[Vern Gambetta]

Vern Gambetta on April 14, 2011 at 12:41 pm #17495

Sacred cows are ideas and concepts passed from generation to generation of coaches that no one questions or challenges. They may have made sense at some time in the past, but are now more likely to get in the way, still they persist. Some sacred cows are so entrenched that they are actually taught in coaching education/certification programs.Here are some common sacred cows:Need to build an aerobi

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[cdnsprinter]

cdnsprinter on April 14, 2011 at 1:46 pm #107369

I’m all for challenging ideas,concepts and conventions from time to time since the answer I hate most is ”well it’s always been like that”…ok based on what? who decided that? why?

What was accepted or believed to be true yesterday may not be tomorrow and if we want concepts and theories to evolve or improve, we must challenge them, put them to the test from time to time,but we can’t always reinvent the wheel either and 1+1 will always equal 2.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to improve things, but evolution is not always positive…and sometimes only time tells if it is or not. There’s not always a clear cut answer and as much as I believe in science and research, it cannot explain everything related to human performance and sometimes we have to conciously accept or favor some notions in order to go any further down the path, otherwise it’s always back to square one. As I said there’s nothing wrong with going back to square one to check or validate from time to time if we haven’t lost our way over time while exploring some concepts and trying some new thing AND we MUST do that. I just think that some fundamentals are there for a good reason and even if questioned or thrown off today, tomorrow may prove that some of those had a good reason to be there in first place.

With human performance, there’s often room for interpretation as there are so many variables you can’t control even if you try to…of course you can look at tendencies to provide some answers, but also as with elite sprinters, it is a good example that many ways may lead to Rome IMO…

BUT some of these sacred cows, I’d have a hard time to go against…(some others you mentioned, not at all though…)

would you mind to elaborate your thoughts a little on each point please?

[Avi S.]

Avi S. on April 18, 2011 at 5:27 am #107416

Im’ interested in explaining the hamstrings flex the knee myth.

I will add that apart from ‘doing your homework,’ another reason why some of these myths are generated is because of science, which is rational, reductionist and non-instinctual. Looking at the board during a long jump instinctually makes sense. Science can make it make more sense but it can also go wacky.

Same thing with the quadricep. I would think quadriceps help extend my hips BECAUSE they extend my knee, thus they act as a hip extensor. But isolationist studies that electrically stimulate the muscle will find otherwise.