NUMBER ONE: WINNING IS A HABIT

What It Takes to Be NUMBER ONE? -- from Vince Lombardi

Number ONE has always been Team Oaxaca´s legend. We were the first one and we continue to be NUMBER ONE. It's an endless story, an endless pursue to give the best we have to achieve success. Along the years we learnt from failures and we got up again. Today TEAM OAXACA is stronger than ever in its head and heart.

Today we want to share two Lombardi's videos. It goes along with the great American legends presented before in our blog. Their philosophy is still alive:

''If you don't think you're a winner, you don't belong here.''

''A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive, and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.''

ENJOY the following videos.

1. What It Takes to Be Number One?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpBKzjkpX0Y

Commitment

Winning is not a something thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while. You don't do the right thing once in a while... you do them right all the time.

Truth
Truth is knowing that you character is shaped by every day choices.

Excellence

Excellence must be persued--it must be wooed with all of one's might and every effort that we have. Each day there is a new encounter. Each week there is a new challenge. In all of the display and in all of the noise and all of the glamour and all of the color and all of the excitement and all of the rings and all of the money, these are the things that only linger in the memory. But the spirit--the will to excel; the will to win, these are the things that endure.

Results
Winning is not everything-- but making the effort to win is.

Passion

There is only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give everything. I do, and I demand to my players.

Habit

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.

Mental toughness

If your're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second.

Discipline

Difference between men is not lack of strength, not lack of knowledge, but rather lack of will. But the newlish is in sacrifice; it is in self-denial; it is in love; it is in loyalty; it is in fearlessness and humility; and it is in the perfectly disciplined will. This is not only the difference between men, this it the difference between great and little men.

2. WINNING IS A HABIT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjYeREIHCsw&feature=related

Winning is not a sometime thing. It is an all the time thing You don't win once in a while and you don't do things right once in a while. You do them right all the time.  Winning is a habit. there is no room for second place. I have finished twice in my times, and I don't even want to finish second again. Winning is a habit.


You've got to play with your heart with every ounce of fiber in your body. I have never known a man worth his salt who deep down in his heart didn't appreciate the grind and the discipline and TO WIN and TO WIN and TO WIN It is and always has been American zeal that is to be first, regardless of what we do.

There's no room for second place, there's only one place and that's first place I finished second twice in my time and I don't ever want to finish second again. I firmly hold that a man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of anything he holds dear is that moment when he has worked his heart out for a good cause and lays exhausted on the field of battle, victorious.

GREGORY HOUSE, BRUCE MILLER AND THE ART OF TRIATHLON COACHING

Dr. House existed before House.  My ex-supervisor and somebody I consider a friend, Bruce Miller, was the living Dr. House before House. I remember when we were in the elevator at Children´s Hospital of Buffalo, a pregnant lady entered it followed by a little girl holding her hand.  She dropped her keys in the elevator and I tried to get them for her.  Bruce just touched my chest and looked at me. I understood that I should not move.  After the elevator´s door opened and the lady left the elevator, he bent over and got the keys for her.  He just told me:  “You do not know what that lady thinks of you; you are liable.”  I understood the game and made up my mind to move back to Mexico.  I wanted to play more House even before the existence of House (House appeared ten years later) and I had my only chance of playing House in Mexico. Bruce plays it in the USA because he is a “big fish in the pond” there.  House´s game is a real pleasure.  I love to play House in the full sense without the arrogance.  Perhaps just a little; otherwise one is not the Chairman of the English Department at Austin like Hinojosa and nobody believes you.  April first in this blog.  Eight part.  Few words on languages and lactate.  And above all, I would not put the patients in danger.  PLAYING HOUSE IS PLAYING MEDICINE TO THE LIMIT TO OBTAIN THE IMPOSSIBLE.  This is also what I try to convey in this blog.  Creating a winning team needs a clever, understanding and “brutally honest” leader.

