"Can we innovate more" says the head coach. "You doing the fundamentals right" says my internal monologue. It's sport's version of the shiny object syndrome and is a way of avoiding investing time and focus in the boring 99% of appropriate programming, sufficient sleep, and adequate nutrition.

Great read Steve. Really like the analogy of the pendulum swings between intensity and volume getting closer as training theory and practice progress.

Loved this. Expected it to reinforce ideas I held, and it was up until discussion of the oropharyngeal reflex, which was new to me. So dogma on what may prevent/alleviate cramp could be correct but for the wrong reason.

Sounds great, look forward to reading it Steve.

If you want to make up ground on the best, not copying their snake oil behaviours is how to do it. Being better at the things the best are bad at won't overcome them being better at their sport, but it will get you closer.

Inspired by this article on Musk: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/o...

There's a pretty good chance when you see some of the incredible improvements in distance world records that doping is a reason. I'd love to know given a hypothetical choice, which of doping or magic shoes an athlete would be willing to discard.

In practice I've seen striking decreases in VO2 at sub LT2 paces in elite runners over the past few years, which have been greater than our lab measurement error of ~5%. My caveat has always been that there may have been an improvement with training, but we can't discount the effect of shoes.

Sounds like a great idea. Always nice to read a mixture of history and physiology.

Look forward to reading this. Haven't heard of the blue plaque review series, is it a new feature?

Good to know. I wondered whether it was worth importing or duplicating old tweets. Your post made me reflect that I rarely said anything interesting in 8 years there!