In the last few weeks, I’ve read several books and articles by Hans Selye which have helped to clarify my thoughts on stressors and organism responses as it relates to training. I encourage all of you to re-read (or read for the first time) his materials. I am of the mind (although heavily influenced by my time with Charlie) that general stressors are just as important - if not more so - than specific stressors, particularly as you begin dealing with high level athletes.
It (acceptance of the impact of general stressors) has also heavily influenced my approach to recovery and regeneration and how I cycle through various methods for different athletes. A non-specific approach to injuries and regeneration seems to work much better based on my experience. This may seem counter-intuitive, but now it makes perfect sense to me.
The fundamental prerequisite is that the training is structured based upon the biodynamic and bioenergetic structure of the sport discipline. By analogy, these are the organism requirements as they have been spoken of in this thread.
Increase the requisite outputs as they relate to that sport structure while carefully regulating the training load; managing it against the energetic draw of sport practices and recovery needs.
The sport structure/organism requirements must come first, then the athlete/human and their peculiarities and needs.
Weighing the athletes skill and ability set will alert you as to how well selected they are for the sport they compete in.
Optimal training cannot, in my view, be accomplished working outside of these guidelines.
Athletes who require an overt physical preparatory workload conducted outside of sport practice itself, just to compete on a less than top level, are excellent examples of poor talent identification/selection.
Alternatively, those who require lesser physical preparatory workloads outside of sport practice, in order to compete at the top levels, are, by definition, more wisely selected for that discipline.
To some degree, absolutely. I spend a lot of time doing HRV monitoring with myself and different athletes to to measure sympathetic-parasympathetic nervous system balance. Regardless of how measured and careful the prescribed workloads for training, I must look at the contribution of all stressors to determine if I am getting a positive adaptation with my athlete (or myself), as opposed to simply creating fatigue. In most cases, I am unloading (or opening up recovery time) on the “training side” and managing on the “day to day” side. In other cases I will purposely pick “low intensity” work to keep a holding pattern and perhaps use it as an active regeneration session (i.e. Live to fight another day). When in doubt, I will pick a simple activity that will give me a general response, as opposed to a specific activity that gives me no adaptive response (if that makes any sense).
I no longer get into debates over “front-squats vs back squats” or “bench press vs push press” or “hill running vs sled dragging”. It drives my interns nuts because that is the kind of stuff they read on the internet. I don’t believe my approach gives them clarity.
I read “The stress of my life” (along with scholar work) and for sure it was an interesting read. Salye was a interesting character and his time-managing skills were original to say the least. Anyway, the third part of his “stress chain” (exhaustion) is no longer considered valid (Sapolsky’s book and general research on stress), the general response of course yes.
Pakewi,
what is the definition of system efficiency? I bet at this point is your definition, as the term has non been used (at least not widely) in athletic settings. Do you have any quantifier?
I looked at your previous posts and I also participated to some of the discussion. Pretty interesting, but for a real communication we must take distance from some jargon, which is not useful. If you are interested in some communication, of course. I always remember what Feynman said: if you are not able to explaing it to a freshman, your comprehension of the problem is not good enough. And, you know, Feynman was tackling some difficult problems.
James,
it seems you are the opposite end of of the spectrum (relative to Pakewi).
You talk about athlete’s selection, which is more important if we talk outside team sports. If you have the opportunity of watching Barcelona (soccer), you will immediately notice how your opinions about selections are biased toward single sports. That kind of sport-specific quality is not clear up to your late teenage years.
You say "The sport structure/organism requirements must come first, then the athlete/human and their peculiarities and needs. ". What is the difference between organism and human? I suspect you are talking about the same thing and so your subdivision is forced.
I’ll try,but I am no Feynman…
A system in which the higher the input,the higher the output,and the lower the costs in a simple cost/benefit analysis.
Would freshman get an idea?
James’ description of the individual response based,feedback structure domain as applied to sports training is as correct as it can be.
Hope this helps answering your previous questions as well.
Forced subdivision or not,humans are humans,and their organisms are engineered in the very same way for (before than by) survival and hopefully evolution.
If you can find a football player whose hamstrings origin behind the ear,then I have to go back and start over,and I am always willing to venture in the unknown.
I can only tell you about individuals I ran into in my life so far. None of them displayed that,and to me they looked all human…
Not very much. I mean, if you say that human is first and he says that sport (requirements) is first, it doesn’t seem to me that you are on the same page, but maybe I’m wrong.
Feynman was the medium, not the message, which I’m sure is common knowledge.
I understand what you are saying, but we still lack a quantifier (in the discussione, of course, you have evidently pretty clear ideas). Higher the input, higher the output, but in what terms? How you quantifiy costs and benefits? Considering also that the result, that is the output, is on a different temporal scale than the input, and in this sense it would be a feed-forward mechanism (ignoring more immediate feedbacks).
