Outliers: The 10,000 hour rule

well 10000 hrs of running by age 20 is quite a bit. If you started at age 10 you would have to only run 23 miles a day until you were 20 (averaging 7 mpm throughout the 10 years). I bet you would be pretty good by then assuming you didnt die.

This study doesn't say that if you practice 10000 hours, you will be "elite". It means if you are not elite, you are unlikely to be able to justify practicing for 10000 hours. If your at the top you can structure your life around the activity. If your not elite you have to fit the activity around the rest of your life.

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

Does this apply to running?

OR wrote:

This study doesn't say that if you practice 10000 hours, you will be "elite". It means if you are not elite, you are unlikely to be able to justify practicing for 10000 hours. If your at the top you can structure your life around the activity. If your not elite you have to fit the activity around the rest of your life.

No, it doesn't say that at all, although I am sure that is part of it. It says that for most skills there is a threshold, and if you are above that threshold then the main determinant for skill level is time spent practicing.

For example, there are various thresholds for IQ, the highest one being around 120-130 I think. Nobel prize winners all have IQ's over that threshold, but after that it doesn't matter if your specific score is 135 or 170. After that level practice, upbringing, creativity and character matter more then IQ. But no one with an IQ of 100 will ever win a nobel prize or be a chess grandmaster, at least in theory.

Maybe for running it is different because of the physical, pounding nature of the sport...it is possible to play chess, practice piano or write computer programs for 8-10 hours a day, but running not so much.

Another interesting thing that I just read was that it stated that the very best don't just try harder then the rest or even MUCH harder. They try MUCH, MUCH harder. (This quote reminds me of Hicham El Guerrouj for some reason)

Or maybe it is not as relevent to running because running is less about neural pathways (compared to learning a language or playing an oboe) and more about physical characteristics, some of which are unchangeable by any training.

Either way, it sure is an intruiging and mentally stimulating topic.

In athletics it seems it takes 7 to 10 years of intensive training to reach one's peak. See Bloom's work (which Gladwell was probably citing).

There certainly are outliers in things like math where prodigies show up at young ages or you have savants who can do complex calculations although they may not understand that the outcome means. I met such a savant many years ago. He could do complex calculations, but he could not explain what the result meant. Basically he was a walking calculator.

The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

An excellent set of papers on this subject.

10k hours...When he was 25 Salazar was estimated to have already run 25k miles in training and racing. So unless he was running VERY slowly, I doubt he had run 10k hours.

Although...this again raises the issue - if you run 12hrs/week @ 8-9mins/mile or 8hrs/week 6mins/mile, both for 5 years, what would the material difference be?

Having done a jobs that appear, "repetitive" (waiting tables, trading stocks), I can say that in both cases, the sheer repetition of the activity leads to micro-epiphanies that improve execution.

Its a very interesting subject, and has not been analyzed much in sport.

I finished reading "Outliers" yesterday, and also found myself wondering how the 10,000-hour rule might apply to running. 10,000 hours of actual running is a lot -- perhaps 90,000 to 100,000 miles of running in a pretty intense training program, which would take at least 15 to 20 years of training. Perhaps if you include all of the running during childhood, along with ancillary activities relating to running (going to meets, walking or jogging around to loosen up before a race or workout, and so on), you might be able to argue that Gladwell's rule applies to running as well, but the rule seems a little too simplistic to be applicable across the whole range of activities.

Having been a competitive chess player (Elo rating of about 2200), I will say that the 10,000-hour rule sounds pretty reasonable for that game, although 12,000 to 15,000 might be closer. I doubt that I spent more than about 3,000 hours before reaching a 2200 rating; another 300 rating points probably would have required twice as much time.

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

Does this apply to running?

No.

Has Usain Bolt really worked that much harder, or is he just that much more talented?

I guess it depends what events/sports we're talking about.

I meant to finish by saying I think there probably comes a point in running events where natural talent perhaps means more than simply having talent AND working hard.

Ok, I know that it doesn't directly apply to running for a few reasons:

1)Running is not nearly as complex as learning Chinese, programming or chess.

2)Age is a factor with running; the minds development can continue for decades and decades, while the body peaks much earlier then slowly degenerates.

3)Running doesn't involve the brain as much as the other activities: although some part of running performance like muscle recruitment is activated in the brain, you are primarily training the lungs, heart, leg muscles etc.

4)You can't spend even close to the amount of time running as you can with purely mental activities. Even swimmers and bikers can sustain a lot more time practicing then runners can. Physical burnout/injury is also an issue.

