How to become an Olympian

As the thrills of the 2012 London Olympic Games still linger in our minds and the excitement of the Paralympics beckons us on to hours more TV viewing, it is worthwhile reminding ourselves of a few facts about the most watched public event in the world.

For a start, the Modern Olympics have very little to do with Ancient Greece.  They were actually the idea of a French aristocrat who was inspired by the ethos of the English Public School sports of the Victoria era.  Baron Pierre de Coubertin looked to the ‘muscular Christianity’ of Rugby and other Public Schools, and concluded that, “organised sport can create moral and social strength”.  The youth of France – indeed the whole world – urgently needed some of this strong medicine, and so he travelled the world gathering support for his vision.  De Coubertin called this the ‘Olympic’ idea because he believed that it was the Ancient Greeks who have first developed the core philosophy.

The Baron’s vision was that the Games competition would be only one of a series of activities that take place during the Olympic year.  The ‘Cultural Olympiad’ was a marriage of sport and the arts, and included music, dance, visual arts and other wholesome activities.  This broader conception of the Olympics continues to exist, despite an almost total lack of interest from the national media … or anyone else.

__________________________________________________

Quick Quiz: Which of the following activities have appeared in the Modern Olympic Games?*

Cricket                                      Solo synchronised swimming

Pistol Dueling                           Long Jump for horses

Sculpture                                  Literature

Singing                                     Tug of War

* Answers are given at the end of this blog

__________________________________________________

Finally, and most importantly for our purposes, the elite sport aspect of the Olympics is just the outward expression of philosophy of life called Olympism.  This philosophy is built on three core values – excellence, friendship and respect – and aims to use the Olympic activities to inspire education and development in all people around the world.  De Coubertin wrote:

“Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”

Ultimately, then, the razzamatazz of two weeks in the summer are just the tip of the iceberg.  The Olympics are a metaphor for something much bigger and more important, namely the potential of sport and the arts as vehicles for the realisation of human excellence.  And excellence can take different forms.  As we all know, it can refer to successful performance in high-level competitions.  What educationalists might call this the ‘summative’ view!  However, as we all know, it’s the ‘formative’ that makes the real difference in the long term.  This second form translates as personal excellence, and refers to on-going achievement against personal goals throughout one’s life.

It seems to me that, in launching the Olympics on the world, De Coubertin was offering a powerful metaphor for personal excellence.  The champions have their day, and in doing so, elite sport represents a laboratory for the rest of us.  We can see before our eyes the effects of someone pursuing excellence.  We can learn from their successes and challenges.

Fascinatingly, recent research seems to support this position: there is a great of similarity between the processes used by elite sports people in preparing for the Olympics and those used by the rest of us trying to improve in our own terms.  At least, this is the view of Professor David Collins, from the University of Central Lancashire.  Prof. Collins is a ‘Performance Psychologist’ and was National Coach for Athletics at the Beijing Olympics.  His research suggests that there are ‘champion behaviours’ that can be learnt by children (and by anyone else).  Starting with explicit teaching and reinforcement from others, eventually children learn to take responsibility for setting and monitoring their own personal development.

According Collins and his colleagues, champion behaviours include the following:

Goal setting - establishing specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-targeted goals.

Performance evaluation – regularly assessing your performance against your goals.

Imagery – going through an event or activity in your mind, using all of your senses, including sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and movement to recreate performance.

Planning – articulating the steps necessary for on-going improvement.

Commitment and role clarity  - learning to understand and accept your responsibilities with the group.

Focus and distraction control – remaining focused, despite pressure or failure.

Evaluating and coping with pressure – managing stress and learning to use it for positive purposes.

They have found that each of these behaviours can be learned, and they go further.  They argue that all children should be taught the skills, so that all of them have at the skills and behaviours of champions at their disposal.  Then, if they choose to aspire to excellence, they will have the psychological foundations necessary.

The most fundamental requirement of any attempt to develop excellence is the simplest: practice.  Forbes magazine summarized the view of many researchers like this:

“The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call ‘deliberate practice’.  It's activity that's explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one's level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.”