Dr. Miller is Chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry. He supervises child psychiatry fellows in consultation-liaison psychiatry and child and family psychotherapy. He is an internationally recognized physician-scientist focusing on psychobiologic mechanisms by which child/adolescent stress and depression affects physical illness and somatization in children. His translational research program takes place in the Center for Child and Family Asthma Studies, (Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo) of which he is founder and co-director.

 

Coaching is very similar to seeing patients and families as a doctor.  A healthy environment is needed to have the winning culture in a team while in families it's necessary to have a helpful environment to decrease distress and illness.  A clever, understanding, intelligent and “brutally honest” leader is needed to create a winning team. Talent is not physical, but educational and mental.  We have the example of Brooks leading the USA Hockey Olympic Team in the 1980 Olympics (see the film Miracle). Coach Carter film shows a story from California that needed “THE MAN.”  What I hear in consultation and see in real life is beyond any film, even horror movies.

Playing House is not just rewarding. it is the real passion of being a doctor. A few patients understand that if they do well I feel good.  The same thing for triathlon; if our athletes do well we feel great and the opposite.  But we need the winning team or create it to perform well.  There is no short cut.

SHAKESPEARE, DON QUIJOTE et DECARTES

HAPPY ANIVERSARY

Traten de seguirme en esto (follow me).  Será un intento Borgeano.  Conmemorando la muerte de Shakespeare, 23 de abril 1616 (murió el mismo día que Cervantes sin seguramente conocerlo).

I mentioned about Hinojosa in this blog (Eight part Few words on languages and lactate). He wrote a beautiful novel where he started in Spanish and finished in English.  I am not like him, he is a big man in this subject, but I will speak also in French because of my wife. I gave an introduction to captive my Spanish audience. This post is just for pleasure.

Jorge Luis Borges es lo mejor.  El premio novel que nunca ganó.  Hablaré sobre uno de sus mejores cuentos tratando de explicar esto a mi audiencia en inglés.  Please, follow me.  It is like “time out of joint” of Shakespeare.  Decartes est la troisième voie pour écouter la vérité, la raison pur. ‘’Je pense donc je suis.’

Borges habla de matar a los dioses para tener la oportunidad de crecer, por eso digo que soy solo “citas”  (ver,  Lo que importa es que el burro toque la flauta en este blog).  Esto que dice Borges es sumamente importante.  La gente se pierde por no matar a sus dioses.  Freud hablaba del asesinato del padre. C’est la même chose mais c’est une plus belle mélodie. The computer is lost. Everything is in red because it does not know what language I used to communicate.  Such is life. We have to make sense even when we hear different languages.  Esto es solo una traducción, pero las lenguas son muy diferentes como cuando trato de hablar con mi hija.  The title below means “the last battle” in a northern European language.  To me, RAGNARÖK is the best short story written by Borges. Google translate it to know more about it.  It is beautiful and full of knowledge.

RAGNARÖK

         En los sueños (escribe Coleridge) las imágenes figuran las impresiones que pensamos que causan; no sentimos horror porque nos oprime una esfinge, soñamos una esfinge para explicar el horror que sentimos. Si esto es así ¿cómo podría una mera crónica de sus formas transmitir el estupor, la exaltación, las alarmas, la amenaza y el júbilo que tejieron el sueño de esa noche? Ensayaré esa crónica, sin embargo; acaso el hecho de que una sola escena integró aquel sueño borre o mitigue la dificultad esencial.

         El lugar era la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; la hora, el atardecer. Todo (como suele ocurrir en los sueños) era un poco distinto; una ligera magnificación alteraba las cosas. Elegíamos autoridades; yo hablaba con Pedro Henríquez Hureña, que en la vigilia ha muerto hace muchos años. Bruscamente nos atudió un clamor de manifestación o de murga. Alaridos humanos y animales llegaban desde el Bajo. Una voz gritó: ¡Ahí vienen! Y después ¡Los Dioses! ¡Los Dioses! Cuatro o cinco sujetos salieron de la turba y ocuparon la tarima del Aula Magna. Todos aplaudimos, llorando; eran los dioses que volvían al cabo de un destierro de siglos. Agrandados por la tarima, la cabeza echada hacia atrás y el pecho hacia delante, recibieron con soberbia nuestro homenaje. Uno sostenía una rama, que se conformaba, sin duda, a la sencilla botánica de los sueños; otro, en amplio ademán, extendía una mano que era una garra; una de las caras de Jano miraba con recelo el encorvado pico de Thoth. Tal vez excitado por nuestros aplausos, uno, ya no sé cuál, prorrumpió en un cloqueo victorioso, increíblemente agrio, con algo de gárgara y de silbido. Las cosas, desde aquel momento, cambiaron.