It is interesting that the researchers could not find anyone who "just floated their way to the top of the pile" without spending a hell of a lot of time practicing. Even those viewed as supernaturally talented had to get the base work of thousands of hours down first.

you can't apply this rule to athletics in general because there are extreme shortcuts known as PED's that some athletes take to decrease practice time. justin gatlin is a perfect example, he is probably a high 9.9 or 10 flat guy at best in the 100. he starts doping and runs 9.76, that wasn't from thousands of hours of training, it was from the drugs.

Jaouad Gharib didn't start running seriously until he was 22. Running is mostly physical. You just can't compare it to the kind of ultra fine coordination and perfection needed to be a concert violinist or the kind of intellectual depth needed to be a composer, or a genius in science.

sjc wrote:

you can't apply this rule to athletics in general because there are extreme shortcuts known as PED's that some athletes take to decrease practice time. justin gatlin is a perfect example, he is probably a high 9.9 or 10 flat guy at best in the 100. he starts doping and runs 9.76, that wasn't from thousands of hours of training, it was from the drugs.

He never ran 9.76, and the 9.77 he was credited with was bullshit, not only for drugs (never trust times out of Doha). Alberto Cova ran faster before he blood doped than afterwards so it's not as simple as take A and it will yield better results.

And the above concept certainly applies to athletics. Al Oerter said that he felt like he became really good at the discuss after something like 10,000 throws. And there's a reason that Kenyans and Ethiopians, who lead a much more active youth than their western brethren, are often successful 10,000m runners/marathoners in their early twenties (note Ryan Hall and the amount of running/physical work he did in his youth).

Another good journalistic work is called "Talent Is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin. He goes into more depth than Gladwell (and I really enjoyed Outliers) and cites more of the academic literature e.g. Bloom, Ericsson, et.al.

Re the 10,000 hour rule, his main emphasis is on rather on "deliberate practice", an activity characterized by the qualities of being specific, guided (coached), repetitive, capable of continuous feedback, demanding, and not a whole lot of fun.

Reminds me of Sebastian Coe's quote that "training to be good must be systematic, it has to be progressive, it has to be hard." Other coaches have noticed that it takes elite distance runners about 10 years of development before they peak.

Also reminds me of the wisdom of Jumbo Eliott as related by Malmo: "live like a clock"

Colvin: "A finding that is remarkably consistent across disciplines is that four or five hours a day seems to be the upper limit of deliberate practice."

Unlike musical instruments, you can't practice (run) 4-5 hours per day. So the main thing is not to take the 10,000 hour rule too literally -- just put in the work (intelligently) day after day.

He does have more specific suggestions for "keizen" (continuous improvement) in business and other aspects of life.

And please, dear God, regarding the "Talent Is Overrated" title, I don't want to start another nature vs. nurture argument on this board.

It says practice makes perfect.

Avocados Number wrote:

I finished reading "Outliers" yesterday, and also found myself wondering how the 10,000-hour rule might apply to running. 10,000 hours of actual running is a lot -- perhaps 90,000 to 100,000 miles of running in a pretty intense training program,

Avocadros Number, as usual, you read into things too literally and miss the message entirely. For distance running has the least amount of time investment of any sport or endeavor that I can think of, to achieve one's potential.

FWIW, 10,000 hours of running is well over 100,000 miles of EASY running. A runners potential will come to fruition, long before that, perhaps 30,000 miles.

malmo wrote:

FWIW, 10,000 hours of running is well over 100,000 miles of EASY running. A runners potential will come to fruition, long before that, perhaps 30,000 miles.

I agree, most of the skills that the book itself lists (playing an instrument, learning a new language, programming a computer, doing advanced calculus etc) are all skills that are mainly brain based. Athletics, on the whole, is not.

Runners cannot push their bodies to the amount that they can push their brain to. Stamfl said that mental burnout is a myth-pointing to the piantist who practices 12 hours a day. Running burnout is almost always physical, although it is sometimes a combination. Recovery is not an issue for the topics presented in Outliers, but it definitely is in our sport. Also, running breaks you down and then your body rebuilds itself-whereas training the mind there is little breakdown-just new connections formed. So running improvement takes at least twice as long, probably more.

Although, I do find it interesting that the diffferent systems take different amounts of time to develop-the heart and lungs (some call it VO2 max) can be maximized within a few years, while further gains in performance come from becoming more effecient. These gains very much ARE brain based, as coordination improves due to the nervous system firing the muscles more effectively. Also, perhaps the brain learns to push the body farther-this ties into the Central Governor model presented by Noakes. Maybe you aren't any more fit when you run faster, you have just learned to overcome pain better.

Most importantly, the human mind can keep developing for many, many years; the brain doesn't really have a set age at which it is at it's peak-but the body certainly does.

How is 10,000 hours of running well over 100,000 miles of EASY running?

6 minute miles = 10 miles an hours

10 miles x 10,000 hours = 100,000 miles

That is not well over 100,000 miles of EASY running.