[quote]The Light wrote:
I don't see why Noakes ideas are perceived as so controversial. I think of the Central Governor as a sub-conscious "safety net" that our body develops based on integrating a large number of internal and external factors, as we develop different experiences.
---Homeostasis.
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As babies, we basically know nothing, and everything we do and learn is a question of exploring our environment, and collecting feedback from our experiences, integrating them into our conscious and sub-concious knowledge base. We learn pleasure, pain, fear, hunger, thirst, and a great many other things, and this experience guides how well we adapt in the real world. Just like Pavlov's dog, we learn a great deal of associations, and can anticipate many things before they happen. Why should training and exercise performance be any different?
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---Totally agreed upon Light. We learn specifically how to run a certain distance that we prepare for and test ourselves over. Once we have learned we know more precisely how to pace ourselves over this distance for the best possible time. I don't see how homeostasis has anything to do with this other than providing a ceiling under which we must operate. Of course extreme will can overcome this to a degree, possibly not to death because unconsciousness probably begins before that.
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Stepping back though, my first comment is that the Central Governor theory is a work in progress. The model was presented some years ago, and Noakes and others are working on studies which validate the model, or caused the model to be refined. It's too early to declare judgements until more validation is done, or refinement is no longer possible.
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---Where are the rules? If someone with running common sense was on his team the whole thing would be in the bin by now.
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As you asked though, the alternative to exercise being regulated by the brain, is that exercise is not regulated at all, but rather only limited by physiological constraints. This would mean that everyone's ability to approach, or even exceed physiological limits, and regularly causing long term or permanent damage, is just a matter of conscious will. Yet how often does overtraining result in irreversible damage?
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---Two things: Firstly, i'm not sure how you are seeing these physiological constraints as separate from the brain function? I don't know if seeing the mind as separate from the body is really what we want to be doing in the field of running. For many running is their meditative tool to overcome this artificial separation. To become more at one with themselves. Merge the mind/body. How is it separate Light?
Secondly, i would see overtraining as a mini-death. A death in the sense that you have killed part of yourself and mini in that is is only a part that has been killed. The overtrained body or parts of the body are not properly functional whilst in the overtrained state. It may not be irreversible but the time lost is irreversible and since the athlete has actually gone backwards in a training sense as well as losing time it is a double negative.
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It's similar to breathing. I can consciously control my breathing, and also hold my breath for a long time, but most of the time, it happens without any conscious thoughts, and I believe (but have not tested it) that very few are so strong willed that they can hold their breath until they die.
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---Breathing is also controlled by homeostasis.
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To argue that we can control every aspect of training *consciously* is arguing a bit too much I think.
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---Who is being so extreme as to claim total conscious control. The body is regulated by an autonomous system. It does most of the work surely. Also we have aquired skill capacity. As we acquire each new stage in the learning process the previous stage starts to become automatic. There is a fantastic book by Stuart Heller called 'The Dance of becoming'. In it he explains in detail and with many practical skill tests to go through, how skill is acquired and the stages of acquisition.
cheers
sim