Technology In Use...

[old] PaulS · Post by **[old] PaulS** » February 6th, 2006, 3:42 pm

I attended a discussion on Technology that is being employed at the level of training and monitoring Rowers, given by one of the US National Team coaches.<br /><br />Some things of immediate interest here would be that the Lactate Pro  device was viewed as the easiest to use of the new generation of small portable devices, however all required practice to use well, so a good supply of the consumables was recommended. He also suggested that as soon as something happens that interupts the current training cycle, the previous results probably won't be applicable, requiring retesting if that monitoring has become an integral part of the feedback data.<br /><br />A "10% rule" was mentioned that I had not heard previoulsy: "Elite Male athletes will be 10-11% faster than their female counterparts." This was followed by some interesting information that we have discussed here, but now have experimental backing for.<br /><br />1) When men and women of the same size and weight are compared, the "gender gap" remains.<br /><br />2) When lean body mass becomes the control, the "gender gap" disappears.<br /><br />2a) Adding a weight bearing harness to men so that the lean body mass to weight ratio was the same as women, along with controlling for VO2Max also eliminated the "gender gap".<br /><br />Conclusion: It's a good thing to increase lean body mass while at the same time increasing the proportion of lean body mass to total body weight. (Yes, I know this seems completely obvious, but there are those that claim weight or height alone are an advantage, and that is simply not true based on the scientific evidence.)<br /><br />Finally, a very simple statement was made, but it struck me as being very meaningful in the scope of using technology to help us move to new levels.<br /><br />"Technology can tell us What and When things are occuring, but How and Why these things are happening still requires a coach that knows the overall picture."<br /><br />Many shy away from technology because they feel it is too complicated or time consuming, however if they persist and become more comfortable with the data gathering process, end up thinking "How did we get along without this?" after relatively short periods of time.<br /><br />Part of the problem was that we can get so much data these days that the first thing is to decide how to handle the huge inflow of information, once again relying on coaches experience to help with that. That said, it is now possible to gather data that there is no way a coach could possible be aware of through mere observation, so the coaches also need to be open-minded and curious about how to merge their perceptions with gathered data to become even better at guiding the athlete in the desired direction.

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » February 6th, 2006, 4:17 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(PaulS @ Feb 6 2006, 11:42 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>the Lactate Pro  device was viewed as the easiest to use of the new generation of small portable devices </td></tr></table><br />Lactate testing is not accurate, not useful, and is not used any more by the best coaches in the world, i.e. coaches of the Ethiopian and Kenyan runners for example.<br /><br />Probably the top swimming coaches don't use it either.<br /><br /><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Conclusion: It's a good thing to increase lean body mass while at the same time increasing the proportion of lean body mass to total body weight. </td></tr></table><br />Did you really need a "discussion" to see this?<br /><br />Anyway I'm glad you see it now, and have finally agreed with me about something.<br />

[old] PaulS · Post by **[old] PaulS** » February 6th, 2006, 4:38 pm

Just for the sake of clarity, no John, I did not need a discussion regarding lean body mass being the important factor, it was you who has suggested that weight alone was an advantage, which is completely wrong, so no I am not "finally agreeing with you", but it does appear that you are reversing your previous idiotic view. Perhaps you can learn afterall. <br /><br />But first you need to be able to recall the things you have declared as facts that were contrary to intelligent thought and reality. i.e. "trading weight for pace".<br /><br />I've got no problem with pointing out when you have a valid point, however those times are extremely rare. <br /><br />You, on the other hand, seem to want to remain a continual nussiance.

