Training the Olympic Athlete

The lore of ancient Greece recallsan Olympic athlete who was de-termined to become the strong-

est person in the world. Every day Mi-lon of Croton (above) would pick up acalf, raise it above his head and carry itaround a stable. As the calf grew, so didMilon’s strength, until eventually he wasable to lift the full-grown cow.

Milon, who won the wrestling contestfive times, intuitively grasped one of thebasic tenets of contemporary sports sci-ence. Progressive resistance training—

the stressing of muscles with steadily in-creasing loads—is something well un-derstood by the more than 10,000 ath-letes from 197 countries who will go toAtlanta, Ga., next month for the centen-nial of the modern Olympic Games.

During the past half century, howev-er, sports science has refined the basicprinciples of training beyond the under-standing of the Greeks. Exercise physi-ologists and coaches draw on new scien-tific knowledge to help athletes developa balance of muscular and metabolicfitness for each of the 29 sports in theOlympic Games. Biomechanical expertsemploy computers, video and specializedsensors to study the dynamics of move-ment. Design engineers incorporate ad-

vances in materials and aerodynamicsto fashion streamlined bobsleds or rac-ing bicycles. Sports psychologists buildconfidence through mental-training tech-niques. The integration of these ap-proaches affords the small gains in per-formance that can translate into victory.

Working the Body

Understanding how training buildsthe strength and stamina needed for

Olympic events requires basic knowl-edge of how the body produces energy.All human motion depends on the useand resynthesis of adenosine triphos-phate (ATP), a high-energy moleculeconsisting of a base (adenine), a sugar

Training the Olympic AthleteSports science and technology are today providing

elite competitors with the tiny margins needed to win in world-class competition

by Jay T. Kearney

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(ribose) and three phosphate groups.The breaking of the bond between twophosphate units releases energy thatpowers muscle contractions and othercellular reactions. Humans have a verylimited capacity for storing ATP. At amaximum rate of work, the five milli-moles of ATP available for each kilo-gram of muscle is completely depletedin a few seconds. To sustain activity, thebody has three interrelated metabolicprocesses for continually resupplyingthe molecule. Which one predominatesdepends on the muscles’ power require-ments at a given moment and on theduration of the activity.

The most immediately available sourcefor reconstructing ATP is phosphocrea-tine, itself a high-energy, phosphate-bear-ing molecule. The energy released by thebreakdown of the phosphocreatine mol-ecule is used to resynthesize ATP. Thephosphocreatine system can rechargeATP for only a short while—just five to10 seconds during a sprint. When thesupply of this molecule is exhausted, thebody must rely on two other ATP-gen-erating processes—one that does not re-quire oxygen (anaerobic) and one thatdoes (aerobic).

The anaerobic process, also known asglycolysis, is usually the first to kick in.Cells break down specific carbohydrates(glucose or glycogen in muscle) to re-lease the energy for resynthesizing ATP.Unfortunately for the athlete, the anaer-

obic metabolism of carbohydrates canyield a buildup of lactic acid, which ac-cumulates in the muscles within twominutes. Lactic acid and associated hy-drogen ions cause burning muscle pain.But lactic acid and its metabolite, lactate,which accumulates in muscle, do notalways degrade performance. Throughtraining, the muscles of elite competitorsadapt so that they can tolerate the ele-vated levels of lactate produced duringhigh-intensity exercise.

Even so, lactic acid and lactate even-tually inhibit muscles from contracting.So anaerobic glycolysis can be relied ononly for short bursts of exercise. It can-not supply the ATP needed for the sus-tained activity in endurance events. Thattask falls to aerobic metabolism—the

breakdown of carbohydrate,fat and protein in the pres-ence of oxygen. In contrastwith anaerobic glycolysis,the aerobic system cannot beswitched on quickly. At leastone to two minutes of hardexercise must pass until theincrease in breathing andheart rate ensures delivery ofoxygen to a muscle cell. Dur-ing that interval, the athletedepends on a combinationof stored ATP, the phospho-creatine system or anaerobicglycolysis to provide energy.