         Todo empezó por la sospecha (tal vez exagerada) de que los Dioses no sabían hablar. Siglos de vida fugitiva y feral habían atrofiado en ellos lo humano; la luna del Islam y la cruz de Roma habían sido implacables con esos prófugos. Frente muy bajas, dentaduras amarillas, bigotes ralos de mulato o de chino y belfos bestiales publicaban la degeneración de la estirpe olímpica. Sus prendas no correspondían a una pobreza decorosa y decente sino al lujo malevo de los garitos y de los lupanares del Bajo. En un ojal sangraba un clavel; en un saco ajustado se adivinaba el bulto de una daga. Bruscamente sentimos que jugaban su última carta, que eran taimados, ignorantes y crueles como viejos animales de presa y que, si nos dejábamos ganar por el miedo o la lástima, acabarían por destruirnos.

          Sacamos los pesados revólveres ( de pronto hubo revólveres en el sueño) y alegremente dimos muerte a los dioses.

Even when we play for pleasure we have to learn something.  Borges is like the bible, he teaches all in a few lessons.  Borges is like the Old Testament but he is not a Jew.  Lo que digo es la razón por la que Sócrates murió tomando la cicuta y que le acreditó la pena de muerte: “Pervirtió a la juventud porque les pedía que cuestionaran a los adultos,” según la crónica de la época escrita por Platón.

“NEVER GIVE UP QUESTIONING.” “MATA A LOS DIOSES SI QUIERES CRECER.” Como puedes ver se habla en diferentes idiomas, eso es lo que Hinojosa hace.  Hinojosa es muchas personas dependiendo de la lengua que habla.  No puedo decir “kill your God” en inglés. Only “never give up questioning” is permitted.  Depending on the language we speak, we are able to get someplace or stay where we are.  LO MISMO ES PARA EL TRIATLON.  The English speaking Canadian used to say in Montreal, “Speak white,” when they were speaking French.

READ TEAM OAXACA BLOG. It will free you.  I know that to brake the inertia we need more than thinking or talking, we need to start behaving.  FREEDOM is a practice.

Treatment of stress fracture

Stress fracture and Shakespeare

“TIME OUT OF JOINT.”

There is a good study done by the Israeli army.

Interpretation and Classification of Bone Scintigraphic Findings in Stress Fractures. S. Tzila Zwas, Raya Elkanovitch, and George Frank.  J Nucl Med 28:452-457, 1987

Stress or fatigue fractures are often not true fractures, since there is no loss of structural continuity. They begin at sites of accelerated normal remodeling of cortical bone. A true fracture occurs only when the removal of cortex is accelerated beyond the capacity of the periosteal reaction to offer adequate reinforcement. Thus, it seems that the term stress or fatigue "fracture" limits the meaning of the full range of stress bone injuries appearing in the evolution of the dynamic osteogenic bone response. Because of the reactive nature of the lesion and the continuous nature of the bone response to stress in this process, its scintigraphic, as well as radiographie, appearance varies with the time of discovery.

First of all is not a fracture, it is a finding by technology that corresponds or not to pain on specific part of the body.

There was often a discrepancy between persistent or recurrent pain and finding of the stress fracture lesions on scintigraphy. A completely resolved lesion was occasionally accompanied by persistent pain and, as previously mentioned, scintigraphic stress fracture findings were sometimes asymptomatic (painless).

