I'm not going to lie. I'm neither smart nor creative enough to be able to just about any article and make it interesting or relevant to orienteering. I'm sure its do-able, but.... not by me. So, my article I just read about implicit skill learning by experts in netball? Well, it'll have to wait while I give it more thought. If you have any suggestions on what sort of orienteering skills could be developed using implicit learning (particularly for the high-performance audience), then I'm all ears.
For now, I'm going with an easy one. Specificity.
"Comparison of base running in baseball players and track-and-field athletes", Kazuyoshi Miyaguchi, Shinich Demura, Kazuya Nagai, Yu Uchida, Health, Issue 3, 2011
Sometimes, scholarly articles may be... "scholarly" but not exactly mind-blowing. This is one of those articles. But, I think it just illustrates an important point that sometimes is forgotten by many mid-level athletes. The study compared sprint ability of baseball players and track athletes, specifically sprinters, jumpers, and some decathlon guys. Essentially, track athletes who tend to run in straight lines only. The subjects were tested running the bases from home plate to second, and rounding the bases. These are equivalent to straight line distances of 54.8 metres, and 109.6 metres. Running those distances in a straight line were also tested, so that there was data for both sets of subjects while running the bases and running in a straight line. Aside from the time it took to run the distance, they also measured running distance around the bases, to identify differences in efficiency.
I don't think anyone would find the results all that surprising. The track athletes were generally faster over the straight line distance, being almost a second faster over the 109.6m sprint. However, the baseball players were just slightly faster while rounding the bases. The average change of speed between straight and base running was higher in the track & field athletes, meaning that their performance suffered greater from having to turn. Further, the baseball players cumulatively ran a shorter distance while rounding the bases, meaning they were more efficient with their turning technique, being able to run a tighter line through the corners.
Here's a simple summary from the authors: "It is inferred that the T&F athletes cannot exert sprint ability with poorly-trained base running skills whereas baseball players go through a base smoothly and can maintain maximum speed".
So, how can we translate this to orienteering?
As I said in the introduction, this post is about specificity. The baseball study showed us that if you want to be good at base running, you can't just be a fast sprinter. You have to be good at running bases. If we want to make a direct relation to orienteering, you could compare smooth-ness of base running to smooth-ness of orienteering. The fastest guy doesn't always win, the guy with the best flow will win. But, we all know that one.
Orienteering is a running sport that requires more than just running fitness, it also requires a lot of running skills. If you look at what your weaknesses are while orienteering, the most obvious thing to do is to do those things, a lot. I encounter this a lot when talking to people about the Canadian Death Race. They went out and tried to do it solo, while training around town for all summer. Then they get to the mountains and realize that their knees have been absolutely shattered because they just spent an hour and a half descending. There are no 90 minute downhills on the prairies. The only way to train yourself to handle that physical stress is to do it. A lot. Similarly, from what I understand, one of the reasons many European orienteers are so fast through the woods is that that's what they grew up doing. Orienteering or otherwise, they've had the opportunity to do a lot of, and implicitly or explicitly have become skilled at running efficiently through that kind of terrain. They too, might be able to outrun track and field athletes in their chosen field.
Which brings me to my favorite rant about North American orienteers. Many of us (myself excluded) do a pretty good job of coming up with some good technical training to practice their navigation skills. But we all need to run way, way more. We need to run longer, run faster, be more efficient in rough terrain, climb hills faster, and etc. I look at this sport as a running sport with navigation, not the other way around. And again, with the specificity, it doesn't count if its cycling to work, or playing indoor soccer, or jogging around hanging controls. Being a good runner means focusing on running.
For orienteers, this can also include learning to run in less than ideal circumstances. Try doing intervals straight through the woods, find some reasonably technical downhills to go overspeed on. Do sidehill intervals (if you're a masochist). Or alternatively, isolate muscle performance that impact those skills. Balance or agility, for instance. A guy I know who is a professor of exercise physiology actually quoted a Swedish orienteer (I can't remember which one), who said that he likes to do explosive stength exercises in the gym, because the explosive power enables him to lengthen the distance he gets with each stride, allowing him to run just that little bit faster or reducing his fatigue in softer terrain.
But, I'm getting off track a little. Point being, this simple base running study shows that specific physical skills are improved through training those specific skills. You can be an awesome runner, but if I can't turn, you'll get beaten by an okay runner with great turning skills. Likewise, orienteering is a skill running sport, and its great if you're fit and can run, but you need to be able to run with skill. And that simply requires practice. Repetition. Specificity.
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