With the activation of the aerobic pro-cesses, these other systems function at alower level. In the aerobic phase, for in-stance, lactic acid and lactate are stillproduced, but they are consumed by lessactive muscles or metabolized in the liv-er and so do not accumulate.

Although the aerobic system is highlyefficient, its ability to supply the mus-cles with energy reaches an upper thresh-old. If still more ATP is needed, the mus-cles must step up the use of various oth-er energy sources. A soccer player in themiddle of a 45-minute half, for example,would depend mostly on aerobic metab-olism. But if he needed to sprint brieflyat full speed, his body would immediate-ly call on stored ATP or ATP reconsti-tuted by the phosphocreatine system to

supplement the aerobic system. Similar-ly, if this high-intensity sprint continuedfor five to 15 seconds, the player wouldexperience a rapid increase in the rateof anaerobic glycolysis. As the play end-ed, the body would return to its relianceon the aerobic metabolic system, whilethe capacities of the other energy sys-tems regenerated themselves.

Coaches must understand the require-ments of their sports and adjust the in-tensity or duration of training to im-prove an athlete’s aerobic or anaerobicfunctioning. The fundamental principleof training is that sustained activity willresult in adaptation of the muscles to

Scientific American June 1996 53

OLYMPIC HOPEFULS Betsy and Mary McCagg train together at the head-quarters of the U.S. national rowing team in Chattanooga, Tenn. Althoughthe twins often train and compete as a pair, they will participate in theOlympics as members of an eight-woman crew.

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ever increasing levels of stress—an ideasometimes referred to as the stimulus-response model. Over time, training willinduce physiological changes, which areadapted to the needs of a specific sport.The distance runner’s training, for ex-ample, focuses on enhancing the capa-bilities of the aerobic system. In con-trast, a weight lifter would concentrateon strength and power instead of theendurance requirements of the distanceevents.

Going the Distance

For the Olympic coach, training alsobecomes the judicious management

of diminishing returns. During the firstyear, an athlete might invest 50 to 100hours of training to improve 10 to 15percent in a season. At the peak of hisor her career, the same athlete might putin 1,000 hours of intense and concen-trated effort to achieve an improvementof a single percentage point. Such a smallgain appears to be a seemingly poor re-turn on investment. But consider thatthe margin of victory in the track sprintevents in the 1992 Olympics—the aver-age difference between a gold and silvermedal—was only 0.86 percent, littlemore than two tenths of a second.

The details of how coaches and ath-letes tailor training to specific sports areperhaps best illustrated by the examplesof competitors in widely differing events.At the Atlanta Games, the longest com-petition will be the men’s cycling race,which lasts about five hours. The 228-kilometer road race will bring togetherrivals whose training is optimized forsustained aerobic effort, while takingadvantage of extraordinary advances in

the aerodynamics of cyclingtechnology. Lance Armstrongof Austin, Tex., is expected tobe a strong contender for amedal. Although he did notbring home any medals inthe 1992 Olympics, he wonthe world championship in1993 and, in 1995, a day-long segment of the Tour deFrance.

Armstrong’s innate abilitywas evident from an earlyage. At age 15, he demon-strated the aerobic capacitythat places him among theupper 1 to 2 percent of ath-letes worldwide. A measure of overallcardiorespiratory fitness, aerobic capac-ity is the maximum amount of oxygenthat can be taken up and delivered tomuscle cells for use in making ATP. Italso goes by the name of maximum oxy-gen uptake, or VO2max. Armstrongregistered a maximum oxygen uptakeof 80 milliliters of oxygen per kilogramof body weight per minute, a rate hecontinues to maintain at the age of 24.This measurement is almost double thatof the average fit male.