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » February 6th, 2006, 4:56 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(John Rupp @ Feb 6 2006, 12:17 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Did you really need a "discussion" to see this?<br /><br />Anyway I'm glad you see it now, and have finally agreed with me about something. </td></tr></table><br /><br />I should have known it was too good to be true. <br />

[old] Jim Barry · Post by **[old] Jim Barry** » February 6th, 2006, 5:01 pm

I think USA Swimming is still into Lactate testing. <br /><br />From <a href='http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/olym ... 8957.story' target='_blank'>http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/olym ... ory</a><br /><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Phelps' lactate, a measure of the body's ability to produce oxygen, is constantly monitored by USA Swimming. </td></tr></table><br /><br />I think the reporter made an error saying "produce oxygen", but I would give the rest credence (especially since the USA Swimming website has numerous mentions of lactate testing session held by the technical support coaches) .<br /><br />Here's a picture of Phelps being tested:<br /><br /><a href='http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/Desk ... ow&Lang=en' target='_blank'>http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/Desk ... =en</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br />

[old] PaulS · Post by **[old] PaulS** » February 6th, 2006, 5:06 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Jim Barry @ Feb 6 2006, 01:01 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>I think USA Swimming is still into Lactate testing. <br /><br />From <a href='http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/olym ... 8957.story' target='_blank'>http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/olym ... ory</a><br /><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Phelps' lactate, a measure of the body's ability to produce oxygen, is constantly monitored by USA Swimming. </td></tr></table><br /><br />I think the reporter made an error saying "produce oxygen", but I would give the rest credence (especially since the USA Swimming website has numerous mentions of lactate testing session held by the technical support coaches) .<br /><br />Here's a picture of Phelps being tested:<br /><br /><a href='http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/Desk ... ow&Lang=en' target='_blank'>http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/Desk ... Lang=en</a> <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Now Jim,<br /><br />You know better than to bring facts that dispute John's lunatic ravings into the discussion! Otherwise we'd be endlessly discussing how medical science has actually increased the average lifespan of mankind as opposed to killing us off quicker and more efficiently than ever. Not to mention why going to Mexico, through all the polution, is the only way to get true quality dental care.

[old] Jim Barry · Post by **[old] Jim Barry** » February 6th, 2006, 5:34 pm

I know Paul. It was a moment of weakness! I actually DO NOT reply an awful lot (highly recommended).

[old] dougsurf · Post by **[old] dougsurf** » February 6th, 2006, 5:59 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(PaulS @ Feb 6 2006, 02:06 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Jim Barry @ Feb 6 2006, 01:01 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>I think USA Swimming is still into Lactate testing. <br /><br />From <a href='http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/olym ... 8957.story' target='_blank'>http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/olym ... ory</a><br /><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Phelps' lactate, a measure of the body's ability to produce oxygen, is constantly monitored by USA Swimming. </td></tr></table><br /><br />I think the reporter made an error saying "produce oxygen", but I would give the rest credence (especially since the USA Swimming website has numerous mentions of lactate testing session held by the technical support coaches) .<br /><br />Here's a picture of Phelps being tested:<br /><br /><a href='http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/Desk ... ow&Lang=en' target='_blank'>http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/Desk ... Lang=en</a> <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Now Jim,<br /><br />You know better than to bring facts that dispute John's lunatic ravings into the discussion! Otherwise we'd be endlessly discussing how medical science has actually increased the average lifespan of mankind as opposed to killing us off quicker and more efficiently than ever. Not to mention why going to Mexico, through all the polution, is the only way to get true quality dental care. <br /> </td></tr></table><br />There is a similar recent picture of Lance Armstrong using the Lactate Pro. Not quite an extinct method it seems.<br /><br />Nice post Paul. See my recent "Erratic Start ..." for my own word to the wise on the Lactate Pro. But I hope nobody misinterprets it as testamony against it. Just a reality check. Did anyone start with heart rate monitoring like I did? Thinking it initially a revolutionary window into the body, but to be a bit miffed to look further and find that it varied with temperature, fatigue, mood, hydration, etc.? Lactate is appearing to be similar. In some aspects it can be far more accurate and useful than HR alone in selecting a training zone, but start using it and you find a half dozen mistakes to be made in drawing blood, affecting accuracy. And then you'll find that levels vary due to non-exercise factors like diet and illness.<br /><br />So does that make it "inaccurate" and useless? Attitude check time. Do you always throw the baby out with the bathwater? There is one prominent and respected author among us who rejects not only lactate, but HR monitors, the "mythological" anearobic threshold, any usefulness in consideration of fast twitch vs. slow twich muscle development, periodization, and probably more. Don't mean to pick on him, as he is very successful and well thought of. But I don't like anyone suggesting that what's useless to them is useless to everyone. Its all grist for the mill.<br /><br />It'll take me time, but I look forward to learning quite a bit more about my body than I did before, and what I'm doing to myself in different training bands, after lots of lactate samples are taken.<br /><br />- Doug

