Why? The Science of Athletics

254 WHY?-THE SCIENCE OF ATHLETICS of some ten seconds that has taken place by quoting Nurrni's discovery of the fundamental principle of running to level time schedule, since Conneff showed 65, 65, 64, 64 secs. for his 440 yards laps when he made his record of 4 rnins. r8 secs., and also shows the best schedule, in that respect, of all the runners listed in our Table of Classical One-Mile Record Times on page 249 . Wherefore we are bound to assume that a better style of running, as revealed by the experiments carried out at the Physio– logical Institute of the University of Breslau, has been evolved in the effiuxion of time. Taken in conjunction with other circumstances germain to the general issue, such as time-schedule running for the discovery ofoptimum speeds for individual athletes, better running methods must be regarded as the main factor accountable for the ten seconds' superiority of the present generation of middle– distance runners over their predece~sors of forty years ago. Optima and Best Run'!:_ing Speed One frequently hears people talking · loosely of the need for a runner to discover his "optimum speed". I fancy, in fact, that I have been guilty of the solecism myself in the space of these pages . There is really a marked difference between the optimum and "best speed". To have an optimum in relation to energy– expenditure some form of resistance outside the body must be overcome ; as occurs in throwing and shot putting and, in part, in pole vaulting. In track racing there can be no optimum, because there is only wind resistance, and the movement of the limbs of the athlete . Where movement against resistance is concerned, cer– tain experiments can be carried out and a graph drawn to show what is the optimum which will represent the best speed of movement in the particular connection. At sp€eds higher than the optimum we get more speed and less work, and on the other side we have less speed, less work ; wherefore it will be readily understood that, in the case of certain events, the finding of the optimum is most important.