S69 I`ll add more to your points later:
Big read guys so grab a coffee
THE PATH TO A SCIENTIFIC THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
OF SPORTS TRAINING
PART 3
JV Verhoshansky
4. Scientific and practical inadequacies in periodisation and the basis of
the theory of sports training obviously neglect biological knowledge and
reduce them to general pedagogics. Undoubtedly, general pedagogics bears a
certain relation to the theory of sports training, but does not provide
either a serious basis, nor an objective quantification of the subject matter
according to the strict scientific method. Consequently, it cannot serve as
a theoretical or methodological base for the theory of sports training.
However, pedagogical theories of sports training still managed to furnish
ample opportunity for creating unsubstantiated, eloquent mental models.
Their "scientific character" was founded on the criteria of Soviet system of
that time which relied on reasoning based on the "education of communist
morals" and on "the socio-pedagogical organization of sports activityâ€.
However, as is known, a house built on sand will not last forever.
It should be noted that the pedagogical (i.e. educational) model of sports
training was always accepted by the experts, as it always involved issues of
"education" of force or endurance, "education" of speed of movements, or
flexibility and so forth. However, it was explicit nonsense. It is profane
to apply such analogies. For example, if we applied that sort of analogy to
Soviet biology then, we would have party ideologists of that time fooling
science with similar concepts about the "education" of plants.
Concepts about professional skill of the trainer and scientific criteria for
training were all that simplistic. Skill was reduced according to
recommendations with even a minimum scientific foundation, often just "to
educate consciously for the ideals of communismâ€. The focus on overriding
pedagogical objectives of knowledge in biology, biomechanics, biophysics,
physiology and other natural sciences was not so obligatory, because they did
not cover the public scope of sports.
More specifically, the ideas of "fundamentals of sports training" and
periodisation are also equally primitive. Actually, complete and systematic
validation of these methods in academic publications is not present. However,
all of this emerged by assembling separate fragments and declarations,
including so-called pedagogical supervision, recording of sports results in
separate sports, the out-of-date analytic-synthetic principle, and the
generalization of experience of sports practice “in part supported by
research material and supplemented by theoretical reasonsâ€.
With the purpose of giving scientific validity to these methods, it was
stated, for example, by the Council of Federation that carefully computed
analysis was essential for overcoming subjective reasoning. Such computing
analysis consisted of calculating "reasonably rigid bottom critical zonesâ€
concerning sports achievements, with limits not being below 1.5-2.0 %
increase from personal record achievement in cyclic sports and 3-5% in power
sports. If the athlete showed results below these "critical zones", the
methods of training and levels of progress were not acceptable to the Council
of Federation.
As to the dynamics of the Council of Federation, here "the computing analysis
" consists of fitting a curve through the best results expressed in
percentage of the maximum achievement. This method is illustrated by curves
carefully drawn by hand, as it was required that the graphs reflected the
"laws of waviness of dynamics of the Council of Federationâ€. Today it is
unnecessary to accept orientation to sports results and the wavy dynamics
hidden in the wavy dynamics of the Council of Federation as a serious
technique for investigating the "laws" of sports training.
It is especially naive to look for verification based upon the notorious
peaks of the Council of Federation and only on the examples of two oustanding
runners, R.Klarka and H.Rono, whose organization of training is very poorly
known, besides the fact that (probably, fortunately for them) they knew
nothing about ‘periodisation’ training and the "laws of management of
dynamics of the Council of Federationâ€.
The weakness of periodisation emerges in its little scientific merit, its low
informative value and the uncertainty of material from which the basic
generalizations, principles and "laws" were extracted. It was derived mainly
by analysing unknown intricacies of the available data on the volume and
dynamics of the training loads performed by some athletes.
Thus, unfortunately, despite the various arguments and a technical
definitions based on the methodology and rules ostensibly contained in the
periodisation model, it may be seen that periodisation has no serious
experimental foundation and it is not "the lantern illuminating the road to
the traveller " about which Francis Bacon spoke. Consequently, the concept
of "periodisation", once conceived as the training manual for top level
sport, finally has been questioned as suitable scholastic subject matter and
has forever separated its author from advanced sciences and the practice of
sport. Therefore subsequent articles, designed on the basis of suggestions
made to unsophisticated readers about the exclusiveness and versatility of
periodisation are no longer valid.
