Looking
ahead, doing a bit of "blue sky" thinking I think there are
three different but complementary things that will shape the future
for cycling and indeed all sports.
One
important rider: I am going to frequently refer to "sport"
rather than cycling because I believe the impact will be on many
disciplines. However the impact will be much bigger on those
disciplines involving a single athlete compared to team sports. That
is not to say that team sports will be unaffected, just that the
contribution of the basic physiological component that is the scope
of this article is less. So "sport" actually means "the contribution of the physiological aspect to the overall" or
something like that.
The
first two of these changes are simply require taking existing best practice
from another area and applying it to cycling. In both cases IT will
be one of, but not the only, enabler.
The
last is looking at the areas not covered by the first two and asking
how they too can be included.
Here
is an overview of the first of thes areas. The next two will follow
very shortly.
This
overview will consist of a summary of key points then a longer, delve
into more detail.
Change
1. "Training" > "Sport Performance Management"
Key
Points
Corporate
businesses were and still are being transformed by "Enterprise
Management" systems from the 1980s onward.
These
systems are a paradigm shift, from lots of slos working independent
of each other to a unified whole with a "brain". This brain
has a total perspective of all the areas of interest within a
business and is capable of organising them so that they work in
harmony to accomplish the corporation's aims.
Sports
currently is still at the silo stage, lots of apps and data but
disparate, not talking to each other.
This
will change to one single "Sport Performance Management"
model which will do for athletes and coaches what Enterprise
Management systems did for business. It will provided a unified
picture for athletes and coaches allowing them to largely ignore the
detail and focus on the bigger picture.
In
a nutshell they will change from being one man bands to conductors of
an orchestra.
While
the potential for such a model is large the likelihood of it happening
soon is low. To an extent this is because it requires aspects of the
next stage but it is even more dependent on the talent of an
individual or company to put in place the integrated systems needed
for it to happen.
However
this is not, in practice, a big deal. For the present the main
purpose of Sport Peformance Management is to provide clarity as a
destination so that new developments from now on are built with it in
mind from the outset, not as dead end silos.
Detail
I
spent 30 years working in IT in one of the world's leading and most
forward thinking companies. The early years of that time were simply
spent on automation, bluntly getting computers to do the jobs of
people because they were more reliable and cheaper. (In passing one
reason my company was and still is so successful is that the most
enthusiastic supporters of these projects where the people whose jobs
were affected. They knew their future was secure, they would just be
getting higher skilled, better paid and more interesting jobs as a
result)
However
the majority of my stint was spent on a far more exciting project,
one that transformed all business from the 80s onward. It is still
in train and has led to the most dramatic acceleration in the health
and well being of humankind in our history, albeit as an unintended
consquence. (For the evidence of this see Hans Rosling, Factfullness
book).
The
project had a number of titles but very broadly it could be classed
as "Enterprise Management".
The
concept is basic. Instead of seeing a business as a whole set of
silos each doing their own thing you see it as a single integrated
entity. Most importantly you give it a brain, one that is aware of
everything that is of importance and is capable of coordinating its
many facets so that they work in harmony to achieve whatever goals
are appropriate to the organisation concerned.
The
"Global Integrated Supply Chain" is well known
manifestation of this project but there are many more. The world, at
the corporate level, is totally different today from that I joined
back in 1980.
The
symbol of this change, beloved of many Powerpoints, was the layered
pyramid. The number of layers and their titles differed but the
emphasis and direction of travel was always the same, away from the
silos in the bottom layer and up to the summit at the top.
This
summit is the "brain", the holistic view that allows the
vision sketched above.
Most
sports are still in silos. In cycling we have
"training","racing","nutrition","aerodynamics"
, "strength","adaption"(my preferred term for
"recovery") for starters plus many more. And each of these
silos is composed of yet more silos.
Right
now the "brain" is the coach if an athlete can afford one.
But even the coach cannot have the 24/7 real time view that a fully
implemented enterprise management system affords.
My
belief is that cycling should, and eventually will, move towards its
own equivalent of "enterprise management".
