COMPLEXITY OF ATHLETIC FITNESS WITH REGARD TO SELECTION AND TALENT PROGNOSIS BY A PHYSIOLOGICAL VIEWPOINT* Plenary Lecture INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND BIOMEDICAL ASPECTS OF TEENAGE SOCCER IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, Krakow, 29.04. to 01.05.2004 *H.-V. Ulmer Department of Sports Physiology, FB Sport, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany 1
Athletic Fitness: a complex phenomenon 1. Physical identity characters 2. Psychic identity characters 3. Social identity characters 4. etc. 2
Relevant for fitness: Physical identity characters, e. g.: - coordination - muscle force - muscle endurance - joint flexibility 3
Relevant for fitness: Psychic identity characters, e. g.: - knowledge -tactics - motivation Social identity characters, e. g.: - team ability - thinking of competition 4
Relevant for fitness: Also the state of health, e. g.: - joints - muscle - bones - heart -etc. 5
1 st consequence: 1) Athletic fitness as - complex compound - based on multiple factors - like a mosaic 2) - Therefore general athletic (physical) fitness cannot exist - only a specific fitness for one discipline of sport or a group of similar disciplines can exist 6
Testing athletic fitness - pars pro toto-principle - transfer from test the results to an ensemble - high amount of speculation - loss by transfer to reality As analogy: A mosaic 7
(10 %) 10 % of the total mosaic area 8
(29 %) 29 % of the total mosaic area 9
(24 %) 24 % of the total mosaic area 10
(63 %) 63 % of the total mosaic area 11
Medallion of a fight of gladiators. Mosaic from the Villa Nenning (HÖNLE, A. & HENZE, A.: Römische Amphitheater und Stadien 1981, p. 36) 12
2 nd consequence: For testing athletic fitness (e.g. for selection of players or talent searching): - Objective tests are reducing the complex athletic fitness only to the tested abilities - transfer to reality is possible, but: Only for a high degree of affinity between test and reality - otherwise: a relevant loss of transfer 13
Further systematic of complexity of athletic fitness (with regard to its measurement): 3 groups of categories of assessments 1. categories which can be measured with objective physical or chemical procedures 2. categories which can be scored reliably by subjective scales by experts 3. categories which can be described only by qualitative terms (e. g. adjudication by expert s or coach s view) 14
Testing only one or several objective parameters = Reducing the assessment only to the measured variables = Reducing to a more or less small section of the total complex athletic fitness 15
Furthermore: Mostly we do not know the kind of settlement of the multiple relevant abilities: - additive? - subtractive? - multiplicative? -etc. This question includes compensatory mechanisms 16
Assessment of the athletic fitness has to be done by integrating all relevant factors: Quantitative and qualitative factors (strong and soft dates) This demands a high degree of experience by performing tests as well as by interpretating the results of tests 17
3 rd consequence: - a complex athletic fitness cannot be tested with adequate validity by one or several tests - a great number of relevant categories only can be assessed by scores or qualitative terms 18
A mosaic is a multi factorial stable system, athletic fitness is more: a multi factorial complex, dynamic system, however. Intraindividual variability is typical for those systems 19
Complexity include properties of non linear dynamic systems Even small reasons can have great effects Complex systems can react saltatorically Future behaviour is only statistically, but not exactly in individual case foreseeable 20
4 th consequence: For diagnosing athletic fitness, selection of players and talents searching: Snap-shot-effect! 21
1 st statistical aspect of testing Testing athletes often includes yes/no decisions about actual athletic fitness mostly with refer to a single case Therefore they need a very high degree of validity 22
2 nd statistical aspects of testing For yes/no decisions principal there exist 4 possibilities: 1. right positive 2. right negative (separation between both as aim of testing) but also 3. false positive 4. false negative (both failure of tests) 23
The amount of right positive and right negative results can be described by the test criteria - specificity and - sensitivity, unknown for the most athletic tests, however 5th consequence: For yes/no-decisions: It is impossible to separate right positive from right negative athletes with absolute security 24
Interim results for selection of players and talent searching: - Diagnosis of athletic fitness: Snap-shot method - Diagnosis of athletic fitness by competition results: Maximum of validity - Diagnosis of athletic fitness by tests: Including lost of transfer from the test to the real athletic fitness in competition 25
Athletic fitness is not the same as athletic talent - Athletic fitness: Ability to perform a special duty (e. g. a special sport discipline) - Actual fitness with regard to a special sport, intraindividual variable by training - Athletic talent: Compound of individual identity characters, relevant for a sport discipline, but not (or no longer) trainable, intraindividual stable In both cases: Not in general but related to a special sport discipline 26
Talent searching means: - Prognoses from today to the future in a complex system, consistent of intraindividual stable (talent) and variable (state of training) identity characters - Stepwise reduction of supported cadre athletes from youth to international championship level or league level - Selection: Systematical and/or spontaneous 27
Pyramid-like principle of stepwise selection of supported cadres in the talent searching process, starting with 400 athletes; 5 talented athletes remain at the top [ULMER, 1991, p. 47]. In between: Potential talented athletes 28
Talent searching principles of systematic selection - talent factors rarely can be measured directly - useful alternative: Selection by indirect procedure: Actual fitness = talent + state of training, therefore talent = actual fitness state of training Relevant method: Coach s view 29
6 th consequence for stepwise reduction of supported cadre athletes It is necessary to accept a remarkable amount of false positive decisions and in extreme cases: To revise a negative decision, if it appears that it has been wrong. Each false negative decision is a relevant loss in the selection process: Real talented athletes are rare! 30
First conclusions for diagnoses - A general athletic fitness does not exist, only an athletic fitness for - Athletic fitness is a complex phenomenon, including measurable and not measurable identity characters - Athletic fitness can not be assessed by one or several tests with acceptable validity - Diagnostic of athletic fitness has to be done by integrative procedures 31
Next conclusions for diagnoses - Coach s view is a very important integrating procedure but it demands on a high degree of experience - Error in diagnostic procedures are inherent in all methods - Be open for revision of a decision! 32
Conclusions for prognoses - Talent searching is more complex than the diagnosis of fitness - Long time prognoses are complicated by the additional dimension time -Talent searching has to integrate measurable and not measurable variables too - An efficient selection of talented athletes has to accept a remarkable amount of wrong positive decisions to avoid a sole false negative decision - Real talents are rare! 33
All together: - Selection of players (diagnostic of athletic fitness, selection and prognoses of talented athletes) need a great degree of experience - Experience in performing tests and Coach s view - Experience in interpretation the assessed results - Both seems to be more an artistic than a scientific procedure 34
Final conclusions: Coach s view is a very important instrument for the integrative assessment of actual and future fitness. It needs experience and the readiness of learning, learning, learning of this integrative procedure 35 /35
Appendum (based on the subsequent discussion of the previous presentation) 1. Coaches should formulate their negative decisions under reserve, e. g.: At the moment it does not reach for the further support in the talent support program. This keeps the possibility open to revise the decision, if an athlete makes a jump in his development. 2. (Proposed by BAR OR): Coaches should in case of no sufficient positive state of an athlete not only decide negatively about no further support. Also they should consider a positive decision in sense of changing to another discipline of sport. This idea continuative we have not only one pyramid (see no. 28) but a forest of pyramids and the possibility to change between the pyramids. At the base of each individual pyramid a change has a better chance to be successful than in the higher levels. 3. Each process of talent support and selection is to be seen as an experiment in a single case. There exist no general valid rules or criteria. 4. Top athletes do not have the identical composition of their relevant parameters of fitness. They are not alike cloned human beings. That is because of compensation mechanisms even in high performance level exist. 36