5. There are serious doubts concerning the nature of periodisation and its
formalised, mechanical reductionism of the training process on the basis of
subjectively selected components of all kinds, including cycles, stages, and
periods which comprise ‘periodisation’.
The argument here was very simple: the training process and sports
perfection cannot occur outside the analogous phases of acquisition,
conservation and temporal loss as laid down by the Council of Federation.
Here, one notes that appropriate training periods stand out: preparatory, and
transitional, and the organization of "macrocyclic" training as determined
by the management of general progress by the Council of Federation. This
Council categorically asserts that "all other forms of construction of trainin
g, even though they may seem good, inevitably will die off if they contradict
the objective laws of the given processâ€.
Formal following of the laws of development of the Council of Federation has
resulted in distortion of representations about tasks and a content for a
long time the preparatory in sports preparatory and competitive periods. The
rectilinear logic of an explanation of their problems (preparation, then
competitions) not only conformed little to objective reality, but it also
disoriented trainers and sports scientists.
So, the preparatory period was reduced to an analogy of intense "actual
spadework" in the realm of normal society. The competitive period intended
for competitions and the "stabilization" phase were identified at the behest
of the Council of Federation and consisted of competitive and so-called
intermediate and restorative preparatory mesocycles.
Thus, in the competitive period, the traditional model of periodisation
declares that the training of athletes is only realized, restored and
supported, but such a primitive understanding of "periodisation" is far from
representing the facts. Actually, in many cyclic and team sports during the
competitive period, the level achieved earlier is trained not only for
reasons of maintenance, but also for development. If we appreciate the
theory of adaptation, the prime objective of the competitive period consists
of completing the current cycle of long-term adaptation of the body to a
specific regime, as well as raising it to a new steady level of special
functionalities.
Here also it is necessary to keep in mind the increase in the length of the
competitive period, the number of the important competitions in one year and
the intense demands of the schedule of competitions for each sport. In
particular, in international cycling, the duration of the competitive period
reaches 8-8.5 months in one year. Thus, clearly, a discrete preparatory
period cannot be long enough to allow "fundamental preparation". Therefore,
the fundamental progress of the training process actually occurs during the
long-term competitive period.
Mechanistic distinction of the preparatory and competitive periods, plus
their various tasks, has seriously disoriented sports practice and led to
extremely harmful representations of what the athlete apparently accumulates
in the preparatory period and realizes in competition.
Official plans and complex programs of preparation for the combined teams of
the country not only abounded with similar terminology, but also followed
the content and principles of the organization of training that did not
provide optimum conditions. This adversely affected decisions regarding
problems of preparation over the annual cycle, distorted all strategy for
organising training and violated the natural course of the adaptable process
which provides the foundation for progress of sporting skill. To continue to
follow principles such as "periodisation" is all the same as if an orchestra
were to liberally transpose musical scores and rules across different
muscical situations. It is equally absurd to allow periodisation to distort
modern sports in this manner.
Translated and adapted from Teoriya i Praktika Fizischekoi, 1997
Here is the fourth and final part of Dr Verkhoshansky's liberally translated
article on the validity of periodisation adapted from 'Teoriya i Prakt
Fizischeskoi Kultury' (1997). The extensive bibiography of some 120
references has been omitted for sake of brevity. As Dr Verkhoshansky
remarked at the end of the article: "The size of the article resulted in its
bibliography providing only a small part of the work referring to the
critical analysis of the problem being considered."
Note that all of Dr Verkhoshansky's criticism was
directed at the work of Matveev. There are many models of periodisation, a
large variety of which are discussed elsewhere (Siff & Verkhoshansky
"Supertraining" 1999 Ch 6).
THE PATH TO A SCIENTIFIC THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
OF SPORTS TRAINING
PART 4 (Final)
J.V.Verkhoshansky
6. The rudimentary part of periodisation lies in its manner of constructing
the training process.
The idea of periodisation consists of joining separate parts of the training
process in a linear sequence. The main structural unit in training is the
microcycle. The training process is represented as the sum of microcyles
aligned in a chain, the logic of linearity being defined only speculatively,
mainly on a principle of "it is possible, so it is valid to use standard
separate 'typical' microcycles with various names" thus 'lining up'like
children's building blocks under various names appointed by Matveev for the
longer parts of training process such as "mesocycles" which, in turn, are
united in "macrocycles". Such a linear principle of constructing the
training process, according to Matveev, allows one to overcome the familiar
vagueness of the structure of training and to more accurately reflect its
actual variability.
