Panorama Part 2 - shoes

Source: http://www.hgtv.com/landscaping/pretty-pots/index.html

The second part of the Panorama programme was about the claims of the running shoe industry. 

I don't want say anything about the barefoot vs cushioning debate (that ground has been well tilled in every runners forum for the past few years). Instead I want to mention one of those coincidences that can happen when you are thinking about one subject: something totally unrelated can become relevant. In this case an article in the latest London Review of Books about D H Lawrence's attitude to products of the modern world, the organic vs inorganic, the authentic vs inauthentic.

A world away from the claims of  Adidas and Nike you would assume, even if the essay title was 'Lady Chatterley's sneakers'. But no! Connie wore tennis shoes to meet Mellors in the woods and tennis shoes had crepe soles, which are at a less processed type of rubber product, i.e. not vulcanised, and at an interesting point in the continuum between natural and synthetic.  It is therefore obvious that any literary scholar worth his salt would discuss the efforts of the Rubber Growers Associations to promote the use of crepe shoes in the 1920s (oh do keep up!).

Some of their advertising was quoted:

‘The cushion of “live” rubber lessens fatigue and makes walking a pleasure,’ the advertisements claimed, ‘adding hours to endurance and a spring to every step.’ For nothing had been done, chemically or otherwise, to ‘impair the natural live quality and nerve of the virgin product’.

When I read it I was taken right back to the Panorama programme and the realisation that in essence the sales pitch of sports shoes has hardly changed. It might have added a sciency gloss but we still want something to help our endurance and give us more spring and if the current promotions for barefoot running shoes are about anything they are about being more natural.

The companies are still selling the same dreams.

Panorama on sports drinks

A month or so ago Panorama ran a programme on sports products (drinks, shoes, supplements) and really I had no intention of writing about it. The conclusion that we are oversold the benefits of these products is not startling and the style (which now seems to be the default for factual programmes) of having the presenter as an active participant, undergoing test, whilst making dramatic statements was a little tedious - so I didn't feel like saying anything.  But that was before things warmed up with a bit of academic venom.

Mark Burnley wrote this response and his lack of regard for Tim Noakes is quite obvious. Tim Noakes has replied and so we have a dispute about hydration and reputation that has a certain amount of animus but leaves me, as an outsider, feeling there is something else going on and I lack a bit of background. It probably relates to claims by Noakes that his work on the dangers of over drinking were suppressed by people and organisations in thrall to the sports drinks industry (in other words a conspiracy) and people on the other side thinking their integrity had been impugned. As they are all big boys and can take care of themselves they can get on with their fight. I'm not too interested in their relative personal honour, my concern is with the advice given to and the understanding of mid and back of the pack runners. This subject the Panorama programme addressed.

It was not "one of the most biased programme I've ever seen" neither was it a hatchet job on sports science. It was about the marketing of sports products and the way exaggerated claims might create a false impression of what was necessary for exercise. It stated quite clearly in the introduction that ⅕ of us go to the gym and 12 million take part in sport so their is an eager market for sports products and so they wanted to examine the claims made by companies. It was not an evaluation of sports science as a subject but about how science based claims were over leveraged.  In the case of sports drinks, the fact that they are sold in supermarkets and shifted in quantities far in excess of the number of endurance sessions suggests a number of people either like the taste (and are therefore drinking too much sugar) or believe they are necessary when they are not. In that context the programme's message that unless you are going long water is fine seems uncontroversial. Use of the drinks was not dismissed out of hand (they said they worked for athletes like Mo Farah and were good for endurance) but there was a concern that an exaggerated impression of their effectiveness and an overemphasis on hydration might lead to over drinking.

This is important because hyponatremia has caused death in some marathons and it has been the case, in the recent past, that marathon runners have been encouraged to drink as often and as much as possible - advice that cause this condition. (I have been to a marathon training camp where such advice was given). Although the official guidelines are much more conservative, old ideas can be persistent, especially if they are simple and to the point. 'Drink as much as you can' is easy to remember and act upon in a race and so hangs around. The importance of 'drink according to your thirst'  is not only that it is safer but also it is just as simple and easy to act upon. It therefore has a chance of replacing the older message. I thought the programme got this across quite effectively.

One of the Oxford scientists made an important point. The claim that performance deteriorates significantly if you dehydrate by 2% of bodyweight ("just" 2% in the Powerade literature) is widespread and oft repeated but in a marathon you can't action it. You cannot know how much you have lost at any one time, so out of fear of losing too much you will overcompensate. When you are running you work on simple rules of thumb and if you believe not drinking enough will be bad you will do all you can to make sure that doesn't happen. The operational understanding should be reversed: if you drink too much bad things could happen with the consequence that errors would be on the side of caution. A different mindset and one counter to a deep-seated cultural outlook: that if something is good then more is better (which is perhaps why drinks companies are so successful).

I'm sure there were some contributions to the programme that were edited out, perhaps they talked about optimum levels of hydration and and conflicting information. I don't know. I'm sure they would have been interesting if it had been a Horizon on the current state of scientific knowledge (and that would be a programme I would like to see) but this was Panorama. It was primarily about marketing distortions or myths and the way big companies can influence  our attitudes. Sometimes it doesn't matter very much but sometimes it does; but as information transfer is increasingly mediated by corporations we need to be ever more vigilant of the consequences. It is an important subject.

So there you have it. I saw a different programme to Mark Burnley. I saw something aimed at the more casual exerciser and general public. It looked at the science but only to the extent it was used to justify marketing claims and it was not about the overall state of that science. I didn't think it was great but neither did I think it terrible. I would however like to give this assurance as an outsider: I really did not come away with the impression that "sports science research was being conducted by either clueless muppets or industry shills"

The Meaning of Sport

Source: BBC

Saturday was probably the most exciting day of sport I can remember. Although the night, with its three GB athletics gold medal was uplifting and extraordinary in its own right it was only the culmination of a day of highs (mostly highs) and lows.

