Are athletes really getting faster, better, stronger?

I don't know if the source is reliable. Off film, Brown was pretty fast, but clearly generally not the fastest guy on the field. However, how much does running a lot and getting hit a lot take off of speed? Brown carried the ball often. He had a heavy workload as a runner and played every play. He looks fastest on the quick opener in the final 1958 game versus the Giants in which he runs past their secondary. He was not hit. In a 1957 run against the Rams he is hit several times but keeps going, breaks into the clear, but is run down by #21 of the Rams who catches him at the 7 yard line. Brown just drags him into the end zone.

That raises the key issue. There are few plays where a running back gets to just run in straight line, but most of the time he has to weave back and forth, break tackles, follow blockers, and run to daylight. Watching Brown what stands out isn't speed but balance. He is hard to knock off his feet. There is a play in which he is spun around by a tackler but runs several yards BACKWARDS before turning and then cutting to avoid another tackler. That play isn't unique. The highlight reel I just watched showed another play in which he actually runs backwards for a few steps.

A great running back is often like a jackrabbit trying to avoid a hawk. It isn't just straight away speed. It is quickly changing direction and elusiveness, and also strength and balance.

My take is I don't know how Brown would do today or how this or that modern runner would do in the 1950's. But several facts stand out. Brown would still be a big running back, even if not out-sized in his own day. For whatever reason, the explosion in size we see in linemen is not as obvious in the skill positions like running back and wide receivers (the top receiver last year was Antonio Brown at 5' 10" and 180, smallish even for the 1950's)
Jim Brown was ultra-great in his own day, more dominant than any runner is today. And while size and speed and perhaps strength can be measured, the X factors of balance, the ability of quickly change direction, and simply the instinct to run to daylight are beyond any measurement.

I don't think Jim Brown was considered a "freak of nature" because of his speed. It was the total package. After all, several backs, notably Ollie Matson (also big at 6' 2" and 220) were clearly faster.

If we compare gridiron football to heavyweight boxing, there is not that gap in size that one has comparing a Lewis to a Louis, or a Klitschko to a Marciano. Antonio Brown is actually smaller than Don Hutson. Ezekial Elliott is not as big as Jim Brown.

So my conclusion is that to a degree the superior athlete arguments are based more on ideology than provable facts concerning gridiron football.

 

I don't doubt that Brown would probably be a more formidable athlete with the benefits of modern training. But I don't think that's inconsistent with anything I've been saying (but I've been rambling a lot so maybe I haven't expressed myself clearly).

 

This is outside of my knowledge base so I'm having a hard time grasping how this works in practice. So pardon my unsophisticated questions. Is the idea that boxers basically only use their anaerobic capabilities when they're throwing punches (or slipping/bobbing and weaving, I guess)? If so, does it follow that boxers who have better anaerobic fitness are able to punch and avoid punches more often and vigorously? How exactly does aerobic fitness tie in here? More specifically, how exactly would marginal improvements in a fighter's aerobic capacity help them in the ring?

 

It's not as complicated as the Thong Squad is making it, mrkoolkevin.

The body uses three energy systems in the ring:

1. The phospho-creatine system 2. The glycolytic system 3. The oxidative system

The first one fuels a short, all-out effort like weightlifting, sprinting, or throwing a flurry. 3-15 seconds of activity. The second one fuels longer high-intensity work, and requires 3-5 minutes to recover. The third, oxidative system, is used to help the body recover between all-out efforts. That's where aerobic exercise comes in.

The body needs all three systems.

Here is what Teri Tom, MS, RD, says about them:

 

It only looks arrogant to somebody who cares more about hurt feelings than the truth.

Dr. Hatfield was absolutely right.

And since you people enjoy citing studies from other combat sports like judo or taekwondo, let's just close the door on that nonsense right now:

My, my. I guess Holyfield chose a competent coach to train him for the biggest fight of his career, after all.

 

If you actually read the stuff I posted you'd know that's totally wrong.

When you use lactate anaerobic metabolism it's to compensate for when not enough energy is being released from aerobic metabolism. Look at the examples from middle distance running. 800m is under 2min of running at a high level and is over 60% aerobic. And that's a single all out effort.

