Looking for some serious books on sports science

nolf

Have been reading Chris Carmicheals book "Serious Cycling", and found it really interesting. However it doesn't give me a great depth of knowledge and I've always found sports science (relating to cycling) to be interesting as an academic pursuit.

Wandering if anyone could point me towards any more serious sports science (relating to cycling) books?
Online articles also very useful (and more accessible) and I do have access to the Athens network and JSTOR if anyone can find some decent authors/articles worth looking for.

Ultimate aim would be to be able to create a decent training plan for me and my mates with our varying goals.
Thought I knew how, but recently reading some of the posts here has led me to believe that a lot of what I thought is actually a load of rubbish.

Any help would be appreciated!
Nolf.

brownbosh

Its not cycling specific but covers the whole science and is a bible!-
"EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY , HUMAN BIOENERGETICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS" by BRoOKS FAHEY and WHITE

Alex_Simmons/RST

Try
High Performance Cycling by Dr Asker Jeukendrup
and
Training and Racing with a Power Meter by Allen & Coggan

Ric_Stern/RST

Textbook of Work Physiology by Astrand and Rodahl

Exercise Physiology by McArdle, Katch and Katch

Loadsa sports science stuff (obviously!) on Pub-Med

I'm not sure if reading these books will help with your training plan idea. These books explain the underlying physiology and you may need further reading, and a greater understanding to pull it all together?

ric

nolf

Thanks some of those look really interesting.

To be honest, just reading around the subject would interest me. I used to read up on rather specific periods of history, now I need a new project seeing as I do history full time!

I'll have a look at my library to see if they've got any of those, thanks very much for the replies.

Are there any good Sports science journals I can have a look at as well or is cycling plus as good as it gets?

Alex_Simmons/RST

Try these guys for a regular feed:
http://www.sportsscientists.com/

ncr

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Try these guys for a regular feed:
http://www.sportsscientists.com/

What percentage of a coaches or sport scientists training is devoted to the science of pedaling technique ?

blackhands

Generally - none.

synchronicity

There's a book called "bicycling science" which I don't recommend (my short review)

OTOH, I did enjoy reading:
(Long Distance Cycling), which isn't really about sports science at all. :oops:

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Zendog1

If you can get access to online journals (all uni students will have a login) the Journal of Sports Science is pretty good. A review paper to start is "Science and cycling: current knowledge and future trends for research" JSS 2003,21,767-787. Also try Journal of Applied Biometrics.

Dr_Death

I have to agree with Ric, I particularly like Exercise Physiology by McArdle, Katch and Katch...

and there is an Oxford Handbook of sports and exercise medicine which is a bit smaller and easier to port about.

synchronicity

While I'm sure there are a few reputable journals, sports science isn't considered a 'real science' by other scientists. (I'm an ex-scientist by the way)

Alex_Simmons/RST

synchronicity wrote:

While I'm sure there are a few reputable journals, sports science isn't considered a 'real science' by other scientists. (I'm an ex-scientist by the way)

So you are suggesting that the field of study defines whether or not you are a scientist.

That's an interesting take.

BeaconRuth

synchronicity wrote:

While I'm sure there are a few reputable journals, sports science isn't considered a 'real science' by other scientists. (I'm an ex-scientist by the way)

It's probably not helping this thread that there are likely to be as many different views of what 'sport science' is as there are contributors. Most sports science course syllabuses I have seen have a very wide-ranging content with some very scientific modules such as exercise physiology and biomechanics. However they also include things like 'leisure studies' and modules on the economics of the sport industry, sports management and sport/exercise psychology etc which are probably best described as 'social sciences'.

I'm guessing that Nolf is really interested in the exercise physiology and biomechanics rather than the more social-science aspects of 'Sports Science'. And I think Synchronicity is quite right in saying that most scientists would not consider a generalist sports scientist to be a 'real' scientist, any more than they would say a psychologist or economist was. Scientists love looking down on 'social scientists'. However, there's no doubt there are parts of sports science, such as exercise physiology which is as scientific as any physics or chemistry. Whether the experimental protocols are as robust (to KingstonWheeler's point) or the depth of knowledge as great as the older, better established (and probably better funded) pure sciences, I've no idea.

Ruth

synchronicity

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

synchronicity wrote:

While I'm sure there are a few reputable journals, sports science isn't considered a 'real science' by other scientists. (I'm an ex-scientist by the way)

So you are suggesting that the field of study defines whether or not you are a scientist.

That's an interesting take.

I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm saying that's the way it's viewed by the traditional core sciences such as Maths, Physics & Chemistry.