Doctors always claimed, “Time out of joint.” I am a doctor but became the devil’s advocate because I am precisely that, “I help people not to lie to themselves to have a better answer for their problems; and for that same reason, to have a chance of having a better life.”  The lesion is there and one does not have pain; the lesion is not there but the pain persists.  It looks like we are “curing” instrument instead of taking a look at patients and illnesses.  Close to 90% of the low-back-pain operated do not improve with surgery.  Pain is a symptom that needs a Batesonian approach.

Bateson, the one mentioned in the previous post of this blog who spoke about education “rip off,” makes his point because of the way people approach causality.  Pain=lesion do not correspond.  Actually, I know only a sign and a symbol that correspond one-to-one; that is smoke and fire.

In 1800’s, in France, the investigation of why people was getting ill with tuberculosis started.  We did not know anything about microorganism, so causality was approach differently.  They found out that people, who were living in overcrowded rooms, the poor (poorly fed) in the city, were the majority of the people with tuberculosis.  The remedy was to send them outside the city to breath fresh air.  We still have the same problem but the one to blame is the bacillus; education-politics plays a major role in our perception of reality.  PLEASE SEE THE PARALLEL WITH STRESS FRACTURE.  Poor and out of time frame nutrition, lack of recovery, poor technique produce the findings on X rays or scintigraphy.  The remedy we know what it is: BETTER EDUCATION.  Unless we stop avoiding the real issue we cannot have an answer to this problem.

WHAT A CYBERNETIC TRIATHLON HISTORY IS

History should be written to avoid falling into a trap (See Mental Fatigue, January 25, 2012, in this blog).  I went to a conference dictated by León-Portilla, Wikipedia says: Miguel León-Portilla (born in Mexico City, February 22, 1926) is a Mexican anthropologist and historian, and a prime authority on Nahuatl thought and literature.  During the conference, he mentioned: “I found an Aztec Codices in a remote village, but it was written in a “Scribe” notebook; I asked for the original and they answered: ‘We copied the old one into this scribe. It was impossible to keep the old one’…THIS IS HISTORY.”  
 

Human beings are getting faster for centuries.  In endurance sports athletes can compete for longer than an hour above 90% of their capacity.  VO2 max should be high and according to our training.  If we train slow pace, even if our VO2 max is high we compete at a slow pace (see VO2 Max and The Second Sin, February 26, 2012, in this blog).  As part of History, Victor Plata, our friend spoke about the need of teamwork in triathlon in and out of competition.  He even proofed that it works.  We have done it with our athletes since the beginning of our team.  The better the athletes understand and feel teamwork, the better the results.  Sports and live itself have become more and more tactical.  We need a good teamwork in order to achieve our dreams.  Without teamwork Cris Boardman would not break the record for the hour cycling or Armstrong would not win seven times in a row the Tour de France.  Gregory Bateson spoke about it in the 70’s, Mind and Nature, 1979.  “Too much schooling and little education” happens in sports also.  Lack of teamwork has to do with little education.

There is a good review of the record of the hour established by Boardman in the Triathlete Magazine of March 98, 167.

“As the media crowded around Boardman, his coach Keen urgently gestured at the instrument (thermometer) he held in his hand and motioned to the athlete to take his pants down… ‘For God’s sake, Peter, not in front of this people!’ screamed Boardman…The current male record of 56,375km required an average power output of 442 watts… For Boardman, this equates to 6.4 watts per kilogram… His VO2 max power relationship at a cadence of 100 rpm.”

More information to stress the point.

