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Training theories // Posts categorised as Training theories
Sports science, marginal gains and common sense
Bradley Wiggins called marginal gains "a load of rubbish" recently, and while his thoughts were poorly crafted and tainted by the context, it triggered an impassioned defence of the philosophy by Matthew Syed. I've always thought the concept trivialized sports science, and was arrogantly dismissive of the realities that there's really nothing unique about it. As a source of competitive advantage in elite sport, it cannot stand. More on that in this piece.
Talent ID & Management Part 5: Early vs Late Specialisation?
This episode of the Talent ID and management series looks at another very controversial question - should children and young athletes specialise in one sport, or should they play as many as possible? I look at how the 10,000 hour dogma drives a negative behaviour and the research which shows that optimal performance actually requires... read the post to find out!
Long-term athlete development
LTAD is a buzzword in High Performance sports systems. Conceptually and practically, it has some important challenges, discussed here
Marathon Speed Chapter II
So looking at how the track events, and in particular, the ‘golden era’ for track running of the mid-1990′s because the catalyst that has reshaped your typical marathon runner-profile. In that period between 1993 and 1998, the world record over 10000m was broken 9 times, bringing the best time down by 45 seconds! It was […]
How to feed a cyclist
Roll on more tour posts! Following the pre-Stage 15 prediction, we will keep the posts coming as thick and fast as the attacks we have seen in Le Tour the past couple of days. In this short post we will get into what it takes to fuel a cyclist through a stage race like Le […]
Altitude training – the basics
So I really struggle to come up with a decent post for today, felt like doing something on cycling again, now that Jorg Jaksche has admitted to doping and suggested it is pervasive in the peloton. For some classic quotes, have a look at this article. The most telling this is the reaction of the […]
So you want to run a fast marathon?
As the marathon record creeps slowly to Ross’s predicted 2:02, it is interesting to think about where the next world record might be run. Nearly every city and town seems to host its own race these days, and as a result there are hundreds of races each year. But where exactly are the “fastest” courses? […]
Training programmes – the key principle of overload
Are you in a situation where you have been training dilligently for a while now, but have stopped seeing results? Perhaps you are new to this training thing and you haven’t really got much idea of how to go about constructing your training programme? Or you find that as soon as you try to do […]