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Letter to the Sports Editor …“Insight into Athletics”
Dear Sports Editor,
Over the past few years athletics performances has displayed dramatic progress. Levels of performances which just a few years ago were hard to imagine are now common place and the number of athletes capable of outstanding results is increasing continuously, except for Guyanese athletes.
Legitimate questions to ask; “what are the reasons behind such dramatic improvements and what are coaches in Guyana doing about Guyana’s “Olympic Gold Medal Drought?”
Obviously there is not a simple answer to these questions; however, among others one may consider the fact that athletics is a very challenging field and that high levels of motivation have encouraged long hard hours of work.
Similarly, coaching has become more sophisticated, partially as a result of the assistance received from sports specialists and scientists, which is either ignored, underutilized, or mis-conceptualized in Guyana, hence “Guyana’s Olympic Gold Medal Drought”.
There is now a much broader base of knowledge regarding these special human beings called athletes, and this is directly reflected in the methodology of training. New methods are surfacing which are often found to be useful in daily training.
It seems that on the whole, sport sciences have progressed from a descriptive nature into a distinct science.
Most sources of knowledge (ie. Experience, research), regardless of the science from which they are directed at improving and understanding the effects of an exercise on the body. Thus exercise is the focal point of the sports science endeavors.
By the same token, research from several sciences serves as a feeding system, enriching the theory and methodology of training, which has become a science of its own. The theory and methodology, as the science of training, has its own subject of applied research, which is the athlete.
The athlete represents a vast source of information for both the coach and the sport scientist. During training the athlete experience reactions to various stimuli, some of which may be predicted with more certainty than others. The information collected from the training process includes physiological, social and also methodological information.
Although this information is diverse it comes from the same source, namely the athlete, and is produced by the same process, the training process. The coach who is the builder of the process, may not always be in a position to evaluate the training process.
Coaches must evaluate all information feedback from the training process in order to understand the athlete’s reactivity to the quality of training so that the future programmes will be properly planned.
In light of the above, it becomes clear that the coach requires scientific assistance in order to ensure that his/her programme will be based on objective evaluations, a fact that most coaches practicing in Guyana failed to recognize or utilize.
The theory and methodology of training is a vast area. A close observation of the information available from each science and sports medicine will make the coach more proficient in his\her training endeavors.
The principles of training represent the foundations of this complex process, while the acquaintance with training factors will enable the coach to understand the role played in training by each factor in accordance with the characteristics and specifics of a sport/ event.
A training programme must be designed in consideration of the biological and chronological ages of the participants, since success depends in part on the quality and abilities of the individual athlete involved, consideration must be given to the selection of athletes. Not all athletes have the physiological capabilities to become world class champions.
Knowledge acquired while planning training programmes of athletes will provide the coach with the ability to train his/her athletes in such a way that maximum performances will be achieved at the desired time. A training programme needs to also include periods of regeneration and recovery between training lessons, which is a necessary factor to ensure continuous improvement towards high performance athletics.
Better late than never towards Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 2016 and beyond.
Wayne Walcott
Athletics coach.
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