Batman and the Human Genome 1.3

 

Development of Talent

So how do we begin to develop talent? If we are absolutely sure we want pursue a particular endeavour and we’ve identified that we have particular traits that are ideally suited for that specific activity, should we then put together and follow a program that trains only for that endeavour (‘specialisation’). You could, and the likelihood is that you would progress to a reasonable level, especially in the short term. However, the premise of this thread is to develop talent to its limit, both in performance and in terms of longevity, and that, requires a different approach.

Regardless of whether you have decided on taking a particular route or not, the best way to approach both is through a model of long term athletic development. The model goes through a number of stages that go from general (early on) and becomes more specialised as the time increases.

There are a number of reasons for this, but the most important is because of neural plasticity. Most of the bio-motor abilities we have identified as being needed for Batman (our model for ultimate athletic performance), have a huge neural component, and it makes sense to focus on development of these skills at a stage of life that allows for the greatest adaptation to occur in these systems. 

If you, for example, have decided that you wanted to become an ultra-distance athlete and trained specifically for this, then the endurance components of your training, which have a smaller neural component, would by virtue of the requirements of the event need to be heavily prioritised in your program.

However, if you began specialisation too early, then you would be limiting your exposure to the other fitness components, which if you find out years later are limiting your performance, then you’ve missed the biggest window of opportunity for development of these bio-motor abilities. The more neural the component, the more trainable it is at an earlier stage. The less neural components however, are still very trainable at a later stage. But once, you’ve missed the boat on the neural dominant components, although they are still trainable, the ability to do so is drastically reduced.

So early on in a plan to develop talent, it’s best to be exposed to a wide range of stimulus, but it’s especially important to focus on those factors which are more neurally dependent. What are these factors? Agility, Balance, Co-ordination, Speed, Speed of Reaction and in all likelihood flexibility. The Muscular Strength, Muscular Endurance, Cardio-Respiratory, and by virtue of a combination of the above factors; Body-Composition can all be trained and improved at later stages in development.

So those Parents and Guardians out there that push their Children into a particular sport such as Football too early (with, I’m sure, great intentions) are actually doing the Child a disservice in terms of being able to reach the absolute pinnacle of the discipline. It would be better to introduce them to a whole range of activities so that all the different requirements of the different endeavours challenge all of the different aspects of fitness. If it’s feasible to only offer one activity then the best choices would be gymnastics and martial arts, which cover the whole gamut of bio-motor abilities. These two activities provide a great generalised springboard for later specialisation in the biggest range of activities.

More importantly is to just let Children play. When Children engage in unstructured play they inevitably create all kinds of games and activities that incorporate a whole swathe of bio-motor abilities. What do they do? Run (usually fast), jump, throw and catch, climb, skip in challenging ways, amongst other activities. Why? Because it’s fun and adventurous. Children like to challenge themselves (and each other), take risks and expand their range of ability. They inherently use play to develop their skills, especially ones that require a higher neural contribution.

This is the way we have developed for thousands and millions of years, and it’s only recently that we are stifling this very necessary component of development.

In the next piece I’ll look in a bit more detail the stages of development that we overviewed in this piece.