It is quite easy to find support for this view among those who have excelled in their work.  For example, here is the actor Will Smith:

“I’ve never really viewed myself as particularly talented.  I’ve viewed myself as slightly above average in talent.  And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic.  You know, while the other guy’s sleeping?  I’m working.  While the other guy’s eatin’?  I’m working.  While the other guy’s making love, I mean, I’m making love, too.  But I’m working really hard at it,”

And here is the genius footballer Pele:

“Everything is practice.”

Famously, some studies examining expert performance have found that a minimum of 10 years, or 10,000 hours, of sustained practice appears to be a necessary.  But not just any practice will do.  According to Dr K. Anders Ericsson, the ‘expert on expertise theory’, the key is ‘deliberate practice’, which is done with the specific goal of improving performance, is effortful and attention-demanding, is not necessarily enjoyable, and does not lead to immediate social or financial rewards.  So, according to Ericsson’s expertise theory, every athlete at the top level has invested huge amounts of high quality practice into their sport.  The same can be said of professional musicians, chess grandmasters, and leading scientists.

There are many things about Ericsson’s theory that are admirable, not least his attempt to differentiate between practice and deliberate practice, and his corrective of the default position of sport scientists to explain every phenomenon in terms of biology.  However, there are problems too.  One is the status of the magical 10,000 hours rule.  As a metaphor, it works quite well.  But the briefest perusal of the careers of champions (including those at the 2012 Games) reveals that 10,000 hours is not the threshold value it is often claimed to be.  Some champions have managed to excel in their sport remarkably quickly (such as the Olympic Gold Medalist HeatherStanning or the Ironman goddess Chrissie Wellington), whilst others have taken much, much longer to succeed at the top (such as almost every Golfer).  Also, the portrayal of deliberate practice – hours and hours of exhaustive and boring repetition) simply does not match the accounts of most champions.

My own research with elite sports people and dancers has provided some detail to the understanding of deliberate practice.  The figure below shows three of the key characteristics. 

Supported Learning - It is sometimes said that practice does not make perfect; practice makes permanence.  A task that is repeated for an extended length of time becomes progressively more automatic and unconscious.  This is fine if the task being learned is quite simple and done correctly, but if not, practice can cement ineffective skills.  This is why feedback is so important for learning, as it nudges the performer back to proper form.  This is also why teachers and coaches are vital to high quality learning.  They guide, direct, and correct practice.

Mindful Learning - An second problem with any repeated task is that is can quickly become boring.  The psychologist Ellen Langer calls this mindlessness, and suggests that it is a barrier to motivating, effective learning.  Mindfulness, on the other hand, occurs when the individual is actively involved with task, constantly makes small changes and variations, and is open to new ideas.  Langer describes this mindset like this:

“Mindfulness is a flexible state of mind in which we are actively engaged in the present, noticing new things and sensitive to context.”

Our studies have lead us to conclude that mindful learning is a powerful component of personal excellence.

Contextual Learning - The third factor is probably the most important from the point of view of effective learning: learning that reflects the real context of performance.  In other words, contextual learning is learning that is designed so that learners can carry out activities and solve problems in a way that reflects the nature of such tasks in the real world.  Research supports the effectiveness of learning in meaningful contexts.  This means that the best way to learn to play cricket is to play a lot of cricket games; and learning to play the piano happens when learners play music.  This is especially worth emphasizing, as decontextualised practice is extremely popular in many activities, especially in education and sport, where drills often take up a great deal of time in sessions.  Research suggests that such activities are mostly valueless.

The implication of these ideas seem clear: practice is not enough.  Excellence requires high quality learning experiences that are characterized by meaningful, attentive practice supported by great teachers or coaches.  This is a necessary condition of excellence.

Taken together, these strands of research suggest that the achievements of top sports people reflect fundamentally similar processes to those used by the rest of us as we battle with our own pursuits of personal excellence.  There is nothing magical about Olympic performance; it simply shows what is possible if practices that are available to all of us are taken to extremes.

So, Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s early insight seems to have been right.  The glory and spectacle of the Olympic Games can act as a metaphor for personal excellence, giving evidence of the possibility of the realization of potential.  Skills like goal setting and role clarity are used everyday by likes of Jessica Ennis, Tom Daley and Michael Phelps.  Most exciting, however, is the fact that they can also be learned by children, and applied to their own sport and their own schooling.  They might also be used by you, Dear Reader, in supporting your own ambitions.

Finding out more?

Ellen Langer The Power of Mindful Learning

Daniel Pink Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us

David Shenk The Genius in All of Us

Quick quiz answer: Answer: ALL of them!

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Sport has still got a long way to go, Mr Gove

I don't think I was the only person surprised by the tone of the recent speech by Michael Gove, English Secretary of State of Education, at Brighton College.  He took the opportunity to highlight the inequalities that remain characteristic of British society, and especially advances offered those able to attend independent schools.

"It is remarkable how many of the positions of wealth, influence, celebrity and power in our society are held by individuals who were privately educated."

I was surprised because Mr Gove has never struck me as someone especially bothered by our evident social biases.  A great deal of Mr Gove's speech focused on the inequalities inherent within our sports systems.  Yet, in dismantling the Physical Education and School Sport programme in English schools, and especially the School Sport Partnerships, he was directly responsible for sabotaging one of the very few national policies to successfully break down barriers to participation of state-school pupils.


And the proposed solution of 'more competitive sport in schools' would be simply laughable if it was not for its promise of reversing many of the advances we have seen during the last decade, with the negative health consequences that will bring.


Simple solutions are great for dealing with simply problems.  But even Mr Gove is starting to recognise that the problems of participation and talent development are not simple.


At Brighton he said:

Take sport – where by definition the biggest names are in their teens, twenties and thirties.

As Ed Smith, the Tonbridge-educated former England player, and current Times journalist, points out in his wonderful new book “Luck”:

Twenty-five years ago, of the 13 players who represented England on a tour of Pakistan, only one had been to a private school. In contrast, over two thirds of the current team are privately educated. You’re 20 times more likely to go on and play for England if you go to private school rather than state school.

The composition of the England rugby union team and the British Olympic team reveal the same trend.
Of those members of England’s first 15 born in England, more than half were privately educated.

And again, half the UK’s gold medallists at the last Olympics were privately educated, compared with seven per cent of the population.
 

  
All of this is true.  And it has been known from at least the 1980s.


Here is a summary of some of the social and economic factors linked to high performance in sport:

Variable	Source
Parents achieved high standards in domain	Rotella and Bunker, 1987; Radford, 1990; Feldman and Goldsmith, 1986
Relatively high socio-economic status	Rowley, 1992; English Sports Council, 1997; Duncan, 1997
Ability and willingness to financially support participation and specialist support	Rowley, 1992; Kirk, et al, 1997a; Kay, 2000
Ability and willingness to invest high amounts of time to support the child’s engagement in the activity	Yang et al., 1996; Kirk et al., 1997b; Kay, 2000; Holt and Morley, 2004
Parents as car owners	Rowley, 1992
Relatively small family size	English Sports Council, 1997
Two-parent family	Rowley, 1992; Kay, 2000
Attendance at Independent School	Rowley, 1992

Table: social and economic influences on youth talent development in sport (based on Bailey and Morley, 2006)

These, and other, factors show why any ambition of a fair and equitable sports development system in countries like the UK will always be difficult.

Think of these data this way: imagine a child who is talented in a sport; the absence of each factor listed in the table above becomes a barrier to that child's development NO MATTER HOW TALENTED, OR COMMITTED HE OR SHE IS.

Mr Gove's speech acknowledges the unfairness of the UK sports system.  But there is another side to the matter: it is also stupid.  It is stupid because participation and advancement in sport are always undermined by factors that have absolutely nothing to do with interest or ability.

So it is a refreshing to read Mr Gove's speech.  Perhaps it will bring about renewed awareness of the problems inherent with the UK sport system (and all other Western systems).  But this awareness needs to be coupled with an acknowledgement that simple solutions will not do.

We need a root and branch re-evaluation of the whole system, and a suite of solutions based on evidence.  And we are a long way from adopting that sort of approach in sport.

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How should we feel about the 'feelgood factor' at the London Olympics?

