Whats this newfangled workout point scoring thing you are talking about? Its not a football game. Periodization is when you go through your paper and make sure you have enough punctuation.

Strictly old school.

Are you trying to bring Paulo out from lurking? ;-)

Old School - JFT maggot!

New School - If it not too much trouble or an inconvenience, could you possibly increase your workload to Z2.5, please?

---

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man

after having been coached by this coach, subjects could teach intro to exercise physiology

Or are so confused and burned out that they welcome the simple approach advocated by an Old School coach!!

Dan,

As for the lists - That's a good start.

No surprise - put me down in the Old School camp :)

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I agree with Last Tri. When I think of "Old School" I think of a trainer telling me to: 1) quick whining; 2) go out there are push your body to the limit every workout; 3) don't worry about those feedback gadgets; and 4) do really long, hard workouts that a New Schooler would think might irresponsibly blow you up.

I don't see where using a web interface to communicate workouts is either old school or new school. The basis/ideas for creating the workouts might be old or new school, but using the web is just a communication device.

OK - I am having a bit of a problem with the way this whole thing is stated. First off , by your list you are mostly defining "old school" by what they don't do, and not what they do. You might as well re-categorize this "luddite" and "geek" the way it is set up.

I am not sure what your intent is here, but I am guessing what you may be trying to do is list the sets of tools that various coaches may use, and then create some sliding scale of technological savvy. Who is to say a "old school" coach doesn't use LT somewhere to get an assesment. There could be some degree of not only how many gizmo's/physiological tests, but what dependence the coach puts on them (so effectively there is a weighting factor for where you show up on the scale).

So what actually are you trying to do here? I could see a simple wieghted cluster analysis based on "tools" and "dependency on tools" that would show a spectrum of coaching styles, but that is only one way to break it out.

And I really would like to see a better defnition of your "old school" based on what they actually do.

---

Jim
"In dog beers, I've only had one"
http://www.shakercolonial.com/
Creating custom made furnishing to your requirements

It's the argument of is coaching art or science. Experience/feel adds to the "art" grade and education/keeping current adds to the "science" grade

I would think that a report card style format would work for something of this magnitude--
with a statement of areas of focus and specialization, combined with the ability for the masses to grade the coach on their attention to different areas of technique focus, training schedule/record, objective testing, subjective assessment... As with any mass rating advisor, there will always be the digruntled client and the over-zealous sycophant chiming in, but the overwhelming opinion/comments on a coach might guide a person's ultimate choice...

Something like tripadvisor.com for tri coaches

I personally would be leery of a coach who considered himself either Old school or New school. If I do the workouts Fleck did way back when but use a PM, am I Old School or New School?

I think we could learn a lot from Bruce Lee:

"I have not invented a "new style," composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from "this" method or "that" method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds. Remember that Jeet Kune Do is merely a name used, a mirror in which to see "ourselves". . . Jeet Kune Do is not an organized institution that one can be a member of. Either you understand or you don't, and that is that. There is no mystery about my style. My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Jeet Kune-Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way. Jeet Kune-Do is simply the direct expression of one's feelings with the minimum of movements and energy. The closer to the true way of Kung Fu, the less wastage of expression there is. Finally, a Jeet Kune Do man who says Jeet Kune Do is exclusively Jeet Kune Do is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his self-closing resistance, in this case anchored down to reactionary pattern, and naturally is still bound by another modified pattern and can move within its limits. He has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside all molds; pattern and awareness is never exclusive. Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back."

– Bruce Lee

A coaches self-scored continuum 1-10: 1 We mold athletes to the training..... 10 We mold the model to the athlete.

<< what am i missing? >>

I wonder if this type of service could accurately identify a coach (or physician or politician) that relies heavily on both sources of knowledge and experience. It reminds me a bit of the political process in America. The greatest noise and rhetoric comes out of the most liberal and most conservative elements of our society. You would think they are in the majority. Once in office, they are generally more centrist than either of the extremes that, combined, represent only 20% of the population. Some 80% of the population is centrist, have a high degree of tolerance for both schools of thought and surround themselves with others whose strength supports areas where they are less expert. In the end, there is more agreement than disagreement. However, I think, sometime we fail to talk about that.

KP

"I really would like to see a better defnition of your "old school" based on what they actually do."

hence my post, asking for a better way of defining and differentiating. i would like to see other definitions as well. want to give it a try?

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"- new school believes that what we read in scientific journals about training show us the way to better methods, allowing us to embrace what works, and to cast off the the mythic, the subjective, the anecdotal."
- - As someone who regularly reads several of these journals, there is an old-school/new-school interface here. Many of the studies yield information that either sounds wrong or appears to support the contention that the studiers set out to prove, often times defying what I know from training, racing and coaching for nearly half a century. So I've discovered that it pays to really study the studies and look for the flaws. I often find that studies are too narrow, too short or too poorly controlled...
So as a third category, you can include new-school, anal-retentive, nit-pickers...

---

Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

Old School- Train as much as possible. Go to the 6:00 am swim so that you have all day for the other 2 sports. Ride with some road riders- train at the track with runners.
Do all interval sessions all out.