As part of his preparation for theOlympics, Armstrong has made severaltrips to the U.S. Olympic Committee’slargest training center, located at thecommittee’s headquarters in ColoradoSprings. I am part of the sports scienceteam there that evaluates and advisesathletes and their coaches on trainingimprovements.

Training the Olympic Athlete54 Scientific American June 1996

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PHYSIOLOGICAL DEMANDS for cy-cling vary throughout the event. A riderwill tap stored ATP or the phosphocrea-tine system or will depend on anaerobicglycolysis to provide the additional ener-gy needed for a hill climb or a final sprint.

LANCE ARMSTRONG, whowill compete in the Olympics,won a stage (a day-long seg-ment) of the Tour de France in1995 (above and right).

ANALYSIS of Armstrong’s cycling was performedat the U.S. Olympic Training Center in ColoradoSprings. Recommendations included changinghis riding position to enhance aerodynamics andtraining so that he increased his lactate threshold,thereby delaying an accumulation of lactate. Byfollowing both suggestions, he could reduce histime in a race spanning 40 kilometers by nearlyfour minutes.

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During one of his stays, Arm-strong completed a metabolicassessment on a cycling ergom-eter, a machine in the sportsphysiology laboratory that pre-cisely controls workload (howhard and fast an athlete ped-als). Tests conducted while Arm-strong labored on the ergome-ter measured VO2max, heartrate and lactic acid levels. Arm-strong registered the highest

VO2max of any U.S. cycler. When per-forming at this peak level, he was ableto marshal a world-class 525 watts ofpedaling power.

Physiologists also assess two otherbenchmarks of performance—how effi-ciently the athlete uses oxygen and howquickly lactate builds up in the muscles.This latter measurement, the lactatethreshold, is represented as a percentageof VO2max. It is at the threshold thatlactate begins to accumulate, causingpain and burning.

At the training center, Armstrong’slactate threshold measured 75 percent,which was 10 percentage points less thanthe average for the best cyclists on theU.S. national team. The evaluation teamrecommended that he train more oftenat close to or slightly above his thresh-old. Training at this intensity produceschanges in circulatory, nervous and en-zymatic functions that can raise the lac-tate threshold, thereby delaying a build-up of lactate.

Training to improve physiologicalcapacity is only one variable—and

sometimes not even the most im-portant one—in streamlining per-formance in a sport that relies

as much on technology as cycling does.During Armstrong’s visits to ColoradoSprings, we have also assessed his ped-aling technique, riding position and bi-cycle design.

In our biomechanics laboratory Arm-strong rode a stationary bicycle thatmeasured the direction and magnitudeof the forces on the pedals [see illustra-tion at left]. Jeffrey P. Broker, a biome-chanics specialist at the center, deter-mined that Armstrong pedaled almostidentically with the left and right leg.The only flaws identified were minorweaknesses in propulsive force at thetop and bottom of the pedaling cycle.

An analysis of Armstrong’s body po-

Training the Olympic Athlete Scientific American June 1996 55

AERODYNAMICS have preoccupied bicycle designers since the early part ofthis century, as is evident in early racing bicycles equipped with canopies,called fairings, that helped to reduce drag (above). The most advanced bicyclestoday are deployed in track racing. The recently unveiled SB II, or Superbike II(below), has a lightweight carbon-fiber frame. It also has a range of aerody-namic design elements. Similar features are incorporated into bicycles for someroad-racing events in which Armstrong competes.

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PEDAL MOTION of Armstrongwas analyzed at the U.S. trainingcenter. The length and angle ofthe arrows indicate the magnitudeand direction of forces applied byArmstrong’s left foot. The dia-gram revealed that he needed toexert force on the pedal at boththe top and bottom of the cycle inthe direction of the rotation.


sition proved more constructive. Thewind drag encountered by rider and bi-cycle increases as the square of velocityand can dramatically affect speed. Theposition of the rider on the bike becomesso critical that some cyclists have as-sumed bizarre postures. Graeme Obree,who won the 1995 world champion-ship in the individual pursuit race andset the one-hour record in 1994, con-trived a position in which his head waspitched far in front of the handlebars.His arms were completely tucked under

his chest, which was resting on the han-dlebars. Obree’s unconventional ridingposition, one that was difficult for oth-er cyclists to master, was banned by theInternational Cycling Union because itwas unstable and dangerous.

