[quote]lucasa wrote:
Do you think the things you learn in PEDS 335 are the “be all end all” facts and rules that you would learn in a 300-level chemistry or physics class? [/quote]
Absolutely not. For example, in the last ten years, research on high intensity interval training blew previous conceptions of training for aerobic athletes out of the water. Whereas previously it was thought that anaerobic training wouldn’t have any benefit at all, or even detrimental effects, for an aerobic athlete, research on ultra-short sprint training with more “aerobic” work:rest ratios has shown very beneficial.
In light of this new evidence, the overall theory of training athletes shifted to accomodate. More research is done in the area and more knowledge acquired to expand our pool of knowledge to more accurately reflect the real world.
Charles Staley’s “Escalating Density Training” completely fits the current sports science paradigm. It takes training methods for distance training and applies them to strength training. For Lactate Threshold training, you give the athlete a battery of physiological performance tests, then send them out to run at the heart rate correlated with their lactate threshold for, depending on the level of the athlete, 20 minutes to an hour.
Then, as the athlete becomes fitter in factors related to lactate, they go faster and farther in that 20-60 minute time block while putting the same amount of relative stress on their physiology.
Now apply this to hypertrophy training and you get EDT. You give the athlete a 1RM test. Then assign a resistance correlated with gains in functional hypertrophy (~8-12RM). Now, assign them a time limit in which to do as much “distance” (reps) with that intensity (resistance) as possible. As the athlete becomes fitter in factors related to hypertrophy (more muscle fibres, better NM coordination, etc.) they can do more and more work at that given intensity for that given time.
A lot of these “new” training methods that “annihilate” everything we know are just an already-known training method applied to a new medium. In the case of EDT, track athlete training methods applied to resistance training.
On a side note, a lot of these “secret” methods (GVT, EDT, Russian Bear Training) are mostly useless for a non-strength or bodybuilding athlete as they cause so much fatigue that all the athlete’s other performance factors will detrain in the mean time. Either that or they can only be employed for a few months at the beginning of the training year so as not to interfere with more sport-specific training.
Now, I don’t think anyone has ever “annihilated” what sport science has previously known. It’s simply added another point of view and new knowledge to the paradigm.
If the new tool and new knowledge is more effective than previous methods, then it’s probably a good idea to use the new tool. However, all tools have their place and that should always be kept in mind.
First of all, sport science is a relatively young discipline that didn’t even begin to be taken seriously until the 1970s.
As for “Russian Training Secrets”, the Eastern Bloc and the West didn’t exactly share knowledge when it came to science of any kind until the Iron Curtain fell. Even now, the vast majority of journals on either side still haven’t been translated. The West concentrated mainly on metabolism and musculoskeletal structural changes while the Eastern Bloc concentrated mainly on neurological changes. Of course they will have a greater knowledge base when it comes to neurogenic strength and flexibility training. Their model focused on the nervous system while ours focused on metabolic and structural components of fitness.
The scientific method doesn’t discover big, undeniable facts, it uncovers a large amount of small facts and then tries to make it all make sense together with an overall theory. Sport science is no different.
All we know in sport science is that in studies we give a group of people such-and-such a training protocol, then we measure the body’s responses to that protocol. Then we know that, on the average, when you give a person that training protocol, generally those factors observed will improve.
Then there are other ways to knowledge such as mathematical evaluation of the results of previous studies on a certain topic. For example, I forget the name, but a sport scientist did a mathematical evaluation of all studied programs for increasing VO2max and found that the theoretical “ideal” VO2max training plan called for 30-40 minutes at VO2max, 3-4 times per week.
Of course this is impossible as the best athlete can maintain maybe 6-8 minutes at VO2max before collapsing.
However!
What it did do was expand the sport science paradigm to start thinking up ways to keep athletes at VO2max for longer with as little fatigue as possible. One method was to spend about 2 mins at VO2max with rest intervals of 2-3 mins at 40% VO2max (found to be the ideal intensity for active recovery). Then, with more research, a scientist down in the states found that 30 seconds at VO2 and 30 seconds active rest actually caused athletes to stay at VO2max oxygen consumption during their rest intervals, with the added bonus of preventing hydrogen ion accumulation by only “working” 30s at a time.
With this 30s:30s VO2max:40%VO2max protocol, it was found that elite athletes could complete up to 40 or more intervals, allowing them to complete 30-40 minutes at VO2max. This is something that came by and didn’t “annihilate” what we knew previously, it simply added a new training tool to the mix that we already possessed.
I’ll get off my soap box now as I have to catch a bus so I may go to class and further indoctrinate myself in the Canadian sports science machine. 
