I subscribe to a daily email called Delancy Place that dispenses interesting tidbits from a wide range of non-fiction sources. One day, I'll get a snippet on pirates, the next on global warming, Ghengis Khan, and today interestingly enough, a snippet from Superfreakonomics that delves into the impact birth date can have on sports performance.
I wonder if, once you get into Masters swimming, this trend reverses itself-- the whole "aging up" aspect coming into play-- or if the trend of early development is already so ingrained that there's no substantive change later in life when youth begins to become a larger aspect of performance. Just some things to think about when swimming a lot of laps...
Below is the excerpt from the book.
"If you visit the locker room of a world-class soccer team early in the calendar year, you are more likely to interrupt a birthday celebration than if you arrive later in the year. A recent tally of the British national youth leagues, for instance, shows that fully half of the players were born between January and March, with the other half spread out over the nine remaining months. On a similar German team, 52 elite players were born between January and March, with just 4 players born between October and December.
"Why such a severe birthdate bulge? Most elite athletes begin playing their sports when they are quite young. Since youth sports are organized by age, the leagues naturally impose a cutoff birthdate. The youth soccer leagues in Europe, like many such leagues, use December 31 as the cutoff date.
"Imagine now that you coach in a league for seven-year-old boys and are assessing two players. The first one (his name is Jan) was born on January 1, while the second one (his name is Tomas) was born 364 days later, on December 31. So even though they are both technically seven-year-olds, Jan is a year older than Tomas - which, at this tender age, confers substantial advantages. Jan is likely to be bigger, faster, and more mature than Tomas.
"So while you may be seeing maturity rather than raw ability, it doesn't much matter if your goal is to pick the best players for your team. It probably isn't in a coach's interest to play the scrawny younger kid who, if he only had another year of development, might be a star.
"And thus the cycle begins. Year after year, the bigger boys like Jan are selected, encouraged, and given feedback and playing time, while boys like Tomas eventually fall away. This 'relative-age effect,' as it has come to be known, is so strong in many sports that its advantages last all the way through to the professional ranks.
"K. Anders Ericsson, an enthusiastic, bearded, and burly Swede, is the ringleader of a merry band of relative-age scholars scattered across the globe. He is now a professor of psychology at Florida State University, where he uses empirical research to learn what share of talent is 'natural' and how the rest of it is acquired. His conclusion: the trait we commonly call 'raw talent' is vastly overrated. 'A lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with,' he says. 'But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it.' Or, put another way, expert performers - whether in soccer or piano playing, surgery or computer programming - are nearly always made, not born."
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, Superfreakonomics, William Morrow, Copyright 2009 by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, pp. 59-61.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Trizophrenia: An Affliction that Saves
Below is a book review I ran in NEM News for the January/Feburary issue about my friend Jef's book, Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete. I loved the book, and I hope you'll enjoy the review. Check out the book- it sure doesn't disappoint!
In the several months that have passed since Frazz cartoonist and avid triathlete Jef Mallett’s swimming and triathlon accomplishments were first featured in this newsletter, (“Not Frazzled by Competition,” March 2009) he has been busy writing and drawing to produce his newest literary offering: Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete.
The word “trizophrenia” (fanaticism for threes) may be a mouthful, but it’s a fairly common phenomenon among triathletes. And there’s a similar affliction rampant among swimmers, especially open water swimmers— that one where you get crazed by your sport and devote every waking moment to either preparing for a big event, eating, or plotting the next one. You know how it goes: How many times have you told a non-athlete coworker or friend that you’re planning to do a big open water race or an Ironman? Now think about how many times you’ve probably been told in response, “You’re crazy!”
For the triathletes among us, Trizophrenia may just be the best way to tell these non-believers that it’s a good kind of insanity that sure beats the alternative. The book breaks down the sometimes enigmatic ritual of triathlon into its most basic parts— not just the swimming, biking, and running parts— but also the discipline, the preparation, and the investment of both time and money that practitioners will inevitably make once hooked by the sport.
In his engaging style, Mallett tells the story of triathlon, from how it started and how it’s grown to where it’s going next. He even explains why triathlon begins with the swim, something that I always thought seemed strange, but in fact makes perfect, practical sense: “Swimming presents an exhausted athlete with the greatest potential for tragedy, so it’s good to get it out of the way while everyone’s fresh. A broad expanse of water is difficult for lifeguards and officials to patrol, so it’s best to conduct that part of the race before the pack has a chance to stretch out.” Eating and drinking is another factor and it’s also a lot faster to peel off a wetsuit than it is to try to wriggle into one once you’re already sweaty.
Scattered throughout the book are cartoons that relate directly to the text. Mallett’s style and personality shine through in both the narrative and the art, and before you realize it, he has told you the story of how he first met
and fell in love with triathlon and how and why he continues with the sport today. And if you’re not careful, he’ll persuade you to take the plunge and do your first triathlon, too.At its core, Trizophrenia is a love letter to triathlon and the happy, healthy individuals that endurance sports of any stripe allow us to become. It’s an earnest edict to embrace life itself and a guide to living the best life you can through sport... make that three sports.— Elaine Howley, NEM News Editor
Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathle by Jef Mallett is available at Amazon.com. You can read more about him on his blog or see him in the funny papers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
