Science and Understanding
Monitoring Training Stress loads- A look at workload data before a 29:04 10k
A few weeks ago, one of my collegiate athletes, Brian Barraza, made his 10k debut on the track. He finished 12th in the fast heat, 4th amongst the collegians at the Stanford Invite in breaking our school record (a record that was 56 years old and held by Olympic medalist Al Lawrence). His instructions were…
Read MoreSciencyness- The problem with using science to justify what you’re doing…
The heavy breathing, as I found my seat on the plane, must have seemed like an appropriate invitation to start a conversation, as the man sitting behind me quipped “Did you run the marathon today?” It was an appropriate question, given that I was on my way back from the race, although the breathing was…
Read MoreScience vs. Art of coaching- What actually is Science?
While reading the Carl Sagan book The Demon Haunted World, which is a classic about science, pseudoscience, and technology, I came across a section in which Sagan essentially discusses how science develops and what it actually is. His argument is that it’s really a method of seeing the world. Science isn’t the rote memorization and…
Read MoreThe Sub 2hr marathon- Why Coaches and Scientists don’t understand each other.
This past week at UH I had the pleasure of sitting in on a talk by Dr. Ed Coyle on ‘how fast could we run a marathon.’ Coyle is a well-established researcher, but he’s most well known for his infamous research on Lance Armstrong that showed improved efficiency over his career. Coyle still maintains the…
Read MoreA brief rant against VO2max and vVo2max
Excuse me while I go on a brief seemingly anti-science rant. Which might be a bit surprising given the name of this blog and my background, but since the topic is VO2max, it might be expected. You see, I have a long history with VO2max, as evidenced by this article here. It’s not that I…
Read MoreTracking collegiate runners- sleep, stress, soreness, recovery and performance
I have a reputation, perhaps deservingly so, a scientific coach. The irony is that while I use principles and blend knowledge and science into my coaching practices, it’s not like we’re sitting here measuring VO2max, or even caring about it honestly. As a person, I love crunching the numbers and the data that comes with…
Read MoreResearch Review- ACSM 2014
Every year I try to make it a point to go through all of the ACSM abstracts to see if anything stands out. If you can’t actually get to the conference, it’s a great way to at least get a glimpse of the latest research people are doing well before it ever comes out in…
Read MoreStaying in an Altitude Tent after workouts- What are the consequences?
A large part of my training philosophy lies in the simple realm of stimulus and adaptation. My mind has returned to these ideas for the past year as I’ve tried to flesh out these ideas. In writing my book, I had to really work to try and turn the ideas in my head into something…
Read MoreInflammation- To stop or not to stop? What the current research says.
One of the recent themes of this blog has been rethinking the concept of damage being a bad thing. The traditional view has been that we need to avoid damage, whether it is muscle, tendon, or some biochemical change at the microscopic level. Recently, the paradigm has started to shift towards looking at damage not…
Read MorePresentations: Training and How to Apply Science to Coaching
Over the past week, I had the privilege to speak at two different clinics/conferences that both presented unique challenges. I told everyone I would put my powerpoints online, and I hope that you guys who read the blog can get something good out of them too. The first clinic I had a chance to speak…
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