Science and Understanding
VO2max, LT, Critical Velocity- They are much more messy than we think.
VO2max Lactate Threshold Maximum Lactate Steady State Critical Velocity/Power What’s the point of the above? You may answer that they explain a physiological phenomenon. VO2max is when oxygen consumption plateaus. Lactate Threshold is a marker where lactate goes from a steady state or slow trickle of increasing lactate to a flood. Critical Velocity is the…
Read MoreWhat British Cycling Actually Teaches Us about Performance and Innovation
Team A: Renowned for its level of detail. They tested everything. What massage gel to use, what warm-up outfit, the type of mattress and pillow the athlete slept on. They obsessed over the minutia. Team B: Their head coach said he never read a book in his life. The team doctor took shoddy notes, losing…
Read MoreThe Cool Down: What’s the point?
After grinding through those gut-wrenching 400-meter repeats or exhausting yourself in your most recent 10k race, there’s always that one thing left that we have to do before the workout is actually done: the cool down. Traditionally, we’ve looked at the cool down as a way to keep blood flow going after the workout…
Read MoreStress and Adaptation: Everything You Need to Know
If you like my work, consider checking out my NEW book, The Passion Paradox! It just came out and is on sale for $13. I’d greatly appreciate it! The (Scientific) Origins of Stress Stress. Even the work itself evokes feelings, perhaps even emotion. Thoughts, mostly negative, enter our minds about how stress impacts our…
Read MoreThe Origins of Stress- Understanding our bodies response
In 1915, a young Harvard Physiologist named Walter Cannon described “the necessities of fighting or flight” in his now classic book, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage[i]. With the turn of a phrase, Cannon began the process of ingraining the now famous “fight or flight” instinct into our consciousness. As often occurs with…
Read MoreA Different Way to Look at Fatigue: An Ecological Psychology Framework
Introduction: Understanding how fatigue impacts performance during middle distance running events has traditionally been seen through a mechanistic lens (Coyle, 1994). Dating back to work by AV Hill, scientists have looked at performance being limited via catastrophic failure at the muscular level (Noakes, 2012). Previously, researchers (Tucker & Noakes, 2009) focused on tasks to failure…
Read MoreIs Coaching a Science or an Art?
“This workout is going to make a difference. Start with 100 meters, lengthen out the rep distance by 10 meters, increase the speed by…” was in full workout mode. A master of his craft, a man who was always pushing to learn more, Joe Vigil is the epitome of a lifelong coach. I’d heard the…
Read MoreShould We Predict Development and Performance?
Should we predict development? “Did you know the average age of medalist is 26 in running events, but in the throwing events it’s much older?” That’s how the conversation started, before progressing towards how we needed to center our development and funding models on this data. The underlying message was a simple one, we can…
Read MoreThe Battle Between Sport Science, Analytics, and Intuitive Coaching
With the rise of sports science and analytics, there’s a tendency to hold these fields as bearers of absolute truth. If the science or data proclaim a fact, then who are we to question it? The notion that you need statistical significance or a double blind placebo controlled study to find the actual truth is…
Read MoreWhy Rabbiting works- It’s not all about drafting.
“Turn your brain off and go for a ride.” Every coach has that go to phrase that they repeat in the moments before the athlete heads to the line awaiting the start of the race. It might be a reminder to de-stress (“relax”) or perhaps a confidence booster (“Remember all the work you’ve put in”)…
Read More