We have
been talking about it.Parents are
asking whether talent exist, and I read a provocative article that made write
again:
The 10,000hr rule and
why talent and genes matter
The problem is that we've oversimplified genetics and
talent. Talent has almost become a negative word. It’s often used in the
context that if someone is talented they don’t work hard, as in “oh, he’s just
really talented,” to explain a persons success. People want to buy completely
into Gladwell and the Talent Code because it tells them that they can do
anything with hard work. Sorry, you’re wrong. Hard work is a key ingredient,
but it has to be combined “talent” to reach outlier status. Is the purpose of
this post to discourage you from working hard? No, the idea should be that it
takes hard work to reach YOUR limits. It’s impossible to know you’re ceiling,
but if you work hard and don’t quiet reach you’re goal, it’s most likely
because you didn’t work hard enough.
Are we training intelligently instead of training just
training hard?This should be the question.Moving in the water is a matter of
coordinating the whole body, every part of the body.For the sake of explaining it, when swimming,
leaving the leg or the shoulder in the water while moving forward creates a
huge amount of resistance which requires smart training to overcome it.It is not a matter of how hard we train but
how intelligently we train.How much we
can learn to feel the movement that creates resistance and feel the movement to
overcome it.Gennadi Tourestki speaks of
10,000 hours in the water to DISCOVER TALENT.If we spend 10,000 hours in the water,
chances are that we created talent if we have a good education to do things the
best of our educational ability (assuming that our education is the best).
Albert Einsten would say that education is what limits
his learning process.
What is what you look for when looking for talent? Education, the rest will come if you work hard.
I have an idea of how strong was the culture, the
family and the coach of Ian to take him to where he was. As a psychiatrist, having to pull and push
somebody when having the problems that Ian has; I know that it is a heroic maneuver
of the people around him.Things began
to fall apart after he left home and his coach:
The Sydney Olympics had come and gone, I'd moved out
of home and had begun my initial preparations for Athens, which was still three
years away, but the illness had become crushing and I knew I needed to seek out
other ways of managing it.
The freedom of moving out of home had given me space,
but it also meant I was more alone with my thoughts than ever before. And my
success in the pool only compounded the misgivings: I should be feeling great;
happy and invincible. Instead, there were nights when I would contemplate
ending it all…
Even when I was a child I knew I was different. I
didn't have words then to describe what it was, but there were times I'd feel
sad for no apparent reason.
By the time I was in my mid-teens, those sad periods
were getting more frequent and longer, but I just tried to ignore them and get
on with what I was supposed to be doing, which was plenty.
Scott Tinley, a man that started triathlon training and went beyond the
limits of training in the 80’s to improve performance, gives a good recounting
of what could happen if one does not follow a plan to improve. This was
an interview at the end of his career. Inside triathlon magazine, volume
15, June: 2000:
“You have alluded that
there have been a lot things going wrong with your body in the past four
years. What have they been?
I think I compromise
in number of different systems in my body—my pituitary-adrenal axis and my
hormonal system. And my emotional state—because of depleted
neurotransmitters.
What are some of the signs
of these depleted states?
When you exercise cortisol
increases because is a parasympathetic stimulator –fight or flight. You
want your cortisol to go up…My cortisol level was already elevated. A
normal person is 8 to 9 –mine was 13 at rest…We did tests at the Olympic
Training Center and found that my cortisol production dropped during an
eight-mile-run (20).
This is what happens when
somebody is overtrained or is depressed for “real.”We get
depleted when we work off our mind or our body and we end up with total depletion (neurotransmitters, etc.)
if we do not recover.Most of the time, we are just badly sad for what we live or what
we cannot control: this is not a depletion state related to the model of overtraining.What category is
Thorpe in?He should answer this one if
he wants to have control of what follows.
Thorpe's relationship with Frost was beginning to
unravel. Thorpe had always insisted that his swimming was about enjoyment and
improving himself in setting faster times, rather than victory or defeat. This
contrasted with Frost, who had a more aggressive and combative mindset, often
making bold public statements.[165] Thorpe ignored Frost's advice and bulked up his upper
body by a further 5 kg to 105 kg, making him the heaviest elite
swimmer in history.[166] His reasoning that the strength gains would outweigh
any loss in flexibility raised concerns over his physiological strategy.[167] On the first night in Manchester, Thorpe again
lowered his 400 m mark by 0.09 s to 3 min 40.08 s,[8][163][168] before anchoring the 4 × 100 m
freestyle relay team to another gold.[169][170][171]Prior to the 200 m final, Thorpe was seen arguing
with Frost in the warm-up area. Thorpe won, but was unusually angry at having
failed to lower his previous best, publicly stating that he "wasn't with
it" and that he had "one of the worst warm-ups ever".[169][170][172]
Thorpe announced his withdrawal from the Commonwealth
Games due to a bout of bronchitis, which had stopped him from training.[223][224] Thorpe's illness was later diagnosed as a strain of glandular fever,[225] and after a further delay caused by a broken hand, he
moved to the United States in July to work with Dave Salo. Further disruption followed when the Australian
switched coaches, citing excessive and ongoing media attention.[226] Thorpe's stay was constantly surrounded by rumours
that he was suffering from ill discipline; this fuelled speculation that his
international career was on the decline.[227][228]
Many so called illnesses
are not related to Medicine but the happenings are related to life.Helen Jenkins is returning to triathlon claiming
that a back problem was producing knee pain while running.I believe that the English doctors are good;
but not so good to discover so clearly this relationship; as well as the Glandular Fever of the Australians.It is like what we found about ADHD and
conduct disorders.Treating ADHD has
nothing to do with the conduct disorder.The New Zealanders have understood it clearly:
Conduct problems
are the single most important predictor of later chronic antisocial behaviour
problems including poor mental health, academic underachievement, early school
leaving, teenage parenthood, delinquency, unemployment and substance abuse. The
pathway for many affected young people typically leads on to youth offending,
family violence and, ultimately, through to serious adult crime. The
inter-agency plan aims to counter this trend.