The U.S. Olympic Committee evalua-tion team assessed Armstrong’s ridingposition through videotapes taken dur-ing competitions and at the trainingcenter. The footage revealed that Arm-strong’s trunk needed to be lower to re-duce drag. His relatively wide arm spac-ing permitted wind to stall against his up-per torso, requiring more power at anygiven speed than a flatter, more stream-lined position would. Moreover, his headposition allowed his helmet to projectup into the airstream. We suggested hemove his seat forward and up slightly,his handlebars forward and down andhis hands further forward on the “aero”bars—aerodynamic extensions of thestandard drop handlebars.

We also recommended design chang-es to his helmet, including a longer, tail-like extension in the rear (to keep thewind flowing in a smooth stream overhis head and onto his back). Testing with

power-monitoring equipment showedthat Armstrong’s new position resultedin an increase in speed of 1.44 kilome-ters per hour relative to his old position.If combined with the various physiolog-ical improvements recommended, Arm-strong could cut nearly four minutes offhis 40-kilometer race time [see graph atbottom right on page 54].

No matter how they train, Armstrongand other cyclists in Atlanta are sure tocome equipped with bicycles incorpo-rating the latest designs. To a great ex-tent, these innovations have come out ofProject ’96, a collaboration between theU.S. Cycling Federation, the U.S. Olym-pic Committee and corporate America,with the mission of combining advancedtraining and technology to prepare ath-letes for the games in Atlanta.

Designers have inspected every squareinch of the frame to boost aerodynam-ics. They have made the front wheelsmaller and narrower to cut wind resis-tance and to allow teammates to ridecloser to one another. In addition, by us-ing high-strength composite materials,they have minimized the amount ofstructural support needed. The tubing

Training the Olympic Athlete56 Scientific American June 1996Copyright 1996 Scientific American, Inc.

found on an ordinary bicycle has beenreplaced by structural members that ta-per off from front to back in a teardropshape, as does the wing of an airplane[see bottom illustration on page 55].

Examining every aspect of Arm-strong’s performance has improved hisreadiness for the Olympics. His lactatethreshold has increased from 75 to 79percent. He now practices or competesup to 40,000 kilometers every year.(This performance contrasts with the1,600 kilometers or so he cycled at theage of 15.) Armstrong has also loggedbetter results in recent races. In 1995 hewon the U.S. Tour DuPont, and his train-ing helps to explain why he scored anastonishing breakaway victory in a 167-kilometer stretch of the Tour de France,from Montpon-Menesterol to Limoges.

Weight lifting is at the opposite endof the physiological spectrum from cy-cling. Whereas cycling is the longestevent in the Olympics, weight lifting isthe shortest. Weight lifters require ex-treme muscular strength and power, asopposed to endurance. The act of liftinga 120- to 250-kilogram barbell demandsup to 3,000 watts of power, enough toilluminate 50 lightbulbs, each 60 watts,for a second. For these events, the athleterelies on ATP stored in the muscles andthe regeneration of ATP by the break-down of phosphocreatine. During thelong recovery period in training betweeneach set of five or fewer lifts, these energysystems replenish themselves aerobically.

Eastern European Training

The U.S. has but a slight chance towin a medal in Atlanta, because the

championship eastern European weight-lifting programs have endured in thenewly independent countries that sur-vived the fracturing of the Soviet bloc.Nevertheless, U.S. athletes have begun toadopt some of the same training meth-ods embraced by their competition.