I just bought an HRV monitor and I am eager to experiment with it.
I have a few questions:
“I must look at the contribution of all stressors to determine if I am getting a positive adaptation with my athlete (or myself), as opposed to simply creating fatigue”.
Sure, no system is an island in an animal species and so stress responses are general (Salye etc.). Do you find periods of overreaching useful (accumulating fatigue)? For sure it depends on the discipline (I remember a study made on Navy Seals years ago, but for sure we are far from strength- and power-oriented sports).
“When in doubt, I will pick a (1) simple activity that will give me a general response, as opposed to a (2) specific activity that gives me no adaptive response (if that makes any sense)”.
Can you give an example of (1) and (2)? It would be clearer.
I think it’s important to consider adaptations as multi-dimensional.
"I no longer get into debates over “front-squats vs back squats” or “bench press vs push press” or “hill running vs sled dragging”.
Do you do that more for advanced athletes?
Are you not throwing away the baby? Given the general the response, there is also a local response which is probably underestimated in the approach above. If you keep it limited to the general strength tasks, I agree, but do you still enter in debates concerning 10m vs 30m or acceleration vs max V?
When I distinguish between organism and human I am referring to the difference between the biological systems and morpho-biomechanical structure that are, fundamentally (in terms of the common principles associated with how the systems and structures function) , shared between all athletes and the actual peculiarities which differentiates each individual.
Perhaps I should have used the terms organism and athlete X
So I plan training by considering the biodynamic/bioenergetic structure of sport- then weigh these variables against what I know about the organism and how it operates- THEN individualize the program for the needs of the actual individual athletes who, hopefully, have been properly selected.
Preface, knowing implies certainty while belief implies hope.
That said, I know that optimal training preparation requires that when we sit down to program and organize the training for our athletes we must begin by conceptualizing the biodynamic and bioenergetic structure of the sport/discipline in which they compete.
From this, we acknowledge the true taxonomy of the sport requirements and from this we are able to ascertain just how well selected the athletes are for these requirements.
As you pointed out Svincenz, I am speaking from a higher performance level as I am a staunch advocate of competitive sport being comprised only of athletes who are predisposed to accel at them.
One of the many principles I adopted from the Soviets is that competition shouldn’t even take place until the participants are able to truly compete at a level high enough to challenge other individuals and teams of a national/international, collegiate, professional, Olympic, level. Granted, this is my opinion only; and my opinion renders me in an extreme minority in my country.
Having said that, it is easy to surmise that my feelings on physical preparation for youths MUST be void of concern for various sport demands until it is clear from a morpho-biomechanical standpoint that the young athlete is predisposed for high results in certain sports only. Meaning, the field must be narrowed before specialized training occurs.
As we know, due to the biodynamic and bioenergetic requirements of various sports, the age of specialization varies.
In the US, I see the gross mistakes that are made in the technical-tactical sport training.
Thus, it is necessary that I assume some of this vital responsibility as a physical preparation coach and has thus required that I broaden my skill set beyond the mundane tasks of the bigger, stronger, faster status quo in my industry.
To do this, my efforts must extend beyond general preparation only, and include specialized training.
It then follows that this is only possible if I am qualified to dissect the biodynamic and bioenergetic structure of the sport- something which, surprisingly, many western technical-tactical and S&C coaches are unable to accomplish with high accuracy; rendering a certain percentage of both sport practice and physical preparation unwisely used.
James, thanks for the thoughtful reply.
I understand now what you mean when you talk of organism and human and I agree with you.
I have different ideas and views on talent selection and identification, which I will briefly discuss as I think that the other part of the thread (minimun common denominator) is less to opinions and more to “facts”.
First, you say “I am speaking from a higher performance level as I am a staunch advocate of competitive sport being comprised only of athletes who are predisposed to accel at them”. Isn’t it what happens normally without forcing the issues? I mean, at higher performance level, only the best (predisposed) athletes are performing. But let’s say, for the 100m, you fix 10 seconds at maximum limit for whatever reason (huge gap from the WR, 0.42 secs). But how many people in this category? 5-10? So, at the world level, we will have from 5 to 10 people competing and that’s it? I think it is a logical consequence of your view. If you, on the other hand, are referring to (state) sponsorship (as in Italy still happens for the best athletes), your view could be supported by the need of best investing limited resources.
You say:
“One of the many principles I adopted from the Soviets is that competition shouldn’t even take place until the participants are able to truly compete at a level high enough to challenge other individuals and teams of a national/international, collegiate, professional, Olympic, level. Granted, this is my opinion only; and my opinion renders me in an extreme minority in my country”.
This is what happens in the Spartak tennis club in Moscow (NYT article and book “the talent code”). Doing the same gesture over and over again. Building myelin and reinforcing neural patterns. There is a little problem. In a non-totalitarian society (or moderately wealthy) you would keep repeating the same gesture over and over again not the truly blessed, but the truly bored. What for? For a long and distant and very unlikely medal?
