Einstein and Triathlon

We have champions in science; applying science to triathlon is not something for everybody, it is for champions. We need more than common sense, but at least common sense to be researchers.  Einstein would say:

Let´s take a Kantian explanation of what I said:

Firstly, Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions:

1. Analytic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is contained in its subject concept; e.g., "All bachelors are unmarried," or, "All bodies take up space."
2. Synthetic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept ; e.g., "All bachelors are happy," or, "All bodies have weight."

Analytic propositions are true by nature of the meaning of the words involved in the sentence—we require no further knowledge than a grasp of the language to understand this proposition. On the other hand, synthetic statements are those that tell us something about the world. The truth or falsehood of synthetic statements derives from something outside of their linguistic content. In this instance, weight is not a necessary predicate of the body; until we are told the heaviness of the body we do not know that it has weight. In this case, experience of the body is required before its heaviness becomes clear. Before Kant's first Critique, empiricists (cf. Hume) and rationalists (cf. Leibniz) assumed that all synthetic statements required experience to be known. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

We know everything about the eye and how the retina captures light but it has nothing to do with why we see.  This statement gives an idea of how complicated and complex is to apply science to triathlon.  That is why I put Kant and Einstein face to face.  They both speak of the same thing with different languages; Philosophy and Physics respectively.

The light reaches the eye of a human observer, passes through the cornea, is focused by the lens upon the retina where it forms an image similar to that formed by light passing through a pinhole into a camera obscura. The retinal cells next send impulses through the optic nerve and thereafter they form a mapping in the brain of the visual features of the distant object. The interior mapping is not the exterior thing being mapped, and our belief that there is a meaningful relationship between the exterior object and the mapping in the brain depends on a chain of reasoning that is not fully grounded. But the uncertainty aroused by these considerations, the uncertainties raised by optical illusions, misperceptions, delusions, etc., are not the end of the problems.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

The problem of applying science to sports is what we read from the previous paragraph.  The phrase of Einstein regarding stupidity comes forward after what you read above.

“The map is not the territory.”  There is a gap between what we think and what we do; between the thing named and the name. Many times we fill the gaps with our believes, and the conclusions are distorted if we are too "religious."  Science is not for everybody just as Einstein would say:

If we are too religious we ended up having problems thinking scientifically.  We need to be religious in the sense of believing in something; but not to the degree of being stupid, as Einstein would say.

 

So Mr. Elliott (4 nov. 2012 Herb Elliot and Triathlon ). It is not that  science is wrong when applied to sports, but the stupidity of human beings. “…And the other message (Cerutti´s) of quality versus quantity, he was always one who believed in intensity, in training, the pain was the way to go forward, and today, science doesn't necessarily preach that, and I think science is wrong.”  

http://www.coolrunning.com.au/general/2001e003.shtml

Applying science to triathlon is not for everybody.  It is like looking for a doctor or a lawyer for oneself; we have to know what we are looking for as a consultant.  Experience in sports and experience in science is necessary to be useful and not harmful as a consultant; meaning, practicing sports and science actively by the consultant to be of some use, not like our Mexican Federation consultants.