Carl, hopefully this is a more fair post.
There is no gold standard, it is up to the coach to be discerning in their context.
Best practices are ones proven to work.
at the end of the day evidence is success with a stop watch or tape, [b]based on the development of the athlete[/b].
The second part is key, but we only define “success” as the stop watch when we look to “elite” practices much of the time, hard to move beyond talent and PED’s when talking about the development of the athlete.
Global medals or Division 1 collegiate success does not = proven to work for another coach. That equals proven to work for that coach, in their setting. Absolute performances are not “working”, improvement is “working”, and we too often define best practice by the former. Again, as a prominent example 100+ pages of discussion on Charlie’s board because of a 44.3 guy who ran 44.75 as a junior 4 years previously under another coach.
Only principles are what we can take and these need to be principles of training (biology), not descriptors of environment and culture (biography), which is all we are describing much of the time. Perhaps the close circle of “successful” coaches out of LSU and similar settings might be evidence that we learn a lot from our own environment.
How do we know what works? We are all waiting for something positive then just telling us we are drinking the pfaff punch, charlie cooler, and Francis Frappe!
You have brought a lot of energy to your goal, but clarity of purpose is what people are likely to ask. Could you summarize what your purpose is in one sentence? Thanks.
visibility comes from being on the podium and those that do often are requested to speak since it’s likely they have something to share.
We don’t know what works exactly but we need to stop looking for logic that doesn’t exist in the training of elites. Many elite coaches do not have logic for everything they do, this is not a derogatory criticism but a fact of coaching. In the internet age and the modern day of travelling seminars and information, we put Charlies or Dans on a pedestal and ask to justify things they have done (often years and years post event) and badger for every scerrick of detail (however biographical) and of course naturally they feel obliged to try and do so, and with time on a pedestal a coach can believe their own “logic” on events that occurred many moons ago.
Sorry if it sounds negative, but sometimes there isn’t as much of value to share as we think, even if it gratifying to mix as human beings and seminars may generate a glow of “learning”.
Jumping on bandwagons is everywhere, I’m sure most would acknowledge Franno’s 5.30 workouts are there for cultural rather than physiological reasons but many other elements perhaps reflect the same.
Jack Daniels has made his living at an altitude training centre but will be the first to question how real the performance benefits of altitude are and has unpublished data with sea level controls showing training camp effects as do many others, but in the meantime many are living in altitude tents and not actually improving in the sport. Of course the Kenyans train at altitude but are born at 2000m so lifetime adapted and simply living in their home not a tent.
In their case the altitude fits naturally and does not disrupt other elements at all, and this is key, we can add in other elements that may not hurt for another but do they disrupt our overall program and environment?
Sorry but I find that I can do more running because guys are healthier on grass and doing perhaps longer GPP or more work on it’s fine by me. This is a clear case of reading into something and assuming the worst.
I don’t mind healthy debate, but frankly I don’t think your intentions are positive.
Perhaps my intial post is too antagonistic but was more question than outright assumption, but at the time I did not feel it was discordant with the way you address many “gurus”, and as such didn’t expect it to be taken personally. Do you have the insight to read as much into others’ methods as you do on the blog?
My point on my father’s day post is that mistakes happen and we learn from them, and having many people to learn from usually creates less inbreeding
Not so much inbreeding or mixing, but maintaining objectivity for me. “Inbreeding” can be a great place for learning but is also high on personal bias, “Mixing” can be a great place for new ideas but is lacking in genuine contextual insight and we need to be more discerning of relevance.
What’s interesting is that the order is based solely on who was hot at the time.
I can empathise entirely, refreshingly honest comment.
Three of us have now asked him to state, concisely, his points and where he is going with this to no avail.
Some people like to help, others like to badger and criticize. Criticism is fine as long as solutions are offered or the criticism is clarified otherwise you are just another Tony Kornheiser.
If only I had the secrets… solutions are always context specific.
I know who you’re talking about and his program made MUCH more sense when it more closely reflected a combination of West Side and CF.
Without knowledge of the results it is hard to comment, making sense to outsiders may not mean efficacy, there seems to be a suggestion the results are improved on his part but only he can say in football to some extent.
