LOW vs HIGH TECH TRAINING

[Guest guest]

With the Sydney Olympics almost upon us, it is interesting to note two very

divergent trends in strength and fitness training for top level sport, one

which focuses on the advances made by technology and the other which

emphasizes a return to the use of no- or low-technological methods, an

approach which some refer to as " dinosaur training " .

Some of the world's finest athletes are extolling the virtues of each and it

is apparent that each of these two approaches is bearing some useful fruit.

This afternoon, the great sprinter, , was asked on TV for his

opinion of training methods, such as periodisation and cycling. His

response? He smilingly dismissed both of these concepts as they commonly are

offered by coaches today. In return he asked why should it be all that

impossible to rise progressively to a peak and stay at that high plateau level

for prolonged periods, as he stated he always does. He implied that the use of

cycling up and down over a prolonged period to peak for only a few special

events physically and mentally act against athletic success.

Yes, I am sure that there will be those will comment on the way in which he

'pulled' a hamstring during the recent trials to 'prove' that his approach is

not all that flawless, but the fact remains is that he has produced excellent

success with his methods, which are reminiscent of those used by Bulgarian

athletes.

Add to his experience the great success being enjoyed by Louie and

his Westside Club, who use no high technology at all. Instead there is an

abundance of almost dinosaurian training with chains, bands, sleds and cars

that challenge the body and mind in myriad ways of developing great sport

specific strength and power. In this case, their methods are often guided by

what we have discovered in science, but they do not rely largely on

technology for their success.

For instance, a biomechanist who was interviewed for today's TV program on

Olympic training pointed out that the greatest advantage that distance

athletes could have is to throw their shoes away (as did Abebe Bikila of

Ethiopia and Zola Budd of South Africa), because the added weight (1lb on the

feet is equivalent to 8lbs on the back) and dissipation of energy by shock

absorbing soles forces the athlete to use more energy to cover the same

distance at the same speed.

Ironically, after Bikila turned to running exclusively with shoes, he

suffered a bone fracture of his left leg and he had to drop out of the 1968

Mexico Olympics after his previous victories in Rome and Tokyo. Zola Budd

also turned to using shoes and orthotic devices, and she ended up being

plagued by leg injuries and a running career that never reached the same top

international standard again. Circumstantial evidence, maybe, nevertheless

this is interesting and suggestive that shoes and orthotics at best offer no

significant performance advantage to endurance performance athletes. Tracks,

on the other hand, such as the renowned Harvard synthetic track most

definitely produced faster times and set the trend for the design of new

synthetic tracks.

In other words, the main benefit of shoes is to prevent damage to the sole of

the foot, but otherwise, their main effect is to make running less efficient.

Makes one wonder about the whole sports shoe business!

While we have some Western athletes who are regularly tested for metabolic

and bioenergetic efficiency excelling in endurance events, we often have

their performances overshadowed by African athletes who rely on the most

basic intuitive methods. The same scenario repeats itself in several other

types of individual and team sports.

Would anyone care to comment on the relative roles played by 'high tech' and

'low tech' training methods in the preparation of the modern elite athlete?

Is anyone convinced that athletes who are heavily supported by the hugely

expensive sports science institutes around the world will produce

performances that statistically are significantly superior to those of

athletes who rely largely on low-tech training?

Dr Mel C Siff

Denver, USA