I'd move that one to 'old school'--seriously...

slowman. i agree with the above poster that you are defining old-school as more what they don't do, than by what they do. i have helped ( coached ?? ) many young cyclists purely old-school with some success. we do things like: hill-repeats. motorpace. hare-and-hound. show up and try to hang onto the fast group ride, and so on for our hard days. most of these have modern-day computerized equivalent workouts, i just teach how to do em analogue style. it might be good to describe what an old-school approach looks like, instead of just what it doesn't look like.

Who is to say a "old school" coach doesn't use LT somewhere to get an assesment.

That's a key point. Just because a coach is Old School does not mean that they don't know what they are doing or are not up on what's going on in Human Physiology. The reality is that, the basics of human physiology and endurance training are pretty straight forward and the basic principals where established years ago! Not much has changed in the past 15 - 20 years.

And regarding LT, whether it be New School or Old School, it does not matter, it is perhaps THE most important physiological parameter when it comes to endurance sport performance. And again, it's very straight forward - however you do it, if you rasie LT, you should be faster at all range of intensities and distances.

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Old School Coaching in running:
1. An old school coach has the art of coaching down. They can take one look at their athlete without using scientific data and know how the athlete feels. Often they detect the slightest limp before the athlete even knows he or she is injured.
2. An old school coach has a very generalized training plan for the season but everything is subject to change. They don't write down the plan either.
3. New school looks for scientific justifications to avoid volume. Old school doesn't care what the scientific justifications say because the race results say volume is important.
4. Old school doesn't mind repeating the same cycle over and over. They go through running workouts like 10x1000, 3x1.5 mi, 6 mile tempo run for weeks on end before moving on to the next thing. New school changes things up every week because some study says so.
5. Old school could care less about getting USA Track and Field or USA Triathlon coaching certificates. You won't find them at the coaches association meeting either.
6. Dan, if you want to go see a really good old school coach in action go visit Steve Scott at CSU San Marcos :)

Old school coaches possibililties
-To hell with a USAT cert.
-Hanging out on internet message boards is a complete waste of time

OK- I understand what you are asking now. What you really want to do is ocme up with a list of coaching methods first, then apply a simple wieghted cluster algorithm to see how coaches lump together - there may be no pure "old" or "new" school, so rather than defining the categories first and then trying to fit characters to them, define the characters first and see where that patterns lie after analysis. This is pretty classical taxonomic theory.

That said, and realizing I am very new to this sport let me try a few suggestions for defining the character list. There will be many holes that people could fill in.

Baselining the athlete.

1. current mileage/hours per week
2. documented timed results (5k, 40 k TT, best race times etc)
3. LT
4. VO2 Max
5. HR by workout (average/peak)
6. wattage by workout (average/peak)

Training the athlete

1. Mileage/time increase
2. "quality" workout - ie tempo work, cadence work etc
3. train by HR
4. train by power
5. periodization
6. nutritional analysis

Tools

1. Workout logs
2. HR history
3. Power history
4. POwer Cranks
5. Basic cycle computer (speed/cadence)
6. Pool Toys (fins, paddles, pull bouys)
7. Altitude tent

Assesing the Athelete

1. Race results
2. Power curves
3. LT/VO2 change
4. mileage/hour workout delta

Any of these could be weighted as well - so a power meter could be used as a data source, but not used as a training paradigm. Further, you may need multiple profiles, so one for coaching elites, whereas a newbie like myself could be focused on building base and mileage before we ever see a power training regimen.

This could then be run through something like a MDA analysis or a Weighted pair group clustering analysis, and youcould see if there are major separations between coaching styles.

Others feel free to add to any of the categories, or add categories as you see fit.

---

Jim
"In dog beers, I've only had one"
http://www.shakercolonial.com/
Creating custom made furnishing to your requirements

New School Nutritional Supplements: [Don't know the names because I don't take any]

Old School Nutritional Supplements: A roll of Smarties before each workout/race

What are you building in the lab Dr. Frankenstein?

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...rch_string=;#1605723

Brad

---

3SIXTY5cycling.com

i disagree with these statement. a lot has changed in our understanding of human physiology as it relates to endurance sports. many experiments and studies done years ago have been interpreted wrongly, incompletely or their true findings have been ignored. this combined with the ever increasing blurring of the line between science and marketing and the corruption of scientific research by financial interests has meant that we are not progressing well toward a better understanding of physiology as it relates to endurance sport.
of course the basics of training are probably as close as need be to 'optimal' and knowing more will not guarantee improved performance, just understanding it.


just an example i happen to have handy http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...w&indexed=google

and for the second statement, IMHO, LT is never ever the primary determinant of speed nor is raising it a necessity or guarantor of increased speed.

---

______________________________________
"Competetive sport begins where healthy sport ends"

"Old school doesn't mind repeating the same cycle over and over. They go through running workouts like 10x1000, 3x1.5 mi, 6 mile tempo run for weeks on end before moving on to the next thing."

I must have been coached by an "old school" coach because I have done those runs so many times! I'm sure my coach did the same workouts when he/she was still racing. I now give those workouts to the groups I coach.

Old School is sticking to what works. If it aint broke....

I think that will be hard to define. Someone like Eddie B has a College degree from the Old School Eastern Block of Hardmen, but probably is as modern as any of them. A lot of the Old School guys were the old Andy C's of their day. Some just keep reading and are current.
When Eddie B told my friend who was 6% body fat but buffed up like a weightlifter to go to "Concentration Camp" one month to lose weight, I was thinking "Old School "to the max. Then he gets into total periodization with the best of them. Hmmm? What school is that?