The
working title for this is "Sports Performance Management".
While jargon this encapsulates the important features of this move.
- Sport: Because it encompasses pretty much every sport that involves the generation and expenditure of energy by a human
- Performance: Because it is about everything, an integrated whole that contributes to the overall success however that is defined. The key thing is that everything is in scope and everything must be maximised to maximise performance.
- Management: The coach will not be redundant! But they will be working at an entirely different level, rarely if ever viewing indidual workouts but rather reviewing trends at a high level to check that their athlete is on track to maximise their performance to a schedule and having full access to the variables that may affect this progress so they can correct it if necessary.
It
is no coincidence that "Performance Management" is also the
first two letter or PMC, perhaps the defining image of the power
bible "Training and Racing with a Power Meter."
The
difference is one of scope. The PMC is just a static chart deals just with power data. Sport
Performance Management is a dynamic process that encompasses everything. For this reason, though it would save time, I will never reduce Sport Performance Management to a meaningless TLA since I think that process is in any case used far too much, robs ideas of their meaning and dumbs down what should be intelligent conversation to a meaningless stream of capital letters.
The
key difference from now is that the coach (or athlete themselves)
needs to be a one man band, capable of performing on many instruments
to play a tune. In future they will the conductor of an orchestra.
Not only will that allow them to become experts but the result will
sound much better too.
Will It Happen?
I
sketched this first because it is a vision and I believe it is
important to have this in mind before moving onto the next topic,
which I believe will actually happen much sooner.
Though
I am sure this vision will happen eventually my confidence that it will happen
soon is low, at least in endurance sports.
I
am sorry but I have to be blunt about the reason for my low
confidence. It is lack of talent, not in athletes or coaches but
those who create the toolsets that they use.
This
is in no way a criticism of any individuals, some of whom have made
great contributions. But they are experts and visions require a
different mindset to accomplish.
And
these minds are rare and, will end up in the most challenging and
lucrative environments. So business snaps them up first. For sports
the behemoths, like football or the NFL will do similar. Moreover in team sport at
least these minds are usually focused on excellence not for all but
just their team. Bill Belichick is one example today. Cyling, like all endurance
sport is way down on the pecking list when it comes to getting people like him involved.
I
was actually lucky enough to meet with and briefly work with one such
mind,
co-founder of SAP which was the company that led the
enterprise management revolution and whose products I spent many happy with developing and supporting, Hr Dr Plattner was probably the
brightest individual I have ever met or am likely to meet in my life.
(In passing the Dr is important. One reason for Germany's success is
that the value their engineers as much if not more than any other
profession. Wikipedia says his net worth is over $10billion. Any country where an engineer can earn $10billion is a country worth living in (and not just for the beer!))
I
have two specific pieces of evidence for this view.
The
first is a personal experience. I am a psychologist by training and
believe that mindset is a critical contributor towards overall
performance. Several years ago I pointed out on what was, at that
time, a forum used be many if not most of the training software app
developers that I could not record anything about my feelings in
their products.
Such as how fatigued I felt beforehand, how hard I
found the workout, how I felt after. This to me was just basic
obvious information that I needed to see in, for example, alongside
CTL, ATL and TSB. I expected everyone to say, "ofc sorry to miss
that, it will be in the next patch" but noone seemed interested.
A few have since added the information but the same is true of lots
of other variables,e.g. My Leomo data.
The
second supporting fact is the rise of Team Sky to hegemony in just a few years. They
were able to do this simply by combining the basic methodology and
metrics of "Training and Racing with a Power Meter" with
the principles of manufacturing used by Henry Ford to make Model Ts.
Cycling needs more Dave Brailsfords but ones focused on developing something for all rather than just one team.
Luckily
the absence of tools to implement the Sport Performance Management
vision is not a big issue. It's main purpose, for the moment, is just
to be a vision, a final destination to keep in focus the many things
that are far more likely to be happening soon and ensure that they
are not, from the outset, seen as silos but as parts of a greater
whole.