{"id":1927,"date":"2020-05-05T20:27:40","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T19:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2026-02-19T15:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:09:12","slug":"marginal-gains-or-marginal-losses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/?p=1927","title":{"rendered":"Marginal Gains or Marginal Losses?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have decided to write a small\nseries about performance enhancement in elite sports. Enhancing performance is\nnot an easy task in elite sports for several reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many sports an athlete has to\ntrain really hard to be able to make a difference, this due to the extreme evolution\nin many sports. Performance improvement is easy in the beginning but becomes\nharder and harder as the athlete develops and the level increases. In the\nbeginning one improves by meters and seconds, after a few years one struggles\nfor every centimeter and millisecond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you find a young guy running\n11.00 seconds at the age of 17, then you are lucky to see him run 10.00 seconds\n10 years later; so we are looking at a 10% improvement in 10 years\u2019 time, which\ngives us an average of only 1% improvement per year, and then you have to be\nlucky (from 1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the environment of world class athletes, small margins make a large difference. A good example of a marginal difference is the World Championship Indoors Indianapolis 1987 where in the 60 meter final for women, Nelli Cooman ran 7.08, beating Canadian favorite Angela Issayenko, coached by Charlie Francis, by 0.003 secs, (1).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Another example where I was involved, is the race between Gail Devers (USA) and Merlene Ottey (Jamaica) during the 100 meter finals at the World Championship in Stuttgart in 1993. Gail ran 10.811 seconds and Merlene 10.812 seconds, (1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early in my career I realized that\nin order to be successful as a coach, one has to look at a wide spectrum of\nperformance-variables or factors that in the end can make a difference\nsomewhere down the line. As you can see from the examples above, small improvements\ncan make the difference between winning and losing, success or failure,\nbecoming a world champion or just having been there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In more recent times this principle\nhas been popularized by Dave Brailsford, director of British cycling, and seen\nas the engine behind the successes of British cycling. He stated:  \u201cThe whole principle came from the idea that\nif you break down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike,\nand then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you\nput them all together\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often, success is produced by small\nfactors, often repeated, i.e. every day or every work-out, so the effects will\naccumulate over time.  And leaving out\nlimiting factors, small or almost insignificant looking factors, like bad\nhabits, every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are three main factors that are\ndecisive for an athlete\u2019s career:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the coach: <\/p>\n\n\n\n