Slowman,

Consider adding these two important things to old school coaches:

1. Race by feel (watches are strictly forbidden)
2. No bike computers of any sort for racing or training

I think you are heading down the wrong track. Old v new school doesn't really help anyone out. What would help out would be determining a formula to define how successful a coach is over a period of time.

You can talk to 100 triathlon coaches and maybe 15% really know how to coach, that is the ability to interpret the science that is coming out, look at past results of athletes, current workout data, evaluate it come up with a proper plan to develop the athlete both short term and long term then be able to execute that plan into a daily level.
20% of coaches have no freaking clue and should not coach. Period end of story.
Another 30% will regurigate Friel to you and ~ half of that group may understand why they are doing something.
The rest will be broken down into rephrasing what some coach is writing online,or triathlete magazine said about training or they give out what they did without understanding how it impacts overall performance. Their philsophy (come to think of it they probably should not be coaching either) changes as the wind blows.

Criteria might include how successful are athletes in getting faster year over year for a 3-6 year period under one coach. Is the coach more successful at LC or short course (or does the coach specialize in one vs the other). Can the coach effectively communnicate how the here and now fits into the there and beyond.

---

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Amen, Mr. Desert Dude Amen to that.

Hey guys, a few key points left out that I think are important:

1. How well does the coach motivate his/her athletes
2. How well can the coach communicate both in person and remotely
3. How well does the coach impart the technical elements of the sport
4. How well does the coach impart the strategic elements of racing smarter

These can fall into be old and new school...the coach might have to use all the new fangled tools on some athletes, while others athletes want to get better by throwing out the heart rate monitor and powermeter and training log...can the coach handle both types of athletes, or does the coach fire himself because he cannot adapt to the desired path of the athlete.

Coming back to the motivator role, if you look at coaches in team sport, some are just better in extracting the best performance out of each player by figuring out what makes that player tick...some need hard love, some need care and nurturing...no different than being a manager in a corporation or leader in the military (note how I used manager for corporation and leader in the military, because in general, corporations lack leaders....)

Bottom line is that the coach's role is not simply about handing out workouts, but getting the best possible results out of the athlete :-)

Dev

My two cents:

Old School:
1. Rocky Balboa training camp. Hay bail stacking, ice house working etc...
2. When you puke it's a good thing.
3. Coach has impressive track record in the sports filed, both personal and their athletes.... from the 1980's
4. KISS (Keep it simple stupid)
5. personal contact with athletes regularly for consultations or training sessions
6. RPE is the scale to know
7. PB&J works great for training and race fueling
8. When hurt, RICE (rest, Ice, compression and elevation) will heal an injury
9. If it aint boke, don't monkey with it.

New School:
1. Know thy heart rate
2. know thy training zones
3. electronic training logs
4. focus on the mental aspects of racing too
5. LT, AT & Max HR testing is necessary
6. All athletes should know more than basic nutrition and physiology.
7. RICE is good but Active Release, Massage, micro-current or muscle stimulators will get you back faster and more efficiently.
8. Coach has recent accoplishments in sports, coaching or publications that show they are doing a good job preparing people and are not done learning.
9. Sure it aint broke, but can we make it better?

I'm interested to see what you plan to do with all this stuff from everyone. Keep us posted!

Dave

---

Dave Stark
dreamcatcher@astound.net
USAC & USAT level 2 certified coach

if i may add a considered opinion: i don't think you will get a good definition of what is 'old school' vs. 'new school' coaching because there are far too many possible definitions and variations and combinations of the two types.

so if I were starting a coach listing, i would only make one big distinction between these 3 types of coaches (listed below) because, before an athlete even begins to interview coaches, i think the athlete usually knows which way he/she wants to go in these areas:

- coaches that focus that on coaching in the flesh, i.e. athletes must be local

- coaches that focus on remote (usually online and telephone) coaching, athletes can be anywhere.

- coaches that accept both kinds of clients.

---

---

Where would you want to swim ?

typically it is easy to develop an athlete for a year or two, but I'd suspect that you as i have, have seen many athletes stay with the same coach for 3-5 years and show no improvement over the latter years. Is this, measuring performance year over year, a precise way to measure? No. But many times when a coach has no clue what they are doing development stalls or performance gains are minimal. And yes I realize that a 2% performance gain may be great for some athletes (elites, people many years into their development), but if you have someone who has been in the sport for only 3-5 years I'd suspect more then 2% would be possible. Maybe it would be better if we required coaches to write a pre and post eval plan with athletes. Sort of this is where I want them to go development plan and then every X years a recap of what they did, (both coach and athlete), to see how they implemented the plan, adapted to adversity, overcame challenges, and managed the development and growth of that athlete.

I'm not sure there is a precise way to measure how good a coach is or is not.

---

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I resemble those remarks! ; ^ )

It's funny, on another thread I was told I was not forward thinking and I said, "Well....yeah. You're right."

Edit: I left an ambiguous answer in the original.

You wanna see some good old school training, you should meet Greg Watson some day. I'm pretty sure he didn't even use a speedometer during his bike workouts.

