Now that this blog seems to be approaching a state of terminal torpor, some general comments related to the original focus of the discussion may be in order.
First, I spent about 10 years of my life between 1981 and 1991 studying lactate metabolism in athletes as a possible predictor of athletic performance. We were also the first to study the effects of training on lactate kinetics in humans (modelled on the elegant studies done early by George Brooks’ team in rats). In the end we concluded that there was only one physiological variable that we could measure in the laboratory and which had any reasonable value as a predictor of athletic ability. It as the peak speed that the athlete reaches during the specific maximal treadmill testing protocol that we adopted. We published this finding in the Journal of Sports Science in about 1990. Subsequently this finding has been confirmed by a number of studies from other laboratories. Later we realized that the best predictor of running performance at any distance (in a specific athlete) is performance at another (shorter) distance so that the best way to tell when an athlete is ready to run his or her best marathon is when the athlete runs his fastest 5 or 10km race (presuming that his or her focus has been on training for the marathon). Laboratory testing did not come close in matching the accuracy of the prediction using this method.
Of course this was most disturbing since it would have been much more advantageous for us (both scientifically and commercially) if we had discovered a laboratory test which was reproducible and which would have allowed the accurate tracking of an athlete’s state of training. But in the end we realized that in the current state of knowledge, there is no such test and it is unlikely that there will ever be a single physiological test (other than running performance) that can predict running performance at a specific distance (and hence an athlete’s current state of fitness).
Given that we do not know which physiological variable it is that determines athletic performance (and which will never be found if the body does indeed act as a complex system as predicted by the Central Governor Model) so it seems unwise to develop training programs that try to adapt a single specific variable (such as the “lactate turnpoint” or the maximal lactate steady state or the VO2max etc). We should perhaps focus simply on having athletes run faster for longer, the approach adopted by Matt Fitzgerald in his new book. I note for example that Olympic medals are not given to athletes because they have the highest VO2max value or the greatest maximal lactate steady state but because they actually run faster for longer.
Second, as a result of testing many levels of runners over many years we concluded that the differences between the very best and the not quite so good cannot be determined by physiological tests that do not reproduce the conditions present in competition. For example, when we looked at the very best distance runners in South Africa we found that the best run faster at the longer distances, not because they had higher VO2max values or different “lactate turnpoints” but because they were able to sustain a higher percentage VO2max for longer than the other runners. But this could have been concluded simply by knowing that these athletes ran faster at the longer distances even thought their mile times were quite similar to the slightly less good athletes. To my knowledge no one has yet produced a laboratory test (other than one measuring running performance at other distances) that can predict the percentage of VO2max that different athletes can sustain over different distances nor what determines these differences (other than body mass – which we showed to be an important factor some years ago, especially when running in the heat).
Next I have personally concluded that the tiny differences in performance between the very best athletes cannot be due to physiology but must be due to something else. Thus in my view, athletes at the very top level make a probably conscious decision that they will either win or lose a particular event and that this has little to do with their physiology at that moment. Rather it is due to other factors that we scientists have yet to understand but which in my view most elite athletes appreciate rather well (if you ask them).
Third whilst reading this blog, it struck me that presenting evidence on a blog is more like presenting evidence in court which is the opposite of the way in which scientific information is presented. Thus the difference between law and science is that in law the only information that can be considered is that which is presented in the court; no other information may be considered. In contrast, in science, anything that has ever been published in the scientific literature is part of the evidence. Furthermore it is presumed that all scientists will have acquainted themselves with that information before they express any opinions. Thus it is really quite difficult for scientists to make their case on a blog since they might assume that those reading the blog are as informed about the scientific literature as are they.
This problem is compounded because blogs provide a fertile, indeed irresistible, arena for those who do not understand this distinction between the approach of the scientist and the lawyer and who have been trained according to the principles taught at the internationally-respected Robert Mugabe School for Advanced Legal Arguing and Debating Skills (RoMSALADS – Harare, Zimbabwe). The special teaching that has proved so effective on this particular blog is the first RoMSALADS dictum: “Believe what I say. Or else you will be beaten up, Moron”.
The point is that if you wish to advance the application of scientific wisdom to the art of coaching then you have to insure that all the evidence is presented. Not just the information that supports a particular coaching dogma.
