I am saying, I thought clearly but I guess not, that in fact more than physical ability must be considered in the determination. Certain aspects of performance displayed by modern athletes are surely a result of advances in training and sports science, so how do you account for that in making comparisons? Are they better athletes or better trained athletes? The person matters in addition to the physical ability. I think steroids were totally legal across the board until 1986 or 1987, and gradually banned after that. I know baseball banned it much later.mbasic wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 1:48 pm
This is some kind of weird double speak^; you are trying to separate the athlete-person from his athletic abilities that some of which were gained through their more modern and better training. I don't think yon can/should do that, or how you'd differentiate the two.
Applied sports science. I agree we probably don't know much as in the totality of sport science, but we know a lot more NOW than what was known BEFORE. Leaps and bounds. But how we apply it now (IMO) maybe getting more fucked up from around this point (last 5 years) going forward. Most everything in terms of general basic athletics (T&F, Weightlifting, run fast, throw far, etc) has peaked, or nearly so ..... that last 90% of soprts-sci knowledge, isn't going to bump the needle much because of basic physics.
I don't think we can even guess at what scientific advances might do for athletic performance, people have been saying we have peaked for decades and they have consostently been wrong.