1 juin 2013

TRIATHLON RESEARCH III: THE KENYANS



I watched the documentary on research done by Scandinavians.  This documentary tells us the mistakes that mislead us and the reason why Herb Elliot said (please refer to: 4 nov. 2012 Herb Elliot and Triathlon):


He had a suspicion of science, but at the same time he'd had terrible arthritis as a younger person, and he'd been to the doctors and done all that stuff, and his arthritis hadn't improved, and he was almost at the point of being crippled (Percy Cerutti). And at that point he thought, 'OK, well these guys aren't going to fix me, I'll have to see what I can do for myself.' And he started to read books on diet and health and so on; I don't know whether you call that science or not. But, he went for foods with the life principle and he became very conscious of carbohydrates and the various other fresh vegetables and so on. He was looking for vitality in his food and he was a student of that. But I wouldn't say it was scientific, he was really learning from other people's experiences, and he applied those to himself and found out that he got rid of his arthritis, and so with confidence, he espoused that sort of dietary practice with us. But no, it was more than just intuition, he certainly had plenty of that, but he did study successful dieticians and he went through all of the health manuals and he read the people of the day, and he was ahead of his time. He was talking about us having bran for instance, when every other Australian would feed bran to their chooks, they'd never feed it to a human being. And so he was ahead of his time. But the learning was there within our society. As we all know, things that have been invented now probably won't become popular for another 30 years, but Percy was right in at the invention stage, with an understanding of what worked and what didn't work.

And, of course, I watched the classic: MAN ON A MISSION.

I was left with what O’Connell said to a British newspaper:
O'Connell has been interviewed and written about so often that there's not much else to ask. "It's all there if you Google it, or whatever it is," he says. He has also seen his fair share of scientists and academics coming to discover the secret of the Kenyan runners.
"We even had one man from Sweden who wanted to analyse the ugali," he tells me. Ugali is a simple, doughy food staple made from maize flour. "I told him to [take] some of the flour home to test it, but he said he needed to cook it at altitude, in Kenyan water, in a Kenyan pot." O'Connell is incredulous at the idea.
Did he discover anything? I ask. "Absolutely nothing," says O'Connell, almost spitting in delight.
"People come to find the secret, but you know what the secret is? That you think there's a secret. There is no secret." I haven't mentioned a secret but he's fuming now, his arms folded across his chest.

Since the time of Charles Darwin scientists have difficulties seeing their prejudices and the politics that they follow.  The Scandinavians are not the exception and O’Connell responded to them:
A Very Prejudice Charles Darwin Admits Being Wrong
Darwin, for many the father of evolution, thought certain groups of people lower on the evolutionary scale than others. He once wrote, "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised [sic] races of the man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world." (Descent of Man, 1871)… It may come as a shock that Darwin ended up sending money to missionaries who worked among people he denounced as barbarians. A friend of his wrote of it in 1885, saying, "Darwin has often expressed to me...it was utterly useless to send Missionaries to such a set of savages as the Fuegians, probably the very lowest of the human race. I had always replied that I did not believe any human being existed too low to comprehend the simple message of the Gospel of Christ. After many years...he wrote to me that in recent accounts of the Mission proved to him that he had been wrong."

O’Connell is running the program (An Irish in Kenya), it is unacceptable for the Scandinavians.  They cannot see that the “structure” designed by O’Connell and directed by him is “whiter” than the “whites.”  Because “white” is not a color or a country (region), it is a way of living.  The Anglo Saxon Canadians used to say to the French Canadians: “Speak white.”

There is something to recue from the project mentioned above.  They have measured children’s activity (Kenyans) and compared it to the children's activity from Scandinavia.  They assumed that the activity continued through adolescence and young adulthood, except that the results they obtained were not according to what we know from our experience.  Apparently during adolescence the activity increases for the Kenyans to the point that they are able to start training at “almost any time during young adulthood.”  Why do I have this hint?  What we have seen in our athletes is that after the years of training the maximum heart rate decreases.  I was not a high performance athlete when young (or old) but I was able to lift my pulse to 200 at the age of 40.  Most of our kids are unable to lift the pulse to that level.  The Kenyans had 5 pulses less than the Scandinavians when measured.  2 MINUTES AND 20 SECONDS FASTER THAN THE SCANDINAVIANS DOES NOT COME FROM SOMEBODY WITHOUT BASE TRAINING RUNNING.  Another assumption that cut my attention was when they mentioned that the “Kenyans did not push themselves to the limit because the lactate level did not increase before stopping the same degree as the Scandinavians did."  This is something we have learned from Lance Armstrong.  His lactate level did not go above 6 when well-trained because of his training (most of the cyclists could reach above 12 before stopping according to Dr. Coyle).  This is telling us that the Kenyans had a base training before the experiment that most likely comes from their way of living (doing chores or daily life activities).

The Scandinavians report that “A donkey is a donkey,” and they can only have fast donkeys.  Unfortunately, the Africans and the Scandinavians are humans, nothing to do with horses or donkeys.  The Scandinavians do not want to consider the Africans in the same category.  If one has the life structure, technique and work hard, he/she (HUMAN BEING) CAN KICK ASS.  Watch German Silva doing it.  He is a shorty with heavy legs.  



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