It is not such a controversial idea at all.
The power transfer that you get from modern running shoes compared with those of 30 years ago is unreal, and that factor alone has led to the world's top athletes getting longer and longer strides. Just wait until Geb or Bekele lace up some of these bad boys before the start of their next race:
J.O. wrote:
Strides will get longer. This does not require pharmacology.
I think this opinion is too obvious to be controversial, so why do so few people express it?
Wow, is this really a thread??
Why wouldn't world records get faster?? I keep rereading the subject and keep LOLing.
A lot of posters here are obsessed with the drugs = faster times dogma.
Drugs do equal faster times. Not the only way to get faster times, but one way. I wish it weren't so but the science on steroids, blood boosting agents, etc. is pretty cut and dry.
I too remain hopeful that world records will be broken by clean athletes.
someone else wrote:
J.O. wrote:Yes training and racing are still progressing. The sport is still young. Imagine in 100 years? 200 years? 300 years?
The top runners only go as fast as they need to to win races or set World Records.
A lot of runners and statisticians seem to me to be quite insecure about the idea that this process will just keep going and going for a very long time.
Can a man run a Marathon with a 2 meter stride? Of course it will happen, a long time in the future, and that will be an almost incredible pace, but it won't be the limit.
Whether or not you want to believe it, the human body is limited, and the progress of world records has already slowed quite a bit. I really don't get how you think this is scientifically feasible, you know, just increasing stride length over time and BINGO, you have self-perpetuating world record cycles. That's not how the real world is. In any case, your proposition is not as "common sense" as you make it out to be. I think you are way too confident that you are right. If you are so certain, then I guess no amount of reason would convince you to think otherwise. How do you know what the stride length will be in 50-100 years? To base this all on the progression of stride length is ridiculous.
At some point, due to the effects of drugs, it will become more and more likely that the world records are held by drug cheats because more and more talented people will get their hands on them.
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You are very silly. Do you really believe that my best races as a Forty something year old with no speed were really run at 90+ % of the limits of human performance?
Don't be ridiculous.
Mr. Obvious wrote:
What are the systems that need to be more trained in order to increase stride length? Less ground contact time? More power? Faster nerve response/muscle firing?
Ground contact time comes from your pace, so the faster you go, the shorter it gets and this also increases stride rate.
To increase stride length, you have to practice a longer stride until you learn to do it without thinking.
Could it be more obvious?
rekrunner wrote:
How does it help to look at stride lengths, rather than something like race times? Maybe it would help me to see where you want to go with this alternate viewpoint.
It's easy to increase stride length, and decrease stride rate, and end up with a slower time. (We call this overstriding).
It's easy to increase stride length, by cutting the race distance in half.
What you are really saying, is that stride lengths will get longer, without decreasing stride rates, or compromising the endurance to complete the race distance, presumably with the right training approach, and without drugs.
Assuming we just set a PR, and that stride rates remain fairly constant for an athlete, then it becomes a meaningless tautology. Times will get faster, because times will get faster. It's too obvious to be controversial, yet few people express it.
What's the consequence of changing perspectives? The next step is to see how that affects your approach to training. Does anything change? If not, then what's the value added of measuring stride lengths, and stride rates, versus simply looking at race times? If so, then what?
Why does it help to look at stride rates? For the same reason you look at training times. Is your training working?
Stride rates don't remain constant at faster paces. Where did you get that idea?
How will times get faster? You need to adress this issue instead of just blathering the same old same old.
This is not a new idea, it has been around even longer than you have. Why does it seem such an alien concept to you?
J.O. wrote:
A lot of posters here are obsessed with the drugs = faster times dogma.
But you seem to think that a 10 point increase in hematocrit won't help an athlete's performance physically, only mentally as some sort of placebo effect.
You is stupid.
Trolli, do you study at the Matt Yates School of Paranoia?
Do you think that Ovett, Coe, Cram and Elliott were on the gear too?
J.O. wrote:
Trolli, do you study at the Matt Yates School of Paranoia?
Do you think that Ovett, Coe, Cram and Elliott were on the gear too?
What was paranoid about my post?
I just said that you don't believe that a 10 point increase in hematocrit improves performance in a physical sense, it's just a placebo.
Your general drugs paranoia.
I do think that EPO will have a pyschosomatic effect. It's such a huge emotional investment. Those athletes who use it are burning their bridges and risking everything they have worked hard for, for so many years. They have to improve, and they will try harder.
Also, they must believe it is going to work, otherwise what would be the point?
J.O. wrote:
Your general drugs paranoia.
I do think that EPO will have a pyschosomatic effect. It's such a huge emotional investment. Those athletes who use it are burning their bridges and risking everything they have worked hard for, for so many years. They have to improve, and they will try harder.
Also, they must believe it is going to work, otherwise what would be the point?
So a 10 point increase in hematocrit doesn't improve performance then?
Can you confirm that this is what you're saying please?
Does your skepticism extend to steroids for explosive events? Is that all in the athlete's head too?
J.O. wrote:
someone else wrote:Whether or not you want to believe it, the human body is limited, and the progress of world records has already slowed quite a bit. I really don't get how you think this is scientifically feasible, you know, just increasing stride length over time and BINGO, you have self-perpetuating world record cycles. That's not how the real world is. In any case, your proposition is not as "common sense" as you make it out to be. I think you are way too confident that you are right. If you are so certain, then I guess no amount of reason would convince you to think otherwise. How do you know what the stride length will be in 50-100 years? To base this all on the progression of stride length is ridiculous.
At some point, due to the effects of drugs, it will become more and more likely that the world records are held by drug cheats because more and more talented people will get their hands on them.
*******************************************
You are very silly. Do you really believe that my best races as a Forty something year old with no speed were really run at 90+ % of the limits of human performance?
Don't be ridiculous.
This makes absolutely no sense and is not even relevant, much less a refutation of my point. Try again.
J.O. wrote:
Mr. Obvious wrote:What are the systems that need to be more trained in order to increase stride length? Less ground contact time? More power? Faster nerve response/muscle firing?
Ground contact time comes from your pace, so the faster you go, the shorter it gets and this also increases stride rate.
To increase stride length, you have to practice a longer stride until you learn to do it without thinking.
Could it be more obvious?
I just figured out you were trolling. Wow, 8/10. Decent job, if you weren't so blatant about it.
I'm not trolling, that should be rather obvious. So by the same logic, you probably are trolling.
Did Matt Yates get to you too, or are you Matt Yates?
damn my eyes wrote:
http://xkcd.com/703/
You can call it a tautology, but that would also be applicable to the drugs = faster times argument too wouldn't it.
However, it is rather obvious that faster times come from better training, and that this will continue for a very long time.
You could argue that every training concept is a tautology if you were so inclined.
At some point you might want to stop being such a know it all and actually learn something?
edumacator wrote:
Does your skepticism extend to steroids for explosive events? Is that all in the athlete's head too?
Yes, skepticism is the right word. Was Bob Beamon a roid head? I have never know that view to be expressed, although I am sure it has.