Tour de France winners and their average speeds

By VeloNews.com

Published Jul. 24, 2011

http://velonews.competitor.com/2011/07/news/186088_186088

    2011 3431km, (2144m); 198 starters, 167 finishers (84%); Winner: Cadel EVANS, 34, avg: 39.8 kph (24.9 mph)

    2010 3642km, (2276m); 197 starters, 170 finishers (86%); Winner: Alberto CONTADOR, 27, avg: 39.6 kph (24.7 mph)

    2009 3459km, (2162m); 180 starters, 156 finishers (87%); Winner: Alberto CONTADOR, 26, avg: 40.3 kph (25.2 mph)

    2008 3559km, (2224m); 180 starters, 145 finishers (81%); Winner: Carlos SASTRE, 33, avg: 40.5 kph (25.3 mph)

    2007 3570km, (2231m); 189 starters, 141 finishers (75%); Winner: Alberto CONTADOR, 24, avg: 39.2 kph (24.5 mph)

    2006 3657km, (2286m); 176 starters, 139 finishers (79%); Winner: Oscar PEREIRO, 30, avg: 40.8 kph (25.5 mph)

    2005 3593km, (2246m); 189 starters, 155 finishers (82%); Winner: Lance ARMSTRONG, 34, avg: 41.7 kph (26 mph)

    2004 3391km, (2119m); 188 starters, 147 finishers (78%); Winner: Lance ARMSTRONG, 33, avg: 40.6 kph (25.3 mph)

    2003 3427km, (2142m); 198 starters, 147 finishers (74%); Winner: Lance ARMSTRONG, 32, avg: 40.9 kph (25.6 mph)

    2002 3278km, (2049m); 189 starters, 153 finishers (81%); Winner: Lance ARMSTRONG, 31, avg: 39.9 kph (25 mph)

    2001 3458km, (2161m); 189 starters, 144 finishers (76%); Winner: Lance ARMSTRONG, 30, avg: 40.1 kph (25 mph)

    2000 3662km, (2289m); 177 starters, 128 finishers (72%); Winner: Lance ARMSTRONG, 29, avg: 39.6 kph (24.7 mph)

    1999 3870km, (2419m); 180 starters, 141 finishers (78%); Winner: Lance ARMSTRONG, 28, avg: 40.3 kph (25.2 mph)

    1998 3875km, (2422m); 189 starters, 96 finishers (51%); Winner: Marco PANTANI, 28, avg: 40 kph (25 mph)

    1997 3950km, (2469m); 198 starters, 139 finishers (70%); Winner: Jan ULLRICH, 24, avg: 39.2 kph (24.5 mph)

    1996 3765km, (2353m); 198 starters, 129 finishers (65%); Winner: Bjarne RIIS, 32, avg: 39.2 kph (24.5 mph)

    1995 3635km, (2272m); 189 starters, 115 finishers (61%); Winner: Miguel INDURAIN, 31, avg: 39.2 kph (24.5 mph)
     
Triathlon

Brownlee Alistair 29:49 2011 Beijing

Brownlee Alistair 30:00  2010 Budapest

Brownlee Alistair 29:04 2009 Gold Coast

Gómez Javier        31:38 2008 Vancouver

Gómez Javier       29:42 2007 Hamburg

Tim Don                30:47 2006 Lausanne

Robertson             31:35 2005 Gamagori

Docherty               29:54 2004 Madeira       

Robertson             33:44 2003 Queenstown

Raña                      32:05 2002 Cancún

Robertson             31:55 2001 Edmonton

Marceau                31:43 2000 Perth

Gaag                      31:27 1999 Montreal 

Since the 70’s Gregory Bateson spoke about “lack of education” in California, in front of The Committee of Education Policy, July 20, 1978, a year before he died:

“I REMARK THAT CURRENT EDUCATIONAL PROCESS ARE A ‘RIP OFF.’ FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE STUDENT…

It is a matter of obsolesce.  While much of the Universities teach today is new and up-to date, the presupposition or premises of thought upon all teaching is based are ancient and, I assert, obsolete...The premises are obsolete in that systems theory, cybernetics, holistic medicine, ecology and gestalt psychology offer demonstrably better ways of understanding the world of biology and behavior (235-236).”