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » February 6th, 2006, 6:41 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(John Rupp @ Feb 6 2006, 12:17 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Lactate testing is not accurate, not useful, and is not used any more by the best coaches in the world, i.e. coaches of the Ethiopian and Kenyan runners for example.<br /><br />Probably the top swimming coaches don't use it either. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Yes, I know swimmers get tested, so as runners get tested.<br /><br />That is not the same as Phelp's coach using lactate testing as a guide to his training.<br /><br />I seriously doubt that he does that.

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » February 6th, 2006, 6:44 pm

From the article:<br /><br />"we concluded that 2 mmol/l concentration is a physiologically acceptable level to reach during post-race recovery. Our investigations show that sprinters need to swim down for 25 to 30 minutes to reach a level of 2 mmol/l lactate concentration after the race. Middle distance swimmers need to swim down for 20 to 25 minutes. Distance swimmers need a much shorter time to reach 2 mmol/l lactate concentration after their race. Typically, they reach this concentration after 10 to 15 minutes of recovery swimming."<br /><br />So they swam easy to recover, and this helped to remove the acidity from their muscles.<br /><br />This is not such an outstanding conclusion, is nothing new, and is certainly not anything that anyone needs to poke a hole in their ear to find out.

[old] dougsurf · Post by **[old] dougsurf** » February 6th, 2006, 8:43 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(John Rupp @ Feb 6 2006, 03:44 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>From the article:<br /><br />"we concluded that 2 mmol/l concentration is a physiologically acceptable level to reach during post-race recovery. Our investigations show that sprinters need to swim down for 25 to 30 minutes to reach a level of 2 mmol/l lactate concentration after the race. Middle distance swimmers need to swim down for 20 to 25 minutes. Distance swimmers need a much shorter time to reach 2 mmol/l lactate concentration after their race. Typically, they reach this concentration after 10 to 15 minutes of recovery swimming."<br /><br />So they swam easy to recover, and this helped to remove the acidity from their muscles.<br /><br />This is not such an outstanding conclusion, is nothing new, and is certainly not anything that anyone needs to poke a hole in their ear to find out. <br /> </td></tr></table><br />Reasonable thought, and most will buy it. Most of the world gets by just fine by doing a random length of "conversational" rowing to cool down, and stop when they feel good, have a slower HR, and sweat less. It's a question of how well you want to know what's going on though. How many will vary the length of their cooldown as much as your article sites? And just how hard should you row for optimum Lactate clearance? We know that cooldown works because the aerobic system is consuming Lactate. So wouldn't something harder than the usual conversational piece work better, faster? And at just what point is it too much where you start accumulating it again? Can you tell that from your HR monitor, or just by how you feel? Just depends on how many layers of the onion you wish to peel, and how much you care about optimal recovery, which I know I care about more and more.

[old] PaulS · Post by **[old] PaulS** » February 6th, 2006, 9:46 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(dougsurf @ Feb 6 2006, 01:59 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>There is a similar recent picture of Lance Armstrong using the Lactate Pro. Not quite an extinct method it seems.<br /><br />Nice post Paul. See my recent "Erratic Start ..." for my own word to the wise on the Lactate Pro. <br /><br />So does that make it "inaccurate" and useless? Attitude check time. Do you always throw the baby out with the bathwater? There is one prominent and respected author among us who rejects not only lactate, but HR monitors, the "mythological" anearobic threshold, any usefulness in consideration of fast twitch vs. slow twich muscle development, periodization, and probably more. Don't mean to pick on him, as he is very successful and well thought of. But I don't like anyone suggesting that what's useless to them is useless to everyone. Its all grist for the mill.<br /><br />- Doug <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Uh-on, more of those pesky facts!<br /><br />I started this thread after seeing your "erratic start" post, I thought of just doing it there, but since the LP was only part of the overall discussion decided on the new Topic.<br /><br />I think you are mistaking the "prominent and respected" authors more holistic training methods to be rejection of science and laboratory analysis of physiological characteristics. My interpretation of his recommendations would lean toward something like, "After seeing everything I have, and it's undoubtedly in excess of most of the athletic training community, I have arrived at the conclusion that to rely on the minutia is of little practical efficacy for all but a very small population of the extreme top performers."<br /><br />We don't get the "big bucks" for the time it takes to make a recommendation, it's for the time it took to know which recommendation to make.

