The Trouble With Sports Physiology

My best friend Pepa Miloucheva gave me an article today which purported to be about the physiology of 2k erg pieces.  To the extent that I could make heads or tails of it, the article reviewed the existing research indicating that a 2k erg piece for an elite athlete tends to be about 70% dependent on the aerobic energy pathways and 30% dependent on the anaerobic energy pathways.  Nothing new there.  From that point, it went on to speculate about non-linear relationships between maximum wattage, wattage at VO2 max, and wattage at paces slower than VO2 max, and thenceforth to a lot of tables that I didn't understand at all.  My first reaction to finding myself lost was "gee, I wish I knew what all these terms and abbreviations meant so that these tables would be less incomprehensible to me - I might learn something."  Then I remembered something that I've always regarded as self-evident: sports physiologists often think that physiology and victory are related, when the truth is that they're usually not.  Bookmark this one: physiology determines the level at which you compete, but is otherwise unrelated to winning.  Though it is rare that you'll see a sculler whose VO2 max is 55ml/kg defeating a sculler of the same gender whose VO2 max is 72ml/kg, it's not at all uncommon to see a sculler whose erg time is only the ninth or tenth best among his crew win every seat race and every challenge put before him.  It's also not uncommon to see a big, strong rower who never seems to win because she feels intimidated by smaller, more assertive athletes.  And physiologists have a litany of rationalizations for all such situations.  Every coach I know can tell multiple stories of athletes who were "gifted," by which we mean here that their measurables were off the charts, who regularly were defeated by athletes supposedly less "gifted" than they.  This is what Jim Dietz was talking about when he talked about the difference between competitors and racers.  A tall, strong sculler with off-the-charts VO2 max who is insecure and intimidated by a smaller sculler with less impressive VO2 numbers can be counted on to reliably produce mediocre, underachieving results.  Conversely, a short, feisty sculler who likes nothing more than to make everyone eat his wake can be counted on to reliably defeat the previously described marshmallows.

By all means, gather all the data.  Use it to set and to refine your training program.  And when you're ready to select your crew, throw all of your lactate/pulse rate/VO2 max data in the dumpster and answer this one question: Who makes the boat go fast, every damn day?  Put those people in your varsity crew, and stop thinking that the race results can't be right because they don't match what the guys in the lab told you.

Sports physiology has its place, and that place is in planning a customized training program.  Don't let it anywhere near your selection process, where it can only cloud the issue of who makes the boat go fast.