I was bitten by the competitive bug when I was a little child, give me years of only “training” and I will run away as fast as possible and dedicate myself to chess. So, theoretically I agree with what you say, but pratically in a non-totalitarian or moderately wealthy society it wouldn’t work and I cannot say I am disappointed by that.
Finally, I’d like to stress that in a team sport talent identification is very difficult and if I had a cent for every wrong (early) pick of so-called experts I would be a millionaire. There are problems with maturation, acquisition of skills and integration of them in a team setting which make (strong, of course some very non-talented people are easy to identify) talent identification very difficult and maybe not worth pursuing. In particular in team sports, I want to be clear.
I agree with james,this is all great discussion,thank you everybody for precious input.
That said facts over opinions may be an appropriate epistemological tool to navigate nowadays virtual realities.
I’ll be the first to admit that my theoretical sport training mind exists in, not even a totalitarian but more of a, despotism in which I am the despot.
Truth in jest
Regarding your statement regarding the difficulty in talent identification/selection for team sports, I respectfully disagree.
As I enter my 8th year working with American football, I can state with complete certainty that the requisite tools for precise talent identification and selection are in fact in existence and usable in the practical setting.
The most valuable markers are constituted by neurophysiological, psychological-emotional, and morpho-biomechanical evaluations.
I am fortunate to have a close associate in Bulgaria (a soon to be professor at the NSA in Sofia) who has, over the years, shared with me various research only being pursued in Russia; specifically pertaining to morpho-biomechanics.
In addition, I was privileged to have been put in contact with a graphologist living in the US who demonstrated to me the nearly incomprehensible accuracy in psychological-technical-behavioral profiling that may be attained via hand writing analysis. I speak from experience as she evaluated both me and my wife, not knowing either one of us, based solely upon our handwriting and provided us with profiles more detailed then we could have possibly described each other after having been married, at that time, for 7 years.
It is my knowing that the tools are, in fact, available and that all relevant talent identification variables are measurable/quantifiable.
It’s a matter of asking the proper questions and possessing the requisite diagnostic resources.
The key, as you well noted, is not to make premature diagnostic rulings such that the ‘baby is not thrown out with the bath water’ so to speak.
Probably upon the commonalities of the multiple numerators (training methods) that have brought success on the single denominator (humans), for this would give useful hints sooner. Not a direct way perhaps, but it seems only natural to study this area and see how success can be brought about.
James, what happens if in training we consider and target humans before markers,will those markers maybe change?
Why then to call upon profiling to make up for lack of knowledge and perception of the whole?
I am glad you refer then to diagnostics,as this is exactly the structure medical sciences have been built upon ,either in the easter,and western world as we know it.
Question remains though:isn’t there any better option really?
From my experience, the more advanced athletes require a general stimulus while the less advanced athletes and beginners require more specific stimuli.
In the cases of accel vs. max velocity, I’m looking at the general stimulus of one versus the other in many cases. If you are doing a session where you are trying to run at max velocity (i.e. flying start 30-40m build up into 20m max velocity effort vs. running a straight 60m run at max effort) one is more stressful than the other - and this can be influenced by whether or not you are starting from a stand or out of blocks. For the developmental athlete, I’m looking for very specific adaptations, many of which are related to technique and biomechanical efficiency. There may also be specific strength and power adaptations related to various stages of the acceleration phase. If the athlete is not “strong” enough to hold acceleration posture, this capacity must be developed more specifically.
For an advanced athlete, many of these specific issues should already be in place. Thus, I’m looking for general stresses from the various runs (different distances) to create a positive adaptation. This may take place within a context of training over many weeks and phases.
Thus, if someone approached me with two different 100m runners - one elite and one non-elite - I would be much more interested in the general trends of training and application of stresses for the elite runner (loading and unloading periods over time, distances run and progressions over those distances, times for each distance over the span of the training program). While I would be more concerned with the specific training and biomechanical elements of the non-elite (running technique, posture, exercise selection, lifting technique, field test results, etc).
These assumptions are all based on:
What I have seen across the sample of athletes I have worked with (beginners to world record holders/olympic medallists)
Discussions with Charlie in the midst of working with these various athletes
Of course, some may have a different definition of general vs specific than I do. And, I am only speaking of an “emphasis” in training, as there will always be general and specific adaptations at every level.
I liken advanced coaching to staring at one of those paintings that have the hidden image in them. The more you stare intensely at those images, the harder it is to see the hidden image. The more you step back, take your time and let your eyes relax, the clearer things become. I believe too many people are staring and glaring too intently (looking for quick and easy results), rather than taking in the entire context of what is in front of them, gathering knowledge over time and waiting patiently for the results.