Thursday, December 18, 2008

10,000 Hours

There's sort of a pop-pyschology theory floating around that says to become a world-class performer at any skill, you need roughly 10,000 hours of practice. Most recently, this theory has been publicized by Malcolm Gladwell, but it originated elsewhere. I'd heard about this before, but it came back to my attention due to this T-Nation article (note: T-Nation is not at all a work-friendly site... I'm almost embarassed to admit I read it, but they do post some very good articles).

The interesting bit in the T-Nation article (if I scared you off from reading it yourself) was that, in the original study, they didn't find exceptions. That is, there were no "naturals", people that were elite that put in significantly less than 10,000 hours, and there were no "grinders", people that put in 10,000 hours but were not elite.

Relative to cycling, there also seems to be anecdotal evidence to support this. There are plenty of stories about pro cyclists who rode many many hours in their youth. Interestingly enough, the pro cyclist stories usually are told with the idea that they probably rode too much. Maybe in hindsight they do feel like they rode too much, but I really wonder if they would have become pro's if they hadn't done it.

OK, so we're coming to my main question. If something like the 10,000 hour theory is correct, should we really be using low-volume, high-intensity training schedules? On the face of it, you'd have to say no. Low-volume means that you'd have to train much longer to hit your 10,000 hours.

Under further examination though, the answer isn't so easy, because I think not all training time is equal. To give a slightly absurd example, let's say I spent my 10,000 hours only riding on the trainer. Would I become an elite bike racer? Obviously not, I wouldn't have any handling skills. What about 10,000 hours doing LSD rides outdoors? Not as easy to answer, but probably still not. 10,000 hours racing or doing quality efforts? I think you'd have to answer yes there (although I don't know how long it would take to accumulate that time).

This suggests to me that there is some separation between the strength / conditioning aspect of racing and the skill of bike racing. (In fact, Jeff told me as much earlier this year, "You're finally starting to look like a bike racer..." What I didn't write in that post was his other comment, "Putting down power is easy.") So, the issue is the quantity of quality hours, not just the quantity of hours.

For the high-intensity plan, I see two ways this could benefit you: 1. You should spend more of your training hours training at race-like conditions. 2. The lower volume of hours spent working on the conditioning aspect of cycling could free up more time to work on other skill aspects.

Sorry for the long post, but there was a lot to cover...

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