[old] Coach Gus · Post by **[old] Coach Gus** » February 6th, 2006, 11:37 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(dougsurf @ Feb 6 2006, 01:59 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Did anyone start with heart rate monitoring like I did? Thinking it initially a revolutionary window into the body, but to be a bit miffed to look further and find that it varied with temperature, fatigue, mood, hydration, etc.? [right] <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Why would you be miffed that HR monitoring "varied with temperature, fatigue, mood, hydration, etc.?" This is why it's so valuable, because it does monitor the body and heart's effort in relationship to how these factors affect it. <br /><br />To not do so would be asking for something that monitors how hard the heart is working without adjusting for effort. It doesn't make sense.

[old] dougsurf · Post by **[old] dougsurf** » February 7th, 2006, 12:12 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(PaulS @ Feb 6 2006, 06:46 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><br />Uh-on, more of those pesky facts!<br /><br />I started this thread after seeing your "erratic start" post, I thought of just doing it there, but since the LP was only part of the overall discussion decided on the new Topic.<br /><br />I think you are mistaking the "prominent and respected" authors more holistic training methods to be rejection of science and laboratory analysis of physiological characteristics. My interpretation of his recommendations would lean toward something like, "After seeing everything I have, and it's undoubtedly in excess of most of the athletic training community, I have arrived at the conclusion that to rely on the minutia is of little practical efficacy for all but a very small population of the extreme top performers."<br /><br />We don't get the "big bucks" for the time it takes to make a recommendation, it's for the time it took to know which recommendation to make. <br /> </td></tr></table><br />Are you agreeing with JR, and consider lactate testing "minutia of little practical efficacy"? <br /><br />Do you need to be a top performer, a record holder, to be justified in using whatever is available to fine tune your edge? I think there are a lot of us who are clearly not top performers, yet are at the top or ceiling of our game, and justifiably yearn for the possibility of nudging it higher, through knowledge we might not have yet encountered. And many many here who are fighting that mortal battle just as ferociously as the top performers.<br /><br />Any coach who advises an athlete not to think, to ignore a very wide array of tools others have researched and written about, and to only do this and this, in my opinion is doing a grave disservice. It is why, when I am at the boathouse with the crew and coach I always do just shut up and row. But when it comes to my personal fitness, I don't realy trust any coach any more than I trust a broker with all of my finances. But I digress, sorry.<br /><br />I wish I'd titled that thread a bit more generically, and gotten more response on lactate testing. It appears not to be very widely used. I'll go fill up Xeno's blog instead.

[old] dougsurf · Post by **[old] dougsurf** » February 7th, 2006, 12:24 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Coach Gus @ Feb 6 2006, 08:37 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(dougsurf @ Feb 6 2006, 01:59 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Did anyone start with heart rate monitoring like I did? Thinking it initially a revolutionary window into the body, but to be a bit miffed to look further and find that it varied with temperature, fatigue, mood, hydration, etc.? [right] <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Why would you be miffed that HR monitoring "varied with temperature, fatigue, mood, hydration, etc.?" This is why it's so valuable, because it does monitor the body and heart's effort in relationship to how these factors affect it. <br /><br />To not do so would be asking for something that monitors how hard the heart is working without adjusting for effort. It doesn't make sense. <br /> </td></tr></table><br />You get it Gus, but many don't. I've heard people complain that they just want a meter that reads the same thing for the same effort, and become confused by those variances. It's the same mindset that complains that there isn't a universal definition of where the anearobic threshold is, or that some define it as 4mmol and others as twice the aerobic threshold, or that it rises on a high carb diet, etc. etc. Thus the claim that lactate testing is inaccurate. Biology is just messy sometimes. But if you keep your eyes open long enough, there's plenty to learn from that messy data.

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