---

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

If I pose as a new coaching prospect, what is the question I'm asking that you are trying to answer, Dan? Put another way, depending on the sort of questions I'm asking or parameters I'm considering, any given gradient/score/coding you come up with may or may not be adequate to help me.

If I'm concerned about becoming too laden down with gadgets and gizmos (most of which my hypothetical self may not already have) your score may push me toward the arbitrary "old school" side, when in fact, one of those types of coaches may be less than effective for me.

I'm guessing you're philosophizing over developing a system to help athletes assess coaches based on a set of inputs...I'm not initially inclined to think that is a meaninful outcome based mostly on my observation (and, admittedly ASSUMPTION) that successful athlete/coach relationships have more to do with the individual interactions than with the particular tools, methods, or philosophies used.


On the other hand, I think if you look up "old school" in the dictionary you'll find a picture of a Marine gunnery sergeant in cotton running kit, knee high, striped tube socks, and black combat boots! ;-)

While well intentioned, I doubt that this thread went the way his slowness expected. It seems most posters had an old high school coach that was well 'old school', because you worked your a** off and those that survived thrived those that didn't joined the chess club. (My old school coach passed out salt tablets during spring training and warned against getting blotted by drinking water, that'll toughen you up)

Fleck's point is a good one. I would consider Richard Quick old school but I think he's probably pretty well 'up' on things. Is Lydiard old school? Lasse Viren, probably old school, Ryan Hall's coach = new school, Eddy Merck = old school, Lance Armstrong = new school. I don't think you're going to get a much better picture of old v new school. You might do better to look at if the coaches approach is emprical (say ex-athletes who become coaches) or more 'scientific' coaches (say those with graduate phy ed backgrounds, kinesiology). I doubt Vince Lombardi had a degree in excercise physiology but who knows?

---

Jim_n_La
...what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but only until it kills you - Cousin Elwood

Hey, backward is the new forward!

---

Jim_n_La
...what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but only until it kills you - Cousin Elwood

"as a new coaching prospect, what is the question I'm asking that you are trying to answer, Dan?"

i've got three reasons for asking the question:

1. to what degree are old and new schools really coaching in the same way, just with different nomenclature?

2. to what degree are the schools NOT coaching in the same way? is there a qualitative difference, for example, in how each views historical/experiential truisms versus evidence generated using the scientific method? what weight does a coach give to each when it comes to devising his own coaching theories?

3. is there data about coaches that can be archived and queried in meaningful ways for use by prospective clients? what if you could search coaches based on the technologies they use, and the pricing, where they were geographically located, their certifications? what if you wanted a coach that used training peaks, or workoutlog, because all your data was archived in one or another format?

i'm not heading in a specific direction with my questions. i do know for sure that we'll be writing a lot about coaching, and coaches, and systems, and technologies, and science of training, in 2008. we're not just going to write articles willy nilly, rather according to an overarching theme and direction. i'm pretty close to knowing how it is i'm going to approach this, but the forum provides me an elegant opportunity to see how people respond to different themes. i'd rather have that data now, instead of after i'm going down a road that is ill-conceived.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Just an FYI: WKO+ is not an acronym.

Other than that, I don't think I can help you, as I have no idea how you might accurately classify someone as "old school" or "new school", nor what good it would do...

1. to what degree are old and new schools really coaching in the same way, just with different nomenclature?

If they really know what's going on from a physiological perspective, their really should not be that much of a difference in the approach. The basic fundementals have not changed that much in the last numver of years. It's all pretty straight-forward -Build the aerobic and endurance base as high as you can and then fine tune for specific race prep.

2. to what degree are the schools NOT coaching in the same way? is there a qualitative difference, for example, in how each views historical/experiential truisms versus evidence generated using the scientific method? what weight does a coach give to each when it comes to devising his own coaching theories?

The difference here that I see is in how performance is looked at. The Old School view is that the clock and the results sheet does not lie. It's a pretty clear and precise indicator if something is working or is not. The newer view is to depend more on test results be they, with heart rate, Power Meters, or other testing protocols to evaluate improvement and progress. With people racing less - maybe even doing just one race a year( a big IM) perhaps their is a use for this.

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I would as well...although doing so would seemingly make someone like Max Testa "old school".

Just some examples of what those other than Noakes believe:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...ubmed_RVAbstractPlus

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...ubmed_RVAbstractPlus

These abstracts actually make me consider Exercise Physiology as being "Old School".

....toying with models and gross explanations that can nowadays be adressed much better by more advanced technologies.

---

___________________________________________
Ego numquam pronuncio mendacium,
sed sum homo salvaticus

excellent articles, thank you,
FWIW, i wasn't intending to promote Dr Noakes theories but point out that the science of 'endurance exercise' is not 'Not much has changed in the past 15 - 20 years'. i think our understanding of physiology has changed significantly and the meaning, application and understanding of our knowledge is still developing.
additionally, the statment that LT 'is perhaps THE most important physiological parameter' is not confirmed by the reseach.

