Triathlete Magazine and physiology...

Oh boy. Apparently there is a piece in Triathlete that strokes the ego of the tri-tard community in that it suggests the community "checks each other out" at races to admire one another and to see who's fit..

Now I've been hearing people I know say, "Oh sure, I check people out to see how fit they are.. that tells me if they are gonna go fast at the races."

Barf.

Guys, c'mon. It's bad enough Bikesnob and Bike Lemming ream the community for easy stuff, but this is bad.

What a person looks like on the outside, assuming all other things are equal, comparing two folks is just stupes.

Everything that you need to know is happening *under* the skin. We're talking about historic training load, acute training load and how that would impact power numbers, which is in turn driven by LT and Vo2 numbers. On the bike of course.

On the run? Almost the same deal. Vo2 is the only number that really matters because it's an expression of oxygen uptake relative to body weight, so you can theoretically compare different body types fairly.

Triathletes seem to be fooled into believing that improving performance is external to their physiology.

To a large degree improvements can be gained through mechanical efficiencies e.g. cleaner swim stroke, optimizing bike position relative to power.

However, special running shoes; clinics where you learn how to run (didn't we do this in grade school?), and specially formulated nutrition are not things we had as a population even 15 years ago.

Age groupers are not going statistically significantly faster across the board now (vs. 15 years ago) in spite of the advancements which mostly boil down to marketing hype. Nutrition for example is not formulated any differently. The top aero bikes then still test as well as the top bikes now. Running shoes? Not much has changed.

To sum up: Fitness is mostly internal, potential to maximize fitness is governed by genetic makeup. Once you have managed the external mechanical issues (which, to be fair takes time) then the rest is optimizing your gifts.