Drawing on biomechanics and other sports science, Olympic hopefuls target just the right muscles and moves. Olympians of yesteryear shared the same goal, but they would hardly recognize today's training techniques. To achieve to Olympian ideal of "faster, higher, stronger," coaches now realize, athletes don't have to train more but they do have to train smarter. That's why, these days, cross-country (Nordic) skiers kneel on skateboards and tug on pulleys to haul themselves up a ramp.
By analyzing every motion that goes into a ski jump or a luge run, the science of biomechanics breaks down events into their component parts and determines which movements of which muscles are the key to a superlative performance. Knowing that is crucial for a simple hut, to many coaches and trainers, unexpected reason: it turns out that although training for general conditioning improves fitness, the best way to boost performance is by working the muscles and practicing the moves that will be used in competition. It's called sport-specific training.
{{B}} 41. Ways to work the right muscles and train the right patterns of movement.{{/B}}
Sport-specific training doesn't have to mean running the actual course or performing the exact event. There are other ways to work the right muscles and train the right pattern of movement. Doing situps on a Swiss ball, for instance, develops torso control as well as strength. The Finnish ice-hockey team recently added acrobatics to its training regime because it helps players to balance on the ice, says head coach Raimo Summanen.
Performance-enhancing strategies.
The advances in physiology that have revolutionized training are giving sports scientists a better under-standing of how to improve strength, power, speed and both aerobic and anaerobic fitness:
{{B}} 42. Training the start-up.{{/B}}
Speed is partly genetic. A star sprinter is probably born with a preponderance of fast twitch muscle fibers, which fire repeatedly with only microsecond rests in between. Speed training therefore aims to recruit more fast-twitch fibers and increase the speed of nerve signals that command muscles to move.
{{B}} 43. Strength reflects the percentage of muscle fibers the body can recruit for a given movement.{{/B}}
"Someone with pure strength can recruit 90 percent of these fibers, while someone else recruits only 50 percent," says the USOC's Davis.
{{B}} 44. Developing anaerobic fitness.{{/B}}
Anaerobic fitness keeps the muscles moving even when the heart can't provide enough oxygen. To postpone the point when acid begins to accumulate, or at least train the body to tolerate it, Jim Walker has the speed skaters he works with push themselves beyond what they need to do in competition.
Power is strength with speed.
"One of the biggest changes in strength training is that we're getting away from pure strength and emphasizing power, or explosive strength," says USOC strength-and- conditioning coordinator Kevin Ebel.
{{B}} 45. Difficulties under way.{{/B}}
It's still difficult to persuade coaches to let sports scientists mess with their athletes.
To overcome such resistance, the USOC's Peter Davis has set up "performance-enhancing teams" where coaches and scientists put their heads together and apply the best science to training. Come February, the world will see how science fared in its attempt to mold athletic excellence.
[A] Zach Lund races skeleton (a head-first, belly-down sled race), in which the start is crucial. He has to sprint in a bent-over position (pushing his sled along the track), then hop in without slowing the sled. "You have to go from a hard sprint to being really calm in order to go down the track well," says Lund. To improve his speed he does leg presses while lying on his back, or leg curls on his stomach (bringing his foot to his backside).
[B] Despite the finding that drafting reduces the demand on the heart of a speed skater and generally improves performance, for instance, most skaters still prefer to go out fast and first.
[C] Sprinters who skate 500 meters in the Olympics, for instance, power through multiple 300 meters, and do it faster than they skate the 500. By raising the anaerobic threshold, the training gives skaters a better shot at exploding with a sprint at the finish.
[D] Luge, for instance, requires precise control of infinitesimal muscle movements: "Overcorrect on a turn," says driver Mark Grimmette, "and you're dead.' To achieve that precise control, he and his doubles partner, Brian Martin, devote a good chunk of their training time to exercises on those squishy rubber spheres called Swiss balls.
[E] Aerobic fitness is hockey star Cammi Granato's goal one autumn morning as she pedals a stationary bike with sweaty fury at the USOC training center in Lake Placid, New York. When Granato finally staggers off the bike and crumples onto the padded platform, she's' had a tougher workout than in any hockey period--which is exactly the point.
[F] The thigh's quadriceps, for instance, consist of millions of fibers organized into what are called motor units. When a speed skater pushes off the ice, he recruits a certain percentage of them to fire; the others are relaxing and so do not contribute to the movement.