sorry for staying from the topic. to help get back to it i would propose that Slowman not use the 'old school, new school' terms since they carry a lot of baggage that has very different meanings to people. i would suggest that coaches answer a series of questions with a scaled response. (sorry don't know the correct term for this type of questioning).
for example:
What is your coaching philosophy with regards to hydrating during long training bouts? (1-20)
with examples of a response spectrum
1= do not drink more than a minimal amount, you must learn/train to exercise in adverse conditions that you may encounter in races
3= drink to thirst
10= learn your sweat rate for various weather, duration and intensity levels and hydrate to try to replace X% of that, at a minimum.
19= drink as much as you can possibly drink and learn to drink more, at least X oz per hr. learn to exercise with a full stomach, never let hydration limit your exercise.
20= drink beyond that, so at times it is uncomfortable and possibly causes you to vomit. this will train you to increase your capacity, know you limit and keep you hydrated at all times.

so, you develop a number of catagories ie. Hydration, Nutrition, Periodization, Use of Telemetry....
then a series of questions under each catagories that have a response along a spectrum (like example above)
then room for a written position. ie. after the questions on periodization the coach writes..'my coaching philosophy is to incorporate periodization at a macro cycle level of 9 month periods with micro cycles of 5 weeks. these periods will vary with the students race agenda. also, i ......

a prospective student/client could then scan each coaches philosophy template and determine which they feel is best for them. then interview a few coaches and pick the one they feel would be best for them.

maybe also have a sponsorhip level disclosure with it.
XYZ - occasionally sends me last years model ... to use if i beg them from stuff to replace my aging parts.
ABC - provides me with all my sports nutrition, updates me on it's marketing methodolgy and encourages me to promote it's products.
QRS - gives me ... equipment and pays me when i win/place using it.


just some thoughts ..

---

______________________________________
"Competetive sport begins where healthy sport ends"

All of this discussion may be well and good, but I'll maintain the coach/athlete relationship is a system. If you try to inform one on the other without considering the SYSTEM view the outcome will be meaningless. In other words, classification of coaches based on any arbitrarily set collection of values or codes doesn't really answer the question at the heart of this matter: "How do I find the best coach for me?" To answer that question, you (the athlete) had better examine yourself first. And I daresay many, if not most athletes, newbies in particular, have only the vaguest idea about what really works for them. If I don't know myself first, any evaluation system I'm using to answer the question is no better than a blindman's game of darts.

Heck, we can't even get people to truly understand the concepts of a physical problem like tri-bike fitting. Now we're going to attempt to evaluate something heavily dependent on psychological relationships?

I'll say one thing, Dan...no one should ever accuse you of taking the easy road... ;-)

Good start... but what about a blend?

With my local younger athletes it's very much old school. They've got PM's and GPS's but it's when I talk with them and they with me that I learn the more than any number could tell me.

Then there's my distant athletes with whom I need to rely on the numbers and they're reflections on their feelings and mood to gauge where they are at.

Hmmmm in writing this me thinks that I am more old school touchy feely with a strong lean towards pace/power. So how does that get defined?

Looking forward to the finished product.

---

36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

ancient chinese proverb
'when the student is ready, the master will appear'

---

______________________________________
"Competetive sport begins where healthy sport ends"

The science of exercise physiology certainly isn't as old as, say, mathematics or astronomy, but it's much older than most people realize, with the earliest studies dating to before 1900. I have no idea what you mean by your second comment, however, as there are no "...more advanced technologies...' available than those used in the papers I cited.

That may be true (or not), but citing Noakes is a very poor way of making your case, because his ideas re. the 'central governor' and how, e.g., this limits VO2max have failed to gain any significant 'traction' (as evidenced, e.g., by the fact that his papers on this topic are rarely cited by others, and typically only then by those refuting the idea).


Sorry, but I couldn't disagree with this statement any more strongly than I do.

Old school: uses easy/med/hard or % of Max HR
--------------------------------------------------------
Dan
Would old school use HR monitor?

---

Train safe & smart
Bob

"Would old school use HR monitor?"

i think you probably take old school and further break it into the YES and NO camps on HR monitors.

but in all seriousness, there is one differentiation that i think gets to the crux of it, i asked it in my original post, nobody invested in this process has spoken to it yet.

- old school relies on and believes and trusts in experience over scientific evidence generated in a lab, that is, an old school coach believes that science will catch up to and validate training theories elite athletes already know through decades of experience.

- new school believes that what we read in scientific journals about training show us the way to better methods, allowing us to embrace what works, and to cast off the the mythic, the subjective, the anecdotal.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"in writing this me thinks that I am more old school touchy feely with a strong lean towards pace/power. So how does that get defined?"

i don't know how this gets defined. but i'm going to pose some questions you might find interesting to wrestle with.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"old school relies on and believes and trusts in experience over scientific evidence, that is, an old school doctor believes that science will catch up to and validate medical practices experienced doctors already know through decades of experience."

"new school believes that what we read in scientific journals about medicine show us the way to better methods, allowing us to embrace what works, and to cast off the the mythic, the subjective, the anecdotal."

Just some food for thought...

"Just some food for thought..."

fair point. but let me ask you this: do you think that the science as applied to training & fitness is as rigorous as that required by the medical establishment? for example there are, what, four phases in the clinical trials before a drug can make it to market? this involves tens or hundreds of milions of dollars, just the clinical testing, not the development of a drug. and even then they get it wrong sometimes.

so, i agree with your view, as it relates to medicine. but is this apples to apples were talking about? i'm not saying it isn't, i'm just askin'.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Perhaps this quote from Dr. Phil Skiba's excellent book will help you understand my perspective:

"As exercise physiologist Dr. Andrew Coggan once wrote, 'Coaching is not a science, but all coaching should be based on scientific principles.'" (emphasis added)

Or, to put it another way: while I am a firm believer in evidence-based coaching, that doesn't necessarily mean that if I were a coach that I would only consider evidence generated in, e.g., a multi-center trial akin to drug testing. (Also note that "evidence" and "data" are not synonymous, at least in my book.)

