Be a mad scientist to improve your endurance sports
An experiment of one.
I am involved in an ongoing experiment. I have this complex physical and mental system that I own. I try various controls on the inputs to this system in order to test what the outputs are.
I start with a theory; let’s say “losing 5 pounds is going to make my 5K time faster”. Then I try to control all the variables except for the one that I’m testing and I consider the results. Sometimes the experiments uphold my theoretical assertions. Sometime I get unexpected results.
Most of the time the complexity of the system masks any usable results and I go with whatever my gut feel is. This serves no scientific purpose, but it makes me happy. When there are not enough facts to support a specific conclusion just assume what makes you happy and proceed with confidence!
All of you walk around with an experiment of one. Your complex system is different than mine, but it is surely no less complex. The problem with complex systems is that it is extremely difficult to control your experiments.
Most of us don’t live in the Olympic lab. Unless the change is radically or overwhelmingly observable it is quite difficult to attribute to a particular input. Most of our training plan, running shoe and nutrition experiments are broad strokes at best and can even lead us to dangerous generalities and assumptions.
I see folks in our community doing this all the time. They’ll say something like “Magic Mushrooms made me 20% faster!” We might ask “how?” They’ll say “Well, we upped our mileage, stayed injury free, lost 10 pounds, got plenty of sleep and then I ate those magic mushrooms and I beat my PR by 20%!”
I’m not saying the magic mushrooms didn’t work. I’m just saying that they failed to run a controlled experiment.
I think the folks who have recently started training are very susceptible to these false conclusions. In endurance sports you may not see significant progress until you are 18 months to 2 years into a consistent training program. It takes this long to build a decent base and a good strong engine.
When folks have struggled for a year, seen lots of work and grudging improvement it is easy to leap to conclusions when this endurance engine starts to kick in. Success is attributed to whatever they happen to be experimenting with at that point in time.
Sorry to burst your bubble folks – but I have to say it again – solid, high-quality, consistent training is the thing that has the biggest impact on your performance. The rest is nibbling around the edges. That being said, you’ll eventually get to a point where a 3% or 5% improvement is worth playing with the other inputs.
Your body and your mind are your system. At any point in time this system is in stasis, meaning it is resting in a particular state. You can move the system out of stasis by changing the inputs to the system, and this will most likely change the outputs.
It is a very complex system. There are an infinite number of external and even internal stimuli that can impact the system. Sleep, food, training, attitude, drugs, alcohol, age, sex and environmental factors are just a handful of things that come to mind.
The state of the system itself will impact your results. If you are running on and empty tank after training all week, you won’t perform as well. If you’ve been training consistently for 8 months you’ll be more able to weather an increased load.
You do have to ask yourself, “What is the output that you want from this system?” Do you want to be faster? Stronger? Or even just happier and healthier? What you want out is going to determine what you put in.
Let’s look at mechanics. Running seems fairly simple, so does biking. Swimming seems a bit more complex of an activity with many moving parts. Each of the infinite individual physical movements that can be changed in your mechanics and form are interdependent in the way they interact with the system as a whole. You could go as far to say that every muscle and nerve fiber is a controllable input.
My caution to you is to be mindful of the cause and effect of the changes you make on your system. Many times we don’t get the result we intended. Sometimes we learn something new and that makes it worthwhile.
Don’t get caught up in fads and gimmicks. Sure, try them out in your own backyard lab, but don’t do anything unsustainable or dangerous. Be ready to pull the plug on an experiment if the results seem to be pushing you in the wrong direction. At the same time understand that the learning curve dictates that we sometimes must get worse before we can get better.
We, as mad scientists with our experiments of one can and should continue to tinker with our systems. This is how learning and growth happen. It’s a glorious and joyous gift to have such a wonderful system to play with. (The greatest hubris of humanity is that we are some sort of perfect end-state.)
I’m going to keep playing with my system. You should too. But be mindful of the complexity of what you’re playing with and be cautious in your play.