A few may like to re-read to see where I have(n’t) criticised Dan’s coaching ability or results at all.
Nobody is saying we should be copying exactly what pfaff, boo, CF, or anyone else does.
The ideas behind what they do, however, have carry over to situations involving athletes everywhere.
So I don’t know what you are arguing against. You sound like a bitter teen who just got dumped. Did you just lose your job or something when Pfaff got pulled over by the UKA and now can only exact sweet internet revenge against him?
Amazing!
The issue isn’t that nobody says that, it is what they do and I’m certainly not innocent on that front. The ideas have much less carry over than most think IMO, especially when you are taking care of business on your end in the first place, and again I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t done that in the past and am probably not doing it in many areas currently.
The fact is the most elite coaches don’t necessarily have a logical foundation for all their ideas, there are obviously less subtle falsehoods that are easily identified but there are plenty that go through based on reputation like I’ve mentioned above.
Pfaff is one of many coaches whose athletes perform great at the highest level, but the issue is what you can take from that and it’s a whole lot less than people think, which is why we see jumping from Charlie’s ideas to Dan’s new alternate means to the Jamaican methods with more running etc and chasing of tails.
You sound like a bitter teen who just got dumped. Did you just lose your job or something when Pfaff got pulled over by the UKA and now can only exact sweet internet revenge against him?
Funnily enough, no that isn’t the case though it is interesting you feel that is a prerequisite for disagreement.
The fact is the major reason people really respect Pfaff / Charlie / John Smith etc as coaches is because they have an athlete or a few athletes winning medals at majors and not really because they improve athletes (which they often do), and their settings, technical expertise and athletes are a world away from most.
Of course someone will jump in here and point out how “Tony Wells only coaches high schoolers and he is a great coach too”, but again the respect is there due to relative supertalents winning championships, not improvement, you could improve every athlete you train hugely but until you snag an “elite athlete” you are not an elite coach. Look at every intro you see and it will be “Pfaff has coached Bailey” “Kraaijenhof has coached Ottey” “Francis has coached Ben Johnson” and that is really where “credibility” comes from.
People hang on every word and scerrick of training log they get from elites, but it has little validity much of the time. Many coaches and athletes try to apply concepts that are 1) Beyond their understanding and abilities 2) Beyond their athletes needs 3) Irrelevant to their setting.
It is the same in sport science, elite subjects = elite research regardless of research quality, see the Coyle-Armstrong debacle as one obvious example, measuring a questionable marker in a single (very) elite athlete/celebrity n=1, info is of little use to anybody as well as invalid but people lap it up.
Amazing!
LOL indeed. The only ridiculous (though definitely not amazing) thing is of people’s steadfast ad hominem stupidity as they fawn over their favourite elite guru and claim that anyone who disagrees has a personal vendetta.