"while I am a firm believer in evidence-based coaching, that doesn't necessarily mean that if I were a coach that I would only consider evidence"

let's take a real world example. when you decided on your algorithms used for determining TSS, you depended heavily on your blood lactate tests taken from cyclists exercising at various submaximal efforts, as i recall. in so doing, you basically generated a TRIMPs using power instead of HR as the metric.

from what i understand, and i'm somewhat behind the curve on this, i think you've created a TSS analog for running, no? this would be helpful for those who're using training peaks for triathletes, and this sort of sportswide extrapolation of what you've helped them develop for cycling is the direction i think they're going.

so, what remains is to develop this same sort of thing for swimming. but, you're sort of back to something TRIMPs-like for those other two sports, are you not, because you can't really measure power, you're left with some other metric on which to rely (like HR)? let me know where i've gone wrong on my assumptions of how you're going about this.

now, what must happen is this:

- you've got to pretty much nail down a swim-TRIMPs or swim-TSS that's analogous to the bike and the run versions, in order for coaches and athletes to measure stress.

- then you've got to decide whether you just add the two TRIMPs or TSS scores together for a triathlete's double workout in two sports on a given day. if not, you need to determine whether the stress score X 2 is then modified by the fact that it's a brick (back to back) or separated by several hours (and of course, how is it modified? is a run and a later swim worth more, or less, than simply the two scores added?)

- then you need to ask whether you've got to adjust for distance. for example, let's stipulate for a moment that at, oh, Zone 3, a ride is worth about the same as a run a fourth of that distance (a 5mi run = a 20mi ride, a 10mi run = a 40mi ride). but i don't think we can extrapolate this forever. few coaches would agree that 5 days of riding 500 mi equals 5 days of running 125mi, at least not for a triathlete, because of the stress of a weight-bearing exercise.

so, then, what do you do when analyzing blood lactate of swimmers or runners, or whatever your methodology, generates TSS or TRIMPs algorithms that don't match the expectations of those who've been coaching and racing at high levels for 15 or 20 years? maybe a paul huddle or a dave scott might say that you've got to add body weight to the calculations, because elite triathletes are 160lb on average and elite runners are 125lb on average, and that's why elite runners can do 160mi weeks and that IS analogous to 640mi cycling weeks, but only for them, not for elite triathletes.

or maybe huddle says, pshaw, the swimming scores are coming out too high versus those in cycling and running, they just don't match the real world.

accordingly, i think this is where science might have to have its come to jesus with tradition and myth and lore. what do you do when the data determines the way it should be, and a panel of top athletes and coaches disagree?

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

That is correct.


You are behind the curve: GOVSS is Dr. Phil Skiba's baby, whereas Dr. Steve McGregor is responsible for rTSS. While I've discussed these ideas with Phil and (to a much lesser extent) Steve, I haven't contributed anything to their development (except perhaps inspiration).


Perhaps, but I don't believe that runners (or swimmers) are likely to benefit as much from such a metric as cyclists, since 1) the effort of a runner (or swimmer) is far steadier than that of a cyclist, and 2) environmental factors (e.g., wind, air density) have far much less of an impact on the speed of a runner vs. a cyclist, making pace a much more reliable metric than for a cyclist.


It is (although personally I wish it weren't).


What's wrong with a pace-based measurement (or heart rate, i.e., TRIMP, if you prefer)?


See above (and also note that I'm not the one "going about anything").


All the more reason why I'm not interested in attempting to do for triathletes what I've done for cyclists!



I think that before this discussion can really go any further, you need to think some more about the difference between quantifying the "dose" of training, and how you actually use that information. Consider, for example, Foster's session RPE approach...even though it is quite simple and it isn't exactly clear what it measures, it may still be possible to apply this imperfect metric in a productive manner to guide training. Conversely, one could, at least theoretically, develop a method that always perfectly reflects the acute physiological strain, but if this metric were misapplied there still could be a "disconnect" between the results it yielded and what empirical evidence suggests is true.

EDIT: Perhaps the following may help flesh out my perspective:

1) as I told my hosts at UK Sport when they invited me to give a talk, I don't believe that there's much progress to be made by attempting to develop ever-better means of quantifying the training load. Rather, the most productive direction (IMHO) to go lies in trying to improve our quantitative understanding of the relationship between the training load and performance; and

2) as I stated during a recent webinar, I would like to see WKO+ calculate/accept TRIMP and session RPE as inputs to the Performance Manager chart.