Stuff like hard intervals are poor for aerobic developement. It's all been tried plenty, they only help much for peaking, again if you actually read what I posted, you'd know this.

Of course you can find a quote to agree with you. It's a fad, fads happen because people support them. It's trash.

 

I've literally been arguing in favor of modern training in this thread, ya lunatic.

 

What do you make of these findings?

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-013-0115-0

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-015-0365-0

https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1113/JP273196

https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/hukin/44/1/article-p97.xml

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/obr.12395

https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/17414804

This is outside of my bailiwick but they all seem to find strong evidence that high-intensity intervals improve aerobic capacity.

 

So basically there's aerobic metabolism, and two anaerobic energy pathways.

I assume you are familar with aerobic (oxygen dependant) vs anaerobic (not oxygen dependant).

But the two types of anaerobic metabolism are totally different and can't really be lumped together. There's the alactic anaerobic pathway which allows very short bursts of power, and the lactic one, which is basically just incomplete aerobic metabolism, and the byproduct is turned into lactic acid. Basically the last part of the aerobic pathway is where most of the energy is released, but it requires oxygen, if there's more energy needed than there is oxygen for the aerobic pathway, you can make it up by just doing the first part of the pathway.

Like I said, you are going to want to prepare for some lactic acid before a fight, but it interferes with aerobic developement, and alactic power training (which is why both Charlie Francis and Lydaird avoided the durations and intensities that produced lactic acid for the majority of their training). The actual improvements you can make at your use of lactic acid metabolism are pretty limited too, as well as previously stated relying lactic metabolism for energy lowering performance.

But if you improve your aerobic capacity, you'll be able to release more energy before you build up lactic acid, you'll have better lactic acid clearance, and when you have to use lactic acid metabolism, you can release a lot more energy because you don't stop using aerobic metabolism in that state. This is why middle distance training focuses so much on aerobic developement.

Does that make sense?

 

I could go through them later, but a couple general points will likely answer your questions. And if I don't have access to the full text, it'll be hard to really go through anything specific.

Doing it will certainly get an aerobic improvement, just less than you could get with high volume aerobic training. The main issue is the impact they have on recovery.

The other thing is, it's often measured in VO2max, which has some issues. VO2max is self limited, and by practicing pushing yourself, you can raise that limit so you'll do better on the test, but that's not the same as long term improvement (though it could be usefull to peak).

Another issue is that generally in the studies I've seen comparing intervals with steady state training, they are short term, which favours peaking over long term improvement, and the steady state group often has far too little volume, way less than doable. Remember Lydaird had people running 100miles per week.

 

of Course they are getting better. look at the world records in Swimming for example. a top swimmer of the 1920´s would be laughed at by todays Standards.

 

1. The top swimmers used to have to be amateurs, this massively held back performance. Tons of top athletes got banned over this, and that they couldn't even make any decent money from it gave a lot less incentive to get to the top, and be as good as possible
2. Differences in equipment are massive in swimming, large record increases have regularly been caused by changes in the pool, swimming clothing etc.

 

top swimmers are still Amateurs! and the difference in equiptment doesnt explain the huge difference. let a swimmer of today use the swimshorts of yesteryear……..and he´d still Smash the Oldtimer out of the water. no comparison.
much more relevant factors are improvement in Swimming technique and the althletes themselves. much larger, more powerfull...more athletic.
the male swimmers of the 1920´s for example have the physiques of a modern day FEMALE swimmers!!
no wonder they cant hang with the new breed.
i´m a swimmer on my University swim Team. trust me. i know.

 

Really, do they still have to fit their training around their jobs? Do they still regularly get banned for accepting expencises and prizes?

You can say all of that, it's meaningless until someone actually tries it. Without that, we don't know exactly how much of a difference all these things make.

 

yes they still have to fit their Training around their Jobs/studies.

and yes, the old equiptment has been tried by modern swimmers. i myself have tried this "old School" Swimming garments…...and there was no significant decrease in Speed compared to my usual speedo.