Just because you feel good

Doesn't make you right

Just because you feel good

Still want you here tonight.

Skunk Anansie, Hedonism

Prime Minister David Cameron thinks that the Olympics will create a legacy for the whole of the UK and not just London.  But, true to his earlier statements about importance of feelings and what-not, he warns that some of this legacy will be “hard to touch”.

The concept of 'hard to touch' is a strange one in an era of evidence-based policy, in which, in the words of one civil servant (presumably in thrall to the early philosophy of Wittgenstein), 'if I can't measure it, it don't exist'.  As you know, Wittgenstein abandoned his early ideas and adopted a broader view, and perhaps Mr Cameron has also been persuaded to take a more inclusive conception of reality.  Or maybe he is just worried that the only legacies of London 2012 will be immaterial.

Cameron's touchy-feeling tones when discussing the Olympics are not without precedent.  Consider this neat piece of verbal gymnastics from New Labour's Game Plan policy document, when it suggests that whilst the quantity of medals won at the Olympics is of great importance, one must not neglect the “quality” of a victory:

“‘Quality’ can be taken to be the extent to which victory produces the feelgood factor and national pride (as these are the main public benefits of high performance sport). If it is accepted that the more popular the sport, the greater the amount of feelgood which follows, then “quality” medals are those obtained in the most popular sports.”

So, according to Game Plan, the feelgood factor is a quality that can be created and changed in amount over time, and although it is admitted that it is “difficult to quantify”, there seems little room for doubting that it can have a powerful causal effect.

So what is the feelgood factor, then?  In case you thought it was something to do with happiness, or satisfaction, or well-being, or other philosophical fluff, the authors of Game Plan tell us it can all be explained with hard science:

“The biological explanation for the feelgood sensation is due to the release of endorphin in the brain. Endorphin has been called the ‘happy hormone’ and is released for different reasons, mainly physical, but also from laughter and joy, experienced by, for example, your team winning a match. Endorphin helps to reduce pain and has even been found to enhance treatment of many illnesses and diseases.”

Remember that this piece of pseudo-scientific woowoo comes from a government document; a document that is primarily concerned with justifying the future of sport in the UK, and the billions of pounds it says are needed to ensure it.

The feelgood factor has been repeatedly cited by governments and other agencies as one of the arguments for investment in elite sport in general, and the London Olympics.  In Game Plan, for example, it is listed as the first of three 'virtuous outcomes' of elite sporting success (the others are economic benefits and increased grass-roots participation).

If the Game Plan account is to be accepted, the feelgood factor really means 'improved mood'.  Perhaps you think that is a rather feeble justification for close-to £10,000,000,000,000 expenditure from London alone.

The weediness of the feelgood defence for investment in elite sport is partly due to the fact that we can easily think of more economical alternatives for generating good feelings and lifting our mood, from old episodes of Dad’s Army to Christmas with family and friends, to a smile from a secret crush.

There is a second, more fatal difficulty with the feelgood defence.  Improved mood following nice experiences is almost always short-lived.  Humans are adaptive creatures (like all creatures, in fact), and we readily adapt to changing environments.  So improved mood or satisfaction eventually results in a ‘hedonic treadmill’ by which the elevated state will not continue, even if the circumstances that promote it are maintained.

In other words, the good mood that we hope will come with the Olympic success will be short-lived, and will certainly last a lot less time than it will take to pay off the debt from the Games.

And let’s not forget that moods – like interest rates and skirt lengths – can go up as well as down.  John Steele, former CEO of UK Sport, spoke of the “the euphoria of a full Lord’s Cricket Ground … when a single Ashes test was won”.  But by the same logic, any of England’s subsequent defeats would seem destined to result in national despair.  What will happen to the feelgood factor if any of our Olympic hopefuls under-performs or is injured?

If success in elite sport (let alone second-hand, spectated success) has a potent positive effect on our mood, presumably failure has the opposite.  And if this is true, then this is a real cause for concern, as the nature of sports competition is that most players lose in the long-run.

