{"id":909,"date":"2014-09-28T20:31:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-28T19:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/?p=909"},"modified":"2014-09-28T20:31:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-28T19:31:00","slug":"no-more-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/?p=909","title":{"rendered":"No more heroes…??"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little bit late, working every day to prepare my lecturing series at EXOS in Phoenix , USA,\u00a0 Oct-17-19) together with my dear colleague Dan Pfaff in a few weeks. But also having difficulties making up my mind about the many subjects to write a post about, but in the end this one came out.
\nReindell, Hollmann, Hettinger, Liesen,\u00a0 Keul, Berg, Kindermann, Haralambie, Mellerowicz, Rost, Letzelter, just a few of the German sports scientists who were my heroes from the past. (Because their main work was done before the unification of West and East Germany, I am speaking about West Germany\u00a0 only)
\nTheir books, articles and book chapters fill my bookcases and those of many colleagues. Their work was groundbreaking for our understanding the relationships between exercise, training and physiology and biochemistry. At that time, between the 1950\u2019s and 1990, they were\u00a0 amongst the world\u2019s best scientists in the field of sports. I still read a lot also the German language journals and books. But what happened?
\nThat well of excellent scientific research seems to have dried up. One has to look very hard to find anything that rises above the very mediocre, whereas millions still are spent into sports sciences in Germany.
\nBasically I have no idea why this happened, just a few clues that might offer a clue.
\nA few years ago, I was invited the German Sports Science Institute\u00a0 in Cologne, which is supposedly one of the best, to explain the principles of HRV and how it is used in sports practice. I entered the room and the sports scientists came in, and from the first minute was clear it would not go anywhere. In the first place, I was \u201conly\u201d a coach and we all know that a coach can\u2019t be taken seriously, at least not by sports scientists, basically because a coach is not a sport scientist. Second, there was a very clear hierarchy and it was very clear who was the \u201calpha-scientist\u201d in there, the leader of the Institute,\u00a0 since nobody dared to speak, leave alone to contradict him or correct him.
\nAfter 10 minutes he interrupted my talk and said, \u201cI can\u2019t believe it\u201d, and soon after again, \u201dI don\u2019t believe it\u201d. he kept repeating this, but nothing else came out. Now science is not about believing, that what religion is for. In science we have hard facts and data, researched and published by scientists. Since I am not a scientist myself, and you don\u2019t have to believe me, I still have hundreds or even thousands of scientists and their publications to rely on and to back up what I told there.\u00a0 Maybe he had a bad night\u2019s sleep, maybe he didn\u2019t know anything about HRV or could not accept that others knew more about this than himself,\u00a0 leave alone a simple coach, or\u00a0 maybe he just wanted to show how inferior coaches are compared with himself.\u00a0 In either way he failed, and everybody in the room felt ashamed about his behaviour, you could see from their faces and body language.
\nTo me it didn\u2019t matter because I have met arrogance and ignorance before, walking hand in hand, but what worries me is that this professor is hailed as being the leading figure of German sport sciences!!
\nAnd probably that tells part of the story.
\nRecently I read another example of the current level of German sport science, an article published in a peer reviewed journal and the title is, hold your breath coaches…..\u00a0 \u201cA quantitative approach for assessing significant improvements in elite sprint performance: Has IGF-1 entered the arena?\u201d
\nTheir conclusion is:\u00a0 \u201cwe think it is highly plausible that IGF-1 is being abused for performance-enhancing means in professional track and field sprinting\u201d. Myself I think it is also plausible that chicken nuggets have entered the arena too. (or ackee and saltfish)
\nIn other words their message is: we think that behind every world class (sprint)performance there is a drug, and in this case IGF 1.<\/p>\n

But the funniest thing is that they present the slightest serious evidence that this is true.
\nPerformances in sprint still increase…… yes
\nIGF is used to increase sports performances…… yes, no doubts (But does it work? Very doubtful to say the least. Leave alone the fact that one cannot even detect it).
\nSo, since 1 +1 = 2, outstanding sprint performances must be due to the use of IGF 1, isn\u2019t it?
\nAt least one can doubt the seriousness of the peer review process or the reviewers, because this is more a marketing brochure to tell the general public to that the doping problem in sports is huge. And of course that they have the solution (like always): more and more expensive testing.
\nFor me that\u2019s not science, the article belongs here:<\/p>\n

\"Science<\/a>
Science or tabloid material?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So German sport science, let a young generation of sport scientists stand up and step into the foot prints of our great predecessors, and get back on the track. Give us the heroes we need……<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little bit late, working every day to prepare my lecturing series at EXOS in Phoenix , USA,\u00a0 Oct-17-19) together with my dear colleague Dan Pfaff in a few weeks. But also having difficulties making …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":916,"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions\/916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helpingthebesttogetbetter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}