The sporting world has gone Recovery mad: ice baths, Sports drinks, Gels, high-pressure showers, massage……..it has gotten to the point where some athletes and coaches are putting Recovery before Hard Training. So what is Recovery? Why is it important? And most importantly what is the role of Recovery in enhancing the competition performance of athletes?
It is estimated that there were about ten million books written and published in the world in the last year. It is also estimated, that of those ten million books published, around 9,999,000 were on the topic of leadership. Read more…
Positive Drug Tests in sport.
What sort of idiot trains hard for months or even years then:
That’s just it: they are idiots. Well most of them are anyway. Some are misguided. Some are lazy. Some just made a genuine mistake.
Positive Drug Tests in Sport: 6 Types of Drug Cheats and How to Recognise them. (more…)
Message to the Sports Science community – are you kidding?
Altitude training?
I thought the old approach to altitude training was done and dusted but to my amazement, nations continue to invest in one of the most questionable sports performance “enhancement” methodologies in the business.
You can’t be serious! (more…)
So Great Britain has an outstanding high performance sports system.
Australia had one a few years ago…and they hope to have it again.
The “Eastern Block” had some brilliant high performance sports systems – systems which influenced the development of high performance sport all over the world in the three decades since.
The Chinese have a huge one driven by State money and a very large population.
The French are doing some great things in theirs.
The US has a strong high performance system driven through the College system.
South Korea, Japan and India are growing theirs. Canada is re-building theirs.
The South Americans will be working hard to make their high performance systems the best in the world now that Rio has been announced as the host city of the 2016 Olympic Games.
South Africa is building one on the back of the Football World Cup.
Seems like every nation in the world has to have three things – a flag, a carbon policy and a high performance sports system.
Here’s the thing…..none of them do what they are supposed to do….none of them actually produce winners. (more…)
I was recently asked to talk to a group of students about high performance sport. We discussed all the “usual” topics: talent identification, sports science, elite coach development and sports medicine.
One of the students asked me, “Is there a difference between Medicine (as in general practice medicine) and Sports Medicine as it exists in high performance sport”? (more…)