These are not new arguments, nor particularly scholarly.  I am sure there are those among the governments and their policy makers who know that the public has been offered some pathetically weak rationale for their investment in the Games.  Personally, I’d prefer an honest explanation like, ‘Hey, it’s the Olympics.  We beat the French!’  I’d even take, ‘Look, I was a bit of a spotty geek at school; if we get the Olympics, I get to hang out with Jessica Ennis and Victoria Pendleton!'  I just wish they didn’t treat us like fools.  It doesn't feel good at all.

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Why I am (mostly) glad I am a man. And why nice girls don't do sport

Every now and then I am overcome with a feeling of resentment towards women.  I look at them with their shoes and their scatter cushions, and feel .. what is the word?  Oh yes, jealous.


By most objective measures, women are the superior gender  Taken as a population, women are more socially intelligent than men.  They are better able to deal with conflict, and less likely to be lead by their ridiculous egos.  They work harder than men, often at more than one thing at a same time (a skill that many men would condemn as witchcraft).  And most importantly of all, women are much, much nicer than men,


Obviously, they are not especially nice to each other.  I've taught in a girls school, so I have seen things that would make your toes curl.  And if you haven't, trust me: the evil that men do is nothing compared to what two thirteen year old girl friends will say and do to each other.


But such behaviour is merely an anomaly.  My personal theory is that it is a result of excessive intelligence.  Human brains evolved to deal with the harsh, Machiavellian social settings of early hominids, and we have essentially the same brain architecture than our ancestors had 40,000 years ago.  It seems to me that most women just have a lot of that Machiavellian intelligence to spare.


I am, of course, aware that I am making wild generalisations that are crude and stereotypical.  And I know that for every Hillary Clinton there is a Sarah Palin, and for every Noel Edmonds there is a Stephen Fry.


Overall, weighing up and the pros and cons, I am happy to stick with my theory.  Women are best.  Men are rubbish.  So, every now and again the loser in me whispers in my ear "Look at them, with their intuition and social grace.  See their under-stated humour and their kindness?  Compared to them, you and your kind will always be oafs.  Hairy, smelly oafs.  Who start wars."


What's stopped me from switching sides?  Of taking the unkindest cut of all?


Well, women don't have it all their way.  Nature always strives for balance.  For all their virtues, they have to deal with a variety unpleasant biological afflictions that are best not discussed in civilised company.


And they have to cope with the Daily Mail.  There are many popular newspapers in the UK, but the Mail stands out.  Partly because of its stout defence of all things that are great about modern Britain, like Princess Diana and the death penalty.  And partly because it markets itself primarily to women.  The Mail claims to be The Newspaper for Women.


The extent to which the Mail stands FOR women can be judged by its content on 8th March.  International Women's Day.  Whilst other media were banging on about women's achievements or the prejudice of patriarchal society, The Daily Mail cut right to the chase.

The movie star Cameron Diaz's attempts to be 'girly' were undermined by the fact that she had clearly done some exercise: "...  sporting an LBD [no idea, sorry] with an asymmetrical neckline [er], Cameron Diaz was unable to disguise her toned arm and shoulder.  The actress looked more tomboy than feminine at a promotional event ..."


The author of this social commentary, Alanah Eriksen, doesn't really mean 'tomboy', does she?  By claiming a degree of androgyny about the actress' appearance, she is feeding into a long-standing cultural theme: sport and exercise are boys' activities, and girls who choose to break this basic rule probably break other, more serious, social taboos too.


Nice girls don't play sport.  Girls who play sport are not nice.


And this principle must be right because we witness it every day: from increasingly early ages, girls drop out of sport and physical activity, often never to return.


I wonder if it was a coincidence that the Mail choose this particular day to publish this diarrhea.  I don't read it, and for all I know, the paper usually has features by Germaine Greer on the joy of menopause, and the sports pages are full of women's boxing and international netball.


If so, it is simply unfortunate that it printed an article that demeans and insults women on the very day that the world was celebrating the extraordinary advances that women have made this century.


But I suspect not.  This nonsense is ridiculous but not without precedent.  Women are bombarded with messages that tell them how to behave in order to remain 'girly'.  And some of the messages, like this one, are positively harmful to women's health, because exercise is a necessary ingredient of well-being.


And this is why I grudgingly choose to remain a man.  I can live with being a bit slow and useless.  And I look forward to my inevitable decline into ridiculousness.


