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How Athletes Get Great

outsideonline.com

21–30 of 31 posts

Re: How Athletes Get Great

#21
post #15

I don't think that Epstein is being very charitable with Gladwell's 10,000 figure. Gladwell: a) Doesn't make the 10,000-hour figure a rule as both Epstein and Repanich would have us believe. b) Fully concedes that there are myriads of other factors that have an effect on how one reaches "expert status". I'm also not sure how Epstein can claim that the chess master study is somehow disanalogous with the athlete one. A…

The problem is that the chess study shows that some people never became chess masters, no matter how many hours they practiced. There was a hard upper limit to their performance that no amount of training could surmount. Insofar as "expert" is defined by relative ranking, some people will never become experts. Why? Because they are outranked by the "naturals". The general problem with the Gladwell/Ericsson hypothesis…

And some people will never play in the NBA no matter how many hours they free-throw. Again, I'm not sure how the situations are different.

In some (marginal) cases, you lack a necessary feature of being an expert in X. I don't see how this breaks Gladwell's position.

Re: How Athletes Get Great

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the chess study shows that some people never became chess masters, no matter how many hours they practiced. There was a hard upper limit to their performance that no amount of training could surmount. Insofar as "expert" is defined by relative ranking, some people will never become experts. Why? Because they are outranked by the "naturals". The general problem with the Gladwell/Ericsson hypothesis…

I think you are missing part of the results of Ericsson's research. He makes a very specific point to distinguish practice from deliberate practice . 10000 hours of practice is very different from 10000 hours of deliberate practice. My interpretation of Ericsson's work is that natural talent can give certain individuals a head start in the beginning, but once you get into the domain of expertise, this head start at t…

I'm familiar with the distinction that Ericsson made.

The chess study is based on people who deliberately practiced.

It still didn't matter. Some people are simply better at chess.

Seriously proposing that all humans everywhere have perfectly identical potential in all possible tasks is nonsensical. That is the strongest form of Ericsson's hypothesis. If you weaken the hypothesis -- eg. "some people take less time" -- then why only publish the exact 10,000 average and fail to show variances in the original study?

And if there is variance in time-to-expertise ... what exactly does the "training is required, but the time needed varies based on talent" finding tell us over ... training is required, but the time varies based on talent?

Because that's already kinda known.

Re: How Athletes Get Great

#23
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the chess study shows that some people never became chess masters, no matter how many hours they practiced. There was a hard upper limit to their performance that no amount of training could surmount. Insofar as "expert" is defined by relative ranking, some people will never become experts. Why? Because they are outranked by the "naturals". The general problem with the Gladwell/Ericsson hypothesis…

And some people will never play in the NBA no matter how many hours they free-throw. Again, I'm not sure how the situations are different. In some (marginal) cases, you lack a necessary feature of being an expert in X. I don't see how this breaks Gladwell's position.

Because performance is not usually a step function. It is a continuum. If it's a continuum, variance in training time to reach expertise is not surprising.

Re: How Athletes Get Great

#24

Here's another fairly thorough examination of the 10,000 hour idea: http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-and-... Key points: 1. Ericsson only published averages. Nobody else has seen the raw data. He didn't even give standard deviation or error bars. 2. "Talented" people get more positive feedback and so practice more. 3. There are so many observable phenotypal inputs and as yet unobserved phenotyp…

This is all very interesting, but how much do you squat? Let's quantify the progress in absolute terms we all understand, like pounds on a bar through full ROM

Re: How Athletes Get Great

#25

Here's another fairly thorough examination of the 10,000 hour idea: http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-and-... Key points: 1. Ericsson only published averages. Nobody else has seen the raw data. He didn't even give standard deviation or error bars. 2. "Talented" people get more positive feedback and so practice more. 3. There are so many observable phenotypal inputs and as yet unobserved phenotyp…

This is all very interesting, but how much do you squat? Let's quantify the progress in absolute terms we all understand, like pounds on a bar through full ROM

What does his squat max have to do the point above? Besides, he's an oly weightlifter not a powerlifter.

Re: How Athletes Get Great

#26
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all very interesting, but how much do you squat? Let's quantify the progress in absolute terms we all understand, like pounds on a bar through full ROM

What does his squat max have to do the point above? Besides, he's an oly weightlifter not a powerlifter.

It's a lifting culture meme, popularized on Reddit.

Source: I hoist and read r/fitnesscirclejerk during when I eat.

Which is often, because I lift.

Re: How Athletes Get Great

#27
"One of the coolest things is genetically tailored diet and training. It won’t be perfect because we still don’t know what most genes do. But exercise genetics will potentially produce some of the most widely used and effective medicine. You may be able to tell people how they can train to get a certain health benefit instead of taking a drug, or maybe that they can’t get that benefit with training so they do need a medication. Also, injury predisposition genes are coming online right now. It would be nice to know more than just through straight trial and error what’s the best training for your and how you can avoid injury."

This.

Re: How Athletes Get Great

#28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does his squat max have to do the point above? Besides, he's an oly weightlifter not a powerlifter.

It's a lifting culture meme, popularized on Reddit. Source: I hoist and read r/fitnesscirclejerk during when I eat. Which is often, because I lift.

I once browsed reddit, and I have no idea who this guy is. He's lying.

Re: How Athletes Get Great

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. The 10,000 hour rule is not iron clad, more a suggestion. The point I'm trying to get at is it's more about routines that require practice rather than pure physical exertion. As in, "Deliberate practice contributes more to the outcome of playing violin and shooting baskets than it does to a 50 yard dash"

The Russians studied skill development in sport more than anybody. In weightlifting one of their leading coaches, Medvedyev, had a 7-year plan to take a promising 10 or 11 year from child to international competitiveness, planned down to the day. As the plan progressed, the percentage of work dedicated to different training demands varied. By the time a trainee has pass into the final phase (Master of Sport Internati…

I've heard similar for other sports too... That their Judo and Wrestling training has very little competition and much more drilling and supplementary conditioning.
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