"All the more reason why I'm not interested in attempting to do for triathletes what I've done for cyclists!"

nevertheless, here we are, with triathletes storming the gates of sport ;-) and, of course, if you're training peaks (or slowtwitch, for that matter) there is a vested interest in quantifying training loads, and normalizing those in each constituent sport.

i guess, bringing it full circle, the clash between new and old school is the smooshing together of your excellent approach to cycling and the *at best* imprecise and *at worst* unreliable ways of integrating this into triathlon training programs. if you're a triathlon coach, and the cycling part of your training has as its hallmarks attention paid to FT, TSS, ATL, CTL, TSB, NP, are you cutting a rock with a razor blade? i don't mean in any way to denigrate your excellent system for measuring stress and performance and adaptation in cycling, but it reminds me of peter reid keeping roch frey as his triathlon coach while simultaneously going to chris carmichael for his cycling. the result was one of triathlon's most spectacular meltdowns.

so, is the adherence by triathlon coaches to your framework for cycling, at the expense of a similarly-precise way to integrate this into an overall swim/bike/run program, too new school for its own good? i'm not saying it is, i'm, you know, just askin'. maybe there are some coaches who can describe how they integrate all this.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Just for the record: I'm not TrainingPeaks (PeaksWare LLC, actually), and my interest in quantifying training load is really purely avocational in nature (i.e., it helps me scratch that intellectual itch).

In Reply To:

i guess, bringing it full circle, the clash between new and old school is the smooshing together of your excellent approach to cycling and the *at best* imprecise and *at worst* unreliable ways of integrating this into triathlon training programs.

Sorry, but I don't see it that way. That is, even if I believed you could, in fact, label someone as "old school" or "new school" with reasonable accuracy, I don't think the distinction could or should be made on whether they use my ideas or not.

In Reply To:

if you're a triathlon coach, and the cycling part of your training has as its hallmarks attention paid to FT, TSS, ATL, CTL, TSB, NP, are you cutting a rock with a razor blade? i don't mean in any way to denigrate your excellent system for measuring stress and performance and adaptation in cycling, but it reminds me of peter reid keeping roch frey as his triathlon coach while simultaneously going to chris carmichael for his cycling. the result was one of triathlon's most spectacular meltdowns.

I'm afraid that I don't see the connection (in part because I'm completely unfamiliar with Roch Frey), but I'll still say this: you could be as "new school" as you want and use all of my ideas, and still cause someone to have a spectacular meltdown. That's true because all I have done is try to provide cogent ways of describing and quantifying training (of cyclists/for cycling) - it's still up to the individual and/or coach to decide how they should train.

In Reply To:

so, is the adherence by triathlon coaches to your framework for cycling, at the expense of a similarly-precise way to integrate this into an overall swim/bike/run program, too new school for its own good?

Again, I think you're conflating the issue of how you describe and quantify training with how you actually train. With respect to the latter, the only recommendations that I've really made or conclusions that I have drawn in connection with the various calculations are:

1) a CTL between 100-150 seems to represent an "optimal" training load, i.e., those that train less than this generally realize that they are time-limited, not tolerance-limited, whereas few, if any, seem to be able to push their CTL significantly above 150 w/o breaking down;

2) ramping up your CTL at more than 5-8 TSS/d/wk is often flirting with danger, and

3) performance at shorter durations (i.e., 5 min or less) tends to be best when you've tapered/rested enough to allow your TSB to ride to >+10, whereas performance at longer durations tends to be best when your TSB is more "neutral" (i.e., TSB = -10 to +10).

Even if one were foolish enough to slavishly follow these recommendations while ignoring everything else, there's still an infinite number of training programs that could be devised...which is why I said that it's still up to the individual and/or coach to decide how they should actually train.

One of the reasons that I've advocated incorporating Foster's session RPE score into WKO+ is to help people spot when the two disconnect.

Dan,

I was staying out of this to see how it shook out and how people viewed different things, but since we've moved into subjects that are in my direct area of expertise / research / publication...


As Andy mentioned, I brought power and a TSS-like metric to running in 2005 when I released GOVSS. (The guys at Peaksware have been talking about their rTSS ever since, but have yet to release it...though they are again claiming they are close.) GOVSS is currently in use in a number of settings (you have seen thrown it around here enough, no doubt), including at least one national/olympic training center (to my knowledge). Ask MarkyV how he likes it :-)


It has already been done. I spent the last year finishing development on and validating SwimScore, which works by the athlete inputting distance, pace, rest and reps. The user must also input a threshold distance/time. I hope to publish on this in the next few months, and the white paper will be released shortly. If you are interested in playing with it, head over to http://www.physfarm.com/php-client. It is included in TriUtilities. The demo is free. You will be surprised at how well it works. (I was.)


Can't add them together...you need to treat each sport separately. You can prove this to yourself by using my performance modeling and prediction program, RaceDay. You can also get the free demo at the above address. You can very nicely (R^2 > .9 in some cases) model performance in individual sports, but you lose almost all predictive / modeling ability (in most people) once you start adding scores together. The principle of specificity reigns here. (Evidence based coaching at work :-) ).


Again, this is where modeling work can be very helpful, because you can begin to QUANTIFY the recovery costs of different workouts in different sports.


On the contrary, I think this is a situation where coaches can learn a lot from science...what many GOOD coaches find is that this sort of modeling work actually supports them. The benefit to using models is that the coach can learn how to wind up the athlete just right in a matter of months, rather than years. Using these types of models / metrics helped me push a veteran Ironman pro (at 39 years old) to a sub 9-hour performance after a lot of VERY heavy hitters brushed him off and said, "You want something your physiology cannot deliver." I'd like to say it was some coaching magic, but it wasn't. It was based entirely on scientific first principles.