These days, I think current Science is somewhat misdirected. It often creates more problems than it solves - but I'll save that for another thread.

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SunWuKong

Tudor Bumpa 's book on periodisation is pretty well regarded. It is aimed at coaches and doesn't give prescribed programmes but the theory behind setting up a training plan. I quite like it but haven't got too far through it.

nolf

Kingston wheeler, as a history student I have a natural inclination to read everything with a critical mind. Any unsubstantiated statements will immediately arouse suspicion and I probably wouldn't take much notice of them.
I've read a few studies and they often seem to use relatively small groups of athletes, but that doesn't mean that you should ignore them completely though surely?

I generally will give ideas which sound sensible and reasonable, a few attempts and see how I feel afterwards.
Because I have such a sh*te immune system, a lot of my training is based on feel and aiming to not overdo it. So if I felt the workout went well and was said to acheive what I was aiming for then I'd probably stick with it for a while.

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fatrat

nolf wrote:

Because I have such a sh*te immune system, a lot of my training is based on feel and aiming to not overdo it.

Here's the nub of the problem. I was the same.

Do you have a powermeter, a copy of WKO+ and a copy of "Training and Racing with a Powermeter" (Hunter/Allen).

If not, get them. Second hand wired powertaps are pretty cheap on ebay now.

Then, read all about TSS, ATL, CTL, performance manager chart, TSTHKT.

Then you'll be able to plan a training load (and more crucially, the *rate of increase* in training load) that won't blow you away.

When you're back in York I can demo WKO+ and the above if you're interested.

Arthur

bigjoe85

Sports Scientists head is about to explode!!!

bigjoe85

All any scientist can do is evaluate the evidence that is available and use their knowledge to make appropriate inferences.

Sample size is an important factor however simply increasing sample size without thought for subject heterogeneity/homogeneity is just as likely to mask any meaningful effect as small sample sizes are to miss meaningful effects or indicate an effect that is not true. This is often why sample sizes in sports science research are small, recruiting high numbers of suitably homogenous subjects is extremely difficult.

Therefore it is important to evaluate the body of evidence rather than just a single study. The greater the number of studies supporting a given cause:effect relationship the greater the chances of it being true.

Rather than reading journal after journal. I would suggest performing searches in pubmed limitted to review articles that summarise all the evidence available and then locating the full text article using your access to athens and jstor. Science and cycling: current knowledge and future trends for research JSS 2003,21,767-787 may be a good one to start with.

blackhands

KingstonWheeler wrote:

Sports science is a branch of biology. My point is just that so many articles in the journals seem to refer to tiny sample sizes, often no more than 20 subjects. This leaves the results wide open to statistical anomalies and problems of interpretation. Clearly rounding up 100, yet alone 1000 riders is going to be very difficult, yet alone to test them in repeatable, identical conditions.

So just be careful of statements like "doing X lead to a Y% improvement in power output in the group" as they can be significant but chances are the link is never that precise, that some people react better/worse than others to different diets, training, recovery plans etc.

Most published sport science papers do not make such generalizations. These usually come about by interpretation by amateurs (journalists and the like writing for the general public. Sample sizes are not plucked out of the air - there are very precise mathematical methods of determining these based on the accuracy of the measuring equipment and the .size of the effects being measured. (See http://sportsci.org/2006/wghss.pdf ).

Back to Books - I agree on Brooks et al but remember that any book will be out of date - for example George Brooks has developed his views on the lactate shuttle and now seems to be questioning the existence of lactate acid.

nolf

fatrat wrote:

nolf wrote:

Because I have such a sh*te immune system, a lot of my training is based on feel and aiming to not overdo it.

Here's the nub of the problem. I was the same.

Do you have a powermeter, a copy of WKO+ and a copy of "Training and Racing with a Powermeter" (Hunter/Allen).

If not, get them. Second hand wired powertaps are pretty cheap on ebay now.

Then, read all about TSS, ATL, CTL, performance manager chart, TSTHKT.

Then you'll be able to plan a training load (and more crucially, the *rate of increase* in training load) that won't blow you away.

When you're back in York I can demo WKO+ and the above if you're interested.

Arthur

Thats a very generous offer, afraid I don't have a power meter, but if I can get one cheap then I may well get it, I've always wanted one. Being a poor student, I may have to save up for a while though.

Reviews of articles is a good idea, I do that for writing essays but lacking serious knowledge I may find it useful to read the whole thing.
Good tip for anyone starting university, do a search on JSTOR for reviews of articles to get a good appraisal of articles, plus they often are cross referenced and have some of the best quotes in them. Good for if the essay is due in the next day and you're short of time!