And if I decide to play some sport or do some exercise, I know that I won't be condemned by an evil hate-rag that makes its money by reinforcing society's prejudices and playing on people's fears.

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The blog of lists: 101 summaries of important/interesting research into sport (Part 1)

Research is a complex and time-consuming activity.  It can involve years of data-gathering, and its findings are often subtle and difficult to reduce to a few simple recipes.


BUT, if it wasn't ...


This entry tries to summarise some important research studies in sports coaching and related areas like physical education, youth sport and sport development.  I have also included some lists that just seem interesting to sporty folk.  In all cases, the summaries are in the form of lists.


My ambition in doing this is twofold: I hope this lists are useful and interesting in their own right.  But I also hope the reader will go from here to the original research papers, many of which readable.


The lists are not in any particular order.  Why?  Because it seems to me that we come across some of the most insightful ideas when we are looking for something else.


[Oh, I should acknowledge straight away that there are nowhere near 101 lists!]

What are the minimum requirements of sports programmes aiming to foster positive sporting experiences for young people?

1.       a clear mission;
2.       developmentally appropriate content;
3.       a safe and healthy environment;
4.       suitably trained staff;
5.       integrated family and community partners; and
6.       on-going assessments.

Sources: E.g., Bodily, S., and Beckett, M. K. (2005)  Making out-of-school-time matter: Evidence for an action agenda. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Education and Rand Labor and Population.  Coatsworth, J. D., and Conray, D. E. (2007)  Youth sport as a component of afterschool programs.  New Directions for Youth Development, 115, pp. 57-74.  Eccles, J. S., and Gootman, J. A. (eds) (2002) Community programs to promote youth development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Why were Olympians first attracted to their sport?

1. a love of the sport
2. an intrinsic love of activity
3. early success in the sport

Once introduced to their sport, why did these Olympians continue to participate?

1. the challenge and love of competition
2. fun
3. a desire to be successful

As the level of competition increased, why did these Olympians continue to participate?

1. the challenge and love of competition
2. a desire to be successful
3. the need for a competitive outlet
4. fun

What are the most important qualities of a coach?

1. the ability to teach
2. the ability to motivate or encourage
3. training knowledge
4. skill competence
5. strategic knowledge of sport

What are the least important qualities of a coach?

1. assistance with goal setting
2. management and organisational skills
3. assistance with balancing the lives of athletes

Source: Gibbons, T., Hill, R., McConnell, A., Forster, T., Moore, J. (2002)  The path to excellence: a comprehensive view of development of U.S. Olympians who competed from 1984-1998. Colorado Springs, CO: United States Olympic Committee.

How do Female Athletes Want their Parents to Behave?

The study found three categories of parental behaviour across different phases of competition (before, during, after):

• preparation for competition
• parental support and, encouragement during competition
• the provision of feedback after competition

Source: Knight, C. J., Neely, K. C., & Holt, N. L. (2011) Parental Behaviors in Team Sports: How do Female Athletes Want Parents to Behave? Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 23(1), pp. 76-92.

Why Do Children Want to Take Part in Gymnastics Classes?

1. Being with and Making Friends
2. Developing Physical Fitness
3. Learning and Improving Skills

Source: Wald, J. (2003) Parental Motivations for Enrolling their Children in a Private Gymnastic Program.  The Sport Journal.  6(3).

World's Most Popular Sports (for fans)

1. Soccer / Football
2. Cricket
3. Field Hockey
4. Tennis
5. Volleyball

Source: http://www.mostpopularsports.net/




Highest Paid Sportspeople (2011-2012)

1. Tiger Woods, golf - $75 million
2. Kobe Bryant, basketball - $53 million
3. LeBron James, basketball, $48 million
4. Roger Federer, tennis, $47 million
5. Phil Mickelson, golf, $46.5 million
6. David Beckham, football, $40 million
7. Cristiano Ronaldo, football, $38 million
8. Alex Rodriguez, baseball, $35 million
9. Michael Schumacher, motor racing, $34 million
10. Lionel Messi, football, $32.3 million

Source: http://www.forbes.com

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