Phil

---

Dr. Philip Skiba
Scientific Training for Endurance Athletes now available on Amazon!

Indeed:


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

You're on the right track.. it has nothing to do with old vs. new school.

A formula would be a bit irrelevant too....

Here's some thoughts from my coach:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...rch_string=;#1471793

I guess I am a die hard "old school" running coach. One more thing I could add is old school coaches tend to learn their craft through word of mouth passed from generation to generation of coaches changing little things as they go along. The overall concepts stay the same. I had four years of college running to learn from my coach, who had over 10 years of experience with his coach. These time tested coaching concepts give me more trust in the system than some computer telling me this or that works. The science does tend to support my ideas though.
I was at a coaching conference last week where Dr. Li (Lagat's coach, gold medals in the 1500 and 5k at world champs this year) spoke. Someone asked if Lagat had ever been tested for threshold, V02 max, etc. He said no, we just go by effort. Then Li said Lagat is always stretching and very flexible for a runner and does lots of sit ups. Some high school coach then asked if Lagat did Pilates, Li said, "What is that?" I got a kick out of it.

Here are a few signs that you may be an old school coach:

1. Biomechanical advice- "relax the jaw like the black sprinters"
2. Medical RECOMMENDATIONS: Hey coach, I am do not think I can run 14 today, it feels like my leg is ready to explode: "hey kid, do an easy 90 minutes in the trails"
3. 4mi in the am and 6 mi in the evening, you might as well be pissing into the wind.....
4. what do you mean you think you are too sick to race? god damnit kid, I don't care if you have 104 degree temperature, get your ass out there and quaify for nationals....



john mcdonnell

"Here are a few signs that you may be an old school coach:"

and what about the kid with pneumonia who took himself off the starting line, "because of a case of the sniffles."

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I think the differences you've described really boil down to:

Coaching in person.

Coaching remotely, across space and time.

Whether the approach is new or old or whatever, the growth of remote coaching is what has driven the use of on-line tools and the use of workout descriptors, such as zones and power and TSS and whatnot.

If a coach can stand on the side of the track or pool, or ride along in a car, saying, "Harder! No, easier! OK, just right!" then no such modern tools, words and methods are needed. The coaching is delivered in real time, in person.

If instead a coach has to send an email across the continent, telling an athlete how to self-manage a workout, then the only possible way to do that is with words and data.

Perhaps the best early example is The Daniels Running Formula. It gave a common language that coaches and athletes could use to communicate desired workout structures across space and time. I can, in a sense, hire Jack Daniels as my coach without ever meeting him. I can have him coach me long after he's gone off to the big track in the sky.

So I think that breaking "new" and "old" school down by the training prescriptions is missing the point. The difference is driven by changes in the athlete-coach relationship and by the same knowledge and communications trends that have affected so many other service industries.

The newer tools (HR, power, etc.) are a way of encoding the collective personal knowledge of training into symbolic language so that the knowledge can be transmitted across space and time.

The whole "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" idea. If it's not written down and encoded, few people can build on it.

I disagree with your characterization, in that one can have a personal level coach who is at the athlete's side who uses power, HR, and other telemetry data to give feedback.

This style of coach would be different than a personal level coach who doesn't use this information.

I don't think it is just a function of a coach being personally there when the athlete trains.

For instance just look at Master's swimming. I would imagine that there is a personal level coach at all Master's swimming classes (i.e., there is someone physically at the training session), yet their styles, workout prescriptions, etc. would vary depending on some arbitrary definition of old versus new school coaching.

I would agree that power data appeal to those engaged in remote coaching, as to some extent the objective data that one provides can substitute for being their "in the flesh". I wouldn't, though, go so far as to say that remote coaching has been the driving force behind the development of zone-based systems, etc. - after all, the Polar heart rate monitor was around for a number of years before email use and Internet access became so ubiquitous.

Greatest swim coach ever would be the deceased MIKE PEPPE from The Ohio State Univeristy.

Thats All.

Gordo's Xtri article on old school training with Molina back in 2002 comes to mind and is worth a read for a couple of examples. I've pasted some excerpts.
http://www.xtri.com/...p;CAT=11&xref=xx

"So, my only option was to try to get fit fast. To try to cram for my Iron-Examination.
I needed expert advice for this, I needed Molina. Scott was kind enough to offer some advice. All the best coaches in New Zealand are simple when it comes to planning. His advice was… ride as much steady volume as you can from now until ten days out from the race, when you get tired have something to eat then get back out there and ride easy."

"Scott said to target about 2,000Ks in the period (18 days) – I did all my training without a bike computer, HRM or powermeter. I did everything on feel and used my watch to log duration (Old School Style)."

Searching for school on Xtri also revealed this.
"If you read Gold in the Water you’ll see that Jochums is very old-school. Work as hard as you can, everyday, repeat until you achieve greatness."

Back to Slowman's post. I'd place Lydiard in the old school category (used experience r/t science, work ethic, face-time with an athlete, that quote from run to the top about running as fast as possible to a tree and back until he thought you'd done enough without measuring time or HR) and he was a strong believer in periodisation and did use the word (as opposed to "not caught dead using that word". If he was new school then and old school now then surely you need to add ancient, future and fusion schools to your categorisation.

if you really want to be cutting edge, its 'Nu Skool'

---

Proud Member of the Cervelo Mafia.