In the velodrome there had been the sight of the GB women's pursuit team, perfectly drilled riding for one another for their sixth consecutive world record. Such a relentless power applied with an economy of effort where only the legs seemed to be moving, was a wonder to watch. Afterwards at the medal ceremony the stadium was filled with noise as the whole crowd, led by Paul McCartney sang Hey Jude. It could have been a little bit cheesy but it wasn't. It was joyous. Community, celebration, connection between crowd and performer - everything was there.

Also there was a moment that showed something of the person within an athlete. Jo Rowsell took off her helmet to reveal a mostly bald head with a couple of tufts of hair. From the age of 10 she has suffered from alopecia and has had to grow into womanhood without one of the great signifiers of beauty (and to see what an important signifier hair is you only have to look  at the lustrous lock in any shampoo advert). It must have been  difficult but according to this article  cycling has helped build her confidence.  Wonderful - but it still takes a deal of courage to show the whole world your bald head and I am sure every alopecia sufferer will walk a little bit taller after having seen it.

That would have been enough for a normal day but there was much more. On the water there were two greatly contrasting rowing moments. One was an expression of joy and disbelief on the face of Katherine Copeland after she and Sophie Hosking had won their race. Wide eyed and opened mouthed she looked as if she could not believe it but in her expression she showed all the tumultuous emotion of sporting triumph and the reason people put themselves through so much. The other moment was the obverse - the pain of defeat.  Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase battled with the Danish crew and lost by the slimmest of margins to win silver rather than gold. They were so exhausted afterwards that they had almost to be lifted out of the boat and to give an interview to TV they had to prop each other up. They were distraught and the only thing they could think of saying was to apologise to everybody for letting them down. They had let nobody down. They had been heroic but because they did not meet their own target they felt the burden of the whole team upon their shoulders. (read Zac Purchase's account here).The interview went no further there was nothing anybody could say as everybody was moved and Steve Redgrave gently helped them away to a place of privacy where they could recover. If you ever wanted to see how people can invest every fibre of their being in a quest and what that means at the end, you only have to watch that clip. 

And so onto the evening in the athletics stadium where there was nothing but joy. Obviously winning three gold medals in one night is something that the GB team never do. It is impossible but somehow it happened. Not only that it happened to the people you would want. Greg Rutherford, the slightly surprising winner of the long jump has had to endure many ups and downs, injuries and a failure at Beijing that made him feel like giving up, so to eventually come out on top is one of those stories you want to happen. Nothing more can be said about Jessica Ennis and the gracious, sunny way she has born the burden of being the face of the games and the top medal hope. As for Mo Farah - well I just shared the joy and excitement of the BBC commentators.

But later there was something just as significant. At the press conference some numpty journalist asked whether he would have preferred to represent Somali rather than GB Mo Farah replied  "Look mate, this is my country. This is where I grew up, this is where I started life. This is my country and when I put on my Great Britain vest I'm proud. I'm very proud...To win the Olympics in the place you grew up and went to school just means so much to me."

Stick that in your pipe all those miserable people who complained about the multiculturalism of the opening ceremony. This is who we now are: a nation of many peoples and it is great that through the Olympics we have come together to celebrate it

Body Type, Aptitude and Skittles

One of my favourite moments of commentary from the Olympics on Friday was when Tomasz Majewski celebrated his victory in the shot put by running across the track to the crowd whilst the women's 10,000m was being raced. "He better not collide with them or he will scatter them like skittles." You could see his mental image: one big beefy man, a row of slight women and cartoon like fun. 

It highlighted was the way different body types are suited to different sports. Rowers for example tend to have a huge aerobic capacity and great endurance but I wouldn't fancy many of them in a marathon. Similarly you would not put any money on a basketball team made up of cyclists.  It is an obvious point but one that stopped me being convinced by the argument that champions are only made by focused hard work. I enjoyed Bounce by Matthew Syed and thought it contained lots of interesting evidence which showed most people could be better than they ever believed possible, if they practiced properly, with enough intensity, for enough hours. Nevertheless to be a champion, you have to have the right physical equipment for your event. You have to have enough aptitude to make the work worthwhile. The success of British cycling comes applying all the lessons of directed practice, analysing the different components of the sport and making sure no stone is left unturned. The athletes in their programme lead a disciplined rigorous life but before they are admitted they undergo all sorts of tests to make sure they have the necessary physical characteristics, the necessary talent. They know what is required and have identified people outside the sport with the requisite power and aerobic profiles and then encouraged them to take up cycling. Lizzie Armistead is an example. She had never even owned a bike before the age of 15, seven years later she has an Olympic silver medal for the road race. Champions are made from a mixture of talent, hard work, mental strength.

For the rest of us though aptitude is not so important. We can do what we want if we like it. we persist we will improve and in doing so affirm our own sense of worth, even if objectively we are at the back of the pack. For example I am not really built to be a distance runner, my shape is all wrong, but that does not stop me finding satisfaction in plodding along the canal. I can look at the slender frame of Mo Farah with limbs proportionally long and wonder at the sheer elegance of his stride and the beauty of his movement and know, that even if I had started as a young boy and worked as hard as possibly, I could never have approached his level of grace. That is fine I am not a competitive athlete my pleasure is more contemplative, more about the sensation of moving through the landscape, feeling the air, feeling the body working.

I may not be a natural but on the upside though I am not so susceptible to being scattered like a skittle