So what? I have heard this expression before.  Why triathletes are running faster?  Before “the bicycle drafting era,” meaning before 1999, the year when the first Triathlon World Championship drafting took place, in Montreal. Simon Lessing dominated the world of triathlon; Macca was one of the fastest runners and had a world title. They were runners of above 32 for the 10k in triathlon.  The personal best of Lessing was 31:31 drafting at Montreal.  The drafting format was necessary to be admitted as a sport in the Olympics and the ITU decided to introduce the format a year before the Olympics.  The “Villeneuve” was the perfect place for the fastest triathlon in 1999, a Formula One road, flat.  Triathlon became more tactical and for that reason the triathlete needed to be better educated. One of the reasons why triathletes are running faster is the drafting format 

 

Triathlete Magazine. 188. December 1999.

Besides tactics, technique has improved in many triathletes after Montreal. Triathletes were swimmer, now-a-day they need to be triathletes since the beginning.  Victor Plata says: “train as a swimmer, train as a ‘rodie’ and train as a runner.”

One can see the Brownlee running in the picture below.  Alistair has a personal best below 29 min in 10k just running without bicycling and swimming.  Less than 0.02 seconds touching the ground each foot is needed to do less than 29 minutes regardless of what you do.  Watch Lessing, he needs to turn his feet down, passes his hip and then pushes himself to take another step.  It is impossible to do 0.02 seconds on the ground with so many maneuvers.  The same thing bicycling, I have not seen somebody going fast sitting at the end of the saddle; on the contrary, as Phil Liggett says: “on the rivet.”  Sitting on the rivet is the only way to keep a high cadence.

31:31 Lessing running. Montreal 1999.

Bicycling has also improved.  Jenkins averaged around 340 watts in Beijing Olympic Games working as a “domestique” for Whitfield, leading the race.  Vidal produces almost the same amount of watts riding “comfortably” in the peloton in the ITU races this year.  This says much about tactics and way of training to have an edge over the competitor.

DEPENDING ON HOW YOU WANT TO MAKE HISTORY YOU CAN SUCCEED OR FAIL.   HOW YOU MAKE HISTORY PLAYS A MAJOR ROLE IN YOUR OUTCOME.  Remember Bateson!

TRIATHLON PHYSIOLOGY FOR DUMMIES AND THE TENDENCY TOWARD THE MEAN

Physiology of targets when training triathlon

Tenth part

Targets should be a neurological workout. Meaning the cadence during the workout should be the one we use in competition or as close as we can, without involving much of the muscular system, e.g.  Spinning when biking; small steps running at a 210-220 of cadence; kicking 6 per stroke swimming without applying force.  This training prepares the body to use fuel for neurons in competition.  Remember, neurons only use glucose as fuel and glucose comes from glycogen stored in the liver, muscles, and in the case of brain neurons in the astrocytes. But glycogen can be wasted in matter of minutes and the body starts using proteins to keep glucose at the level close to 80.  The other way of forming glucose in the body is from lactate, which is produced by the muscles as a mechanism of emergency to help the neurons to keep firing, but such mechanism happens in the liver after training.  So we need to drink calories in the form of glucose and proteins to help with the process while training. 

I let you see again what happens with the hormones which plays a major role on the glucose’s metabolism.

Wilmore, J.H., Costill, D.L., & Kenney, W.L. (2007). Physiology of sport and exercise. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

I remembered when working at the University of Geneva, in a special department for research where we did sleep studies. JM Gaillard was the chief. It was the second time I had contact with the medical system in Switzerland and this time I understood the difference between Europe and America.  I signed contracts where they said that I was not allowed to publish anything without the o.k. of the chief.  Few years after I left, I published “A Synthesis of the Neurophysiology of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” I used the data of the patients I had there.  Gaillard was a hard working Swiss man who gave me the job I wanted, which I appreciate greatly.  And one of the sleep issues then was why we have slow wave sleep if the REM sleep is the one that produces the brain proteins for “recovery?” The slow wave sleep is the largest part of the sleep and appeared to be unnecessary.  This parallels the concept of not training targets.  Some coaches do not give enough target training because they feel that repetitions are enough.  The targets should be present at least every three weeks to allow a gen induction, in order to have the mechanism to balance glucose ready for competition.