Art De Vany: Goalies and FT

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Goalies and FT

July 26, 2005 04:09 PM

I do recall a female student, a goalie on the soccer team, who took several of my classes at UCI who was featured in a research paper for the FT work outs she was trained with. This is consistent with the listing in Table 1 of Paul Chek's article linked in my previous post. A soccer goalie relies 80% on short term (probably FTx, which is purely glycolytic) and 20% on intermediate term (FTb, which is oxidative and glycolytic) energy pathways.

She looked great and was a very good student too.

Aside from cross country sking and long distance running there are few sports where performance depends on long-term energy sources. As I said, their basic function is to restore the fast and intermediate sources. This implies that we are "made" for intermittent energy bursts as so many of our sports require. This is not an accident, sports mimic ancestral energy rhythms. That is why they are fun and beneficial. But, you would never train for any of these sports, but the pure distance ones (and you shouldn't) by slow endurance running.

· Evolutionary Fitness

Comments

Posted by: Flower Online at September 12, 2006 2:40 AM

Read the post and some of Paul Chek's comments and have to disagree a bit: I believe our heritage has created a human designed for endurance work, most especially running & walking. There has been research that has been recently published that first, validates our biomechanical design:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15549097&dopt=Citation

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041123163757.htm

Second, researchers have shown that of the three "basic" athletic groups--power, all-round and endurance--the endurance athletes tend to live longest:

Although differences among the athletic groups in leisure physical activities and other health hahit appear to be less pronounced in old age, in this sample all-cause and coronary heart disease mortality were lower among endurance athletes than power athletes. Thus, differences in biological characteristics between endurance and power athletes may explain the selection of specific types of sports as well as some of the difference in risk of developing coronary heart disease that has been previously reported.

44 JAMA January 3, 2001Vol 285, No. 1

There are multiple factors at work including diet, etc. However, while working on a statistics paper years ago, I chose to center mine on longevity amongst the various athletic groups. The paper is long gone (wrote it in 1986) but I can confirm the findings are the same as those reported in the JAMA article. The reasons I found contributed to this included:

- The endurance athletes carried far less mass therefore did not strain their heart and other vital organs
- Their diets were typically better
- Their hearts, per MDs I spoke with, were more efficient pumping more blood per stroke. Lower blood pressure, lower beats per minute.
- The endurance work acted as a form of caloric restriction.
- The endurance work acted as a form of "stress relief"...a big factor in longevity

On an outstanding site, www.theomnivore.com, there are links to historical sites that discuss Native Tribes combining high fat diets and endurance activities for sport, survival and travel. These tribes lived long and healthy lives.

Best,

Parker

Posted by: Parker at July 29, 2005 10:52 AM

Dr. Devany,

Is the research paper she was featured in available online?

Thanks,

David

Posted by: David at July 28, 2005 12:42 PM

A book I read recenlty which was quite good and rehearsed a lot of these arguments was by Dr Al Sears - the Doctors Heart Cure. He is into his own version of intervals and stresses the poor record of standard aerobics. His diet is low carb / low GI too although he allows dairy. It is a good intrductory text, although there is a chunk of marketing blurb - especially from its Pavel obsessed publishers. His web site is at:

http://www.alsearsmd.com/heart-cure.php

Posted by: Chris H at July 27, 2005 1:05 AM

Art,

You know I meant to post something along the lines of soccer goalkeeping and its relation to Evolutionary Fitness but you beat me to the punch!

After playing a year in the field as a freshmen in HS many moons ago, and absolutely hating the daily 30 minute nonstop training runs, I switched to goalkeeper and never looked back. At only 5"8" but with good athletic skills, etc., I was able to play the goalkeeper position from HS through college, and still play competively today, but what I always felt kept me interested was the pure athleticism of the position - whether in training or games. If there ever was a sport/position that fit the Evolutionary Fitness model perfectly it would have to be soccer goalkeeping. There's only one way to describe the position and that would be "burst mode." Hard core, all out action, followed by nothing for many minutes. The adrenaline rush of making a big save followed by calm for perhaps 30 minutes or more has to mimic your theories on power laws perfectly. Success relied upon the big muscles of the legs and butt to get airborne very quickly - probably not unlike many ancestral movement patterns where "burst mode" activity was not a luxury, but a necessity.

Mike

Posted by: Mike at July 26, 2005 8:11 PM

Goalies and FT

July 26, 2005 04:09 PM

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