However, subsequent research has not confirmed this conclusion. It tends to
reveal a na€ ïve primitiveness of similar technology and has shown, firstly, in
practice, that other methods produce results indistinguishable from those of
periodisation; secondly, they have shown the superficiality of models of the
training process as a linear combination of certain standard parts and,
finally, they have again confirmed the opinion of experts that the progress
of a sport is unpredictable if one uses periodisation.
7. One of most essential deficiencies in periodisation highlighted today by
progress in the biological sciences, is that it consists only two factors in
regulating the training of the athlete, namely the volume and intensity of
the training load. This concept does not consider different ways for
constructing training, except, perhaps, for the primitive undulation of the
total amount of the load. Thus, since this involved a total increase of
volume of loads over all years of sports programming , periodisation remained
the primary factor for increasing the efficiency of the training process.
This explains why periodisation became not only a procedure of training, but
also the entire system for preparing athletes.
Thus, outside the field of vision of periodisation, there was the vast field
of adaptable processes, associated with the transformation of the qualitative
characteristics of external influences on the body into internal physical
changes. Misunderstanding problems of specificity of adaptation of the body
has involved Matveev in verbose reasoning on the so-called 'carry-over' of
skills and potential talents - a genuine phenomenon, inherent mainly to
physical training, but not to the specifics of the major sports. Now, for
example, if a physical education student in physiology today wrote in an
examination, that "many cyclic locomotor exercises, obviously varying
according to their specific form (running, swimming, skiing and a bicycle
etc.), are close in nature to the actual competitive exercises on the basis
of their character of displaying endurance and other motor qualities", a low
mark would be awarded.
Questioning periodisation appeared powerless before the person of its
creator, though it was only necessary to open books to easily discern that
the phenomenon of selective, specific adaptive reactions of the body to a
given mode of training has been known for a long time. There it would also
have been noted that this is one of the major criteria for choosing the
content and organising training loads, the primary orientation of their
training influence and their general composition.
Today, when possibilities of the finding new methods of periodisation have
strongly decreased, and volumes of loads have reached a reasonable limit,
management of specific training strongly influences the training load,
which offers a unique way of increasing the effectiveness of training of
highly qualified athletes. Reasoning based on 'carry-over',especially in
emphasizing the role of periodisation in sporting preparation, return one to
the level of the 1950s.
The literature concerning the physiological mechanisms of the specificity of
training is extensive. Ignoring these insights - one more most serious
aspects of periodisation -involved huge expenditure of money and time, as
well as great energy devoted by athletes to training with very little effect.
Finally, it ruined the plans of preparation of many athletes who aimed to
achieve top sporting performance.
So, four fundamental defects have deprived periodisation of any theoretical
and practical importance:
1. Weak representations of actual sports activities, of technology in the
preparation of very qualified athletes, and of specificity in the
professional skill of the trainer.
2. The primitiveness of the methodological concept, a model not supported by
an objective foundation; mental methodological principles; absence of proven
practical recommendations.
3. The disregard for biological research.
4. The neglect of progress in adjacent sciences and experimental work in the
field of sports training.
CONCLUSION
Very often critical remarks end with conciliatory conclusions such as
"nevertheless the merit (of the author, the theory, a literary work and so
forth) consists of.....". I cannot follow this principle. I want to
emphasize that, if theory and practice had not followed the path of
periodisation theory, as planned by our trainers and scientists over the past
50 years, by today we would have achieved a far superior scientific, more
consistent, advanced theory and methodology of sports training.
But for the carelessness of the former federal, political and educational
authorities in the USSR, a main specialist subject of the curriculum for
physical culture would not have been be submitted by the scholastic demagogy
cultivating obscurantism of scientific knowledge; and whole generations of
students and post-graduate students would not have been subjected to the
deformed representations about the sports profession. Many capable experts
would have been freed to publish and exchange ideas and experience, as well
as successfully presenting substantial dissertations and endowing the theory
of sports training with a solid scientific basis.
"If you don't have conditioning it doesn't matter how big your muscles are they ain't gonna reach their full potential!"
21st century Takism
"wyrd bið ful aræd" Destiny is Everything