Fourth, I find it especially quaint that some runners and coaches of the 1950’s and 1960’s are now being held up as the examples of how athletes should train, 60 years later. Is it not possible that the sport has moved on in the past 60 years and that were those coaches to be active today they might not be quite as successful as they once were?
Take for example Arthur Lydiard. I recall that whilst he was extremely successful with a small cadre of New Zealand athletes, he had less successful when he coached in other countries. But more to the point, Lydiard had no interest in the scientific method and from my experience was also not above denigrating the exercise scientists. Certainly he did not coach athletes on the basis of the biological testing of their “lactate thresholds” etc.
Percy Cerrutty may have been a great coach but he also trained one of the greatest milers of all time. Ron Clarke who actually knew Elliott once remarked that his (Clarke’s) grandmother could have coached Elliott and Elliott would have been just as successful.
Sir Roger Bannister had also been discussed but critical information has not been presented. Bannister was the first to break the 4 minute mile for 2 crucial reasons. First he understood the value of pacing. He told me that he wondered why the two great Swedish runners had been able to advance the mile world record so rapidly between 1941 and 1945. He concluded that it was because they had paced each other. But they had failed to break the four minute mile because, at their level of ability, they needed one more pacer to be successful. So Bannister had planned to have 2 pacers for his successful race on May 6th 1954. Next, on May 6th 1954 Bannister had originally not wanted to run the race because he believed that conditions were not favourable (it was cold, wet and windy). But his coach had told him: “Bannister, in good conditions you can run a 3:56 mile. Today you can run 3:59. And if you don’t attempt it, you may regret it for the rest of your life”. In the end Bannister achieved what his coach told him he would achieve (not perhaps what his “lactate turnpoint” or his VO2max told him he could achieve). As a result Bannister (a brain specialist) ultimately wrote that: “It is the brain not the heart or lungs that is the important organ. It is the brain”. Bannister was coached by Franz Stampfl whose experience in being one of few to survive when his ship was torpedoed in cold water during the Second World War apparently taught him the power of the mind. Stamfl had apparently willed himself to survive as he had seen almost all the other passengers succumb to hypothermia (exposure). Thereafter, when he returned to coaching after the war, he concluded that all world running records are “rubbish”. If you had the correct physiology, the real challenge was to believe that you could beat the record. Stampfl's famous statement was that: "The greatest hurdle was the mental barrier". How often do we hear that statement from modern coaches who follow the "laboratory-based, scientific method" of training?
The point is that Stampfl also did not try to coach on the basis of laboratory-based protocols. He worked on his athlete’s minds as also confirmed by Chris Chataway who paced Bannister during the first sub-4 minute mile.
Finally it is said somewhere on the blog that we are taking a “broader view” in our discussions. But I see no evidence for that. Great coaches should not be defined by their ability to produce one or two great athletes; rather they should be rated by their ability to produce many great athletes over many years (the more usual criterion used for example to judge great coaches in the NFL in the USA). By this criterion there are likely to be other more modern coaches with better records than Lydiard or Cerrutty. I suspect that some would be Kenyans or Ethiopians and I wonder why their credentials have not been presented here. Is it because they come from the Dark Continent?
As an African from the Dark Continent with an interest in Kenyan running I am able to confirm that there is not a single exercise testing laboratory in Kenya that is used by the best athletes and the coaches. Thus the best runners in the world do not have access to laboratory testing (at least while they remain in Kenya) so that they are not trained according to some laboratory-based protocols. Could it be that their coaches know that to be the best in the world an athlete needs to run at a certain speed in competition (not at a particular VO2max or blood lactate concentration) and that to achieve that speed he or she needs to be able to produce certain performances in training? Might it not also be possible that an athlete able to run next to a world champion in training might begin to believe that he or she might also be able to run with that champion the next time they are both in competition?
In two previous submissions on this blog I have presented some of the published evidence and logic which supports the theory that exercise performance has to be regulated by the brain and not by changes in the muscles which “limit” exercise performance by causing “peripheral fatigue”.
Here I have argued that the hypothesis is unproven that training according to laboratory-based protocols (which supposedly produce specific adaptations in specific metabolic pathways) will produce better results than will training according to principles that lack such a “scientific” basis.
I remain surprised that few coaches has yet contributed the opinion that the coach is not likely to be successful unless he (or she) also emphasizes the contribution that the athlete’s brain makes to his or her running performance.