JonnyO, your last couple of posts appear to have killed the whole thread. I can only see one page, there were 7 and i cannot reply to your post so i will do so here.
I was trying to reply to your 'cut&paste' mammouth thread killer, but i will wait 15 mins to see if it turns up before re-writing it on here.
whilst im waiting, why didnt you answer the questions/points below?
instead you just went off on one over a contentious issue that neither of us can prove. We cannot prove it because.....and you may not like this JonnyO.....but we are not scientists, even if you may think that you are one.
anyway, answer the rest of the original points before you go off on another tangent. They are pasted below, just to make it easy...
1. In what way do you disagree with Saltins results?
2. you mention Swedish, British, Finnish, NZ runners from years gone by, . I feel that the success of these countries at the particular times you mentioned were due to a personality driven coaching system, ie. great coaches actually coaching the best athletes in each country. The success was also not in just one athlete, there were several, who inspired each other to great things.
In the case of Kenya for instance, there are massive numbers of athletes flooding the sport en mass. These athletes were world class without even having the kind of training system that other countries have enjoyed for so many years. They did not have the best coaches, best support elements etc, but still they were there. Now that they have the coaching, the funds and the sheer numbers, Western Athletes are being left without races & without any hope of getting into any. You cannot always run fast times in your backyard, and if you do, then there is no payday for it.
3. Many young Africans come into the sport aged 16-18. After only 12-18 months training, some of them go on to run world class times. These times are faster than the British records that our guys have trained for years to achieve.
You are saying, that they have just peaked early due to the 'kiddie fartlek' that they have been doing since 6-7 yrs old? Are you mad? Do you not think that our kids are running around all day long from this age through their teens?
If african kids are trained from an early age, then i could see it being normal progression, but we are talking about kids who are often not running until the age of around 16-17 and are world class withing a very short time indeed.
Still you say that there are no physical differences between Western & African athletes. Do you not find this odd? Its not just a case of our athletes being later developers JonnyO.
4. Lydiard has produced nobody since Snell's era. Surely this tells a story. Yeah, his theories are interesting and work for many, but they are not the key to world dominance i doubt........otherwise we would be seeing it now wouldnt we?? Again, where are the NZ stars that he has coached over the past 30-40 yrs? Many coaches use the same methods to take their athletes to world class, so it would not surprise me if Lydiards methods did actually work for other coaches......but this is not Lydiards coaching, it is their own, but not their original ideas. Granted, he is old now, but his sidekicks are helping him with the coaching.......but where are the Lydiard athletes on the World stage??
DILLUSION - an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is not in accordance with a generally accepted reality.
Dave