Human Limits

Last weekend I was in Eugene, Oregon participating in a symposium on human performance. A real highlight was listening to 81 year old Dr. Jack Daniels discuss his vast experience training and testing elite runners. This included his reflections and ideas on altitude training and what he learned helping prepare U.S. distance runners for the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. Throughout the talk as he gave examples of what elite runners do, Dr. Daniels kept asking and emphasizing:

“What is the purpose of the workout?”

He commented that if you can’t answer that question then maybe you should rethink what you are doing. As I reflected on this perspective, a number of related questions occurred to me. Here are three to think about:

1. What is the purpose of this meeting?

2. What is the purpose of this rule, guideline, or metric?

3. What is the purpose of this argument?

With my three modifications of the “Daniels’ Question” as a background, I would urge everyone to reflect on their own circumstances and see what modifications you can come up with that might help you navigate your life a little better and more efficiently.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2014 at 4:22 am and is filed under Current Events, Elite Sports Performance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.