Are they training harder? or are athletes today just physically better?
In: Biology
USA certified track coach here. The science of exercise didn’t really take off until the 60s and 70s. We began to learn so much about training and recovery that we could start fine tuning training plans to fit individual athletes. Drugs really helped advance it because what workouts work well for drugged athletes will also benefit non-drug athletes. We also had money injected into sports that allowed athletes to train exclusively and not try to qualify for the Olympic a while holding down a part time job and eating table scraps. Nutrition also took off and our knowledge on that has been monumental in training.
There’s still a lot we don’t know, particularly in area of the nervous system and gene doping that could further unlock performance in ways we haven’t imagined.p
MY COUNTRY DID AN EXPERIMENT ON THIS. They compared the performance of current and “from the 60s” athletes wearing the same clothes that were in fashion 50 years ago. The current one CRUSHED the athletes from the 70s. Mostly because the later ones had bad hips or were already in wheelchairs
Better drugs and hormone treatments that are harder to detect. This is not just cynicism either. The modern anabolics used in professional sport are very hard to detect and leave the system very quickly. The money for engineering these hormones comes from the world of pro and Olympic athletics.
Steroids. People who aren’t in the know are going to say “but they’re all drug tested!” until you understand how drug testing and steroids work– you’ll believe that the majority of athletes aren’t doping. They are.
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