work must go first. (basketball players or the gym rats of all sports and love to play ALL THE TIME). I know there is a lot of data on this topic, mostly all supporting what I’m saying, but I’m simply trying to illustrate the point that even if this (good) data wasn’t available to use as coaches, we should easily be about to figure it out in a matter of days. It seems that common sense and intuition can take can of a large majority of our training questions.
Its a good book to the point and easy to understand especially the section on regeneration
I’m sorry that I have not had an opportunity to read the book yet, but I would be interested in how this energy is measured. Just a breif explanation or description would suffice.
TNT
Of Course, the following is a very small section of the book called MEASURING SUBTLE ENERGIES.
In recent years scientists have introduced the term subtle energy to describe previously undetected though apparently intelligent forces in the environment and in the body. 11
Believed to exist outside the electromagnetic spectrum, subtle energies operate within a domain that has until recently eluded even the most sensitive scientific instruments. Now, however, there are devices that are sensitive at least to the denser electromagnetic counterpart of subtle energies. electrodes attached to the hands and feet, for instance, can provide a complete assessent of the energy flowing through each meridian and the corresponding internal organs it feeds. 12 Changes measured in the ion flow or light emmissions emanating from the charkas and meridians correspond with the energetic shifts that follow meditation, acupuncture, qu gong, and other energy healing treatments. 13
Continued…
Thought also emits a subtle energy. William Tiller and his colleagues at Stanford University built a gas discharge generator that registers electron activity, and they have found that with mental focus alone, people can increase the electron activity within the generator. 15 Independent studies originating in the School of Engineering at Princeton University also suggest that thoughts affect subtle energies. Not only could certain individuals use their inds to influence instruments that generate numbers on a rando basis but also the presence of organized groups imposed a degree of order n the output of fandom number generators. At ten seperate gatherins, ranging from business meetings to scientific conferences to religious events, the effect was strongest during periods when the group’s attention was focused, when the goup’s cohesion was high, or when the group’s members were sharing a common emotional experience. 16
Kaczmarski,
Have you read Energy Medicine in Therapeutics & Human Performance by James Oschman? This book was discussed by a few individuals up in Chicago earlier this year at the Yessis/Yuri conference. I ended up purchasing it, and the some of the topics discussed are on the same lines you are mentioning. Some of the topics are very fascinating and definitely warrant further investigation to potentially further positive performance enhancements.
I have not, but if you feel that it’s interesting and worth reading, I’m sure I will get it and read it this year. Thanks.