During the past five years, DragomirCioroslan, a Romanian-educated coachwho won a bronze medal for that coun-try in the 1984 Olympics, has taken overas the resident weight-lifting coach atthe U.S. Olympic Training Center. Cio-roslan has instituted a highly structured,year-round program based on his easternEuropean training. Tim McRae is one ofthe coach’s protégés. With his anvillikeupper body, McRae might have beentapped for the National Football Leagueinstead of the U.S. national weight-lift-ing team if he had not stopped growingat 160 centimeters (five feet three inches).McRae, in fact, took up weight lifting be-cause he hoped it would make him growtaller and more competitive in football.

McRae can lift more than twice hisbody weight, a feat that has helped makehim national champion five times andthe U.S. record holder in three weightclasses for the two main competitiveevents—the snatch and the clean andjerk. In the snatch, an athlete grips thebar with hands placed two to three timesshoulder width. He then pulls it to chestlevel. He squats under the bar, catchingit overhead with straightened arms. Thenhe returns to a standing position withthe bar above his head. The clean andjerk proceeds with hands at shoulderwidth. The athlete brings the bar to chestlevel, squatting underneath to secure it

on the shoulders before standing. Aftera pause, he finishes with the jerk, a fullextension of the arms. An explosive ver-tical thrust from the legs aids him inlifting the bar.

McRae’s stature—short limbs, longtorso and muscular build—suits him wellfor weight lifting. For one, his heightmeans that he need lift the bar only arelatively short distance. Perhaps Mc-Rae’s most remarkable physical skillcan be seen when he jumps straight upnearly a meter from a standing position,a demonstration of the kind of leg pow-er needed in lifting.

Weight lifting is the ideal sport to il-lustrate another fundamental conceptof modern athletic training. Periodiza-tion, as it is known, is the structured,sequential development of athletic skillor physiological capacity through orga-nizing training into blocks of time. Thetime periods involved range from an in-dividual lesson to annual cycles. Weightlifters prepare two to four months for acompetition through a macrocycle, aperiod that itself includes several short-er segments called mesocycles.

Cioroslan takes the athletes on the na-tional team through three to four mac-rocycles during the year, each leading upto a major competition. A macrocyclebegins with a preparatory phase, a meso-cycle that lasts about eight to 10 weeks.Each week during this mesocycle, Mc-Rae and other athletes will perform 600lifting repetitions at 80 to 90 percent ofthe maximum amount they are able tolift. The high-volume, medium-intensityworkouts elicit changes in muscle, con-nective tissue, ligaments and other softtissues. These changes enable the athletes

Training the Olympic Athlete

TIM MCRAE, a member of the U.S. nationalweight-lifting team, executes a 130-kilogram liftcalled the clean and jerk at the U.S. training cen-ter (bottom to top). Two high-speed camerasphotograph the athlete to make an assessment ofthe pattern of motion (below right). Combiningthe videos provides a three-dimensional stick-fig-ure image for analysis of lifting technique (inset).


to tolerate heavier lifting in the nexttraining phase.

In the second mesocycle, which lastsanother four to five weeks, the team’straining objective is to bolster strengthand power by doing fewer repetitions(200 to 300 per week) but using heavierweights that require 90 to 100 percent ofan athlete’s lifting capacity. The strongestof Cioroslan’s athletes might lift morethan three million kilograms a year.

The final mesocycle includes two phas-es leading up to the event. During thefirst phase, the athlete works at maxi-mum intensity to ensure that the strengthand power gains from earlier trainingperiods translate into competitive per-formances. The last week or so of thismesocycle focuses on tapering: the re-duction of the volume and intensity ofexercise to allow the athlete to recoverfrom the stresses of training without los-ing the benefits of intensive preparation.

In addition to applying physiologicalprinciples to training, weight lifters, likecyclists, take advantage of an array ofsophisticated monitoring equipment.Weight lifting is one of the most techni-cally demanding sports, requiring use ofa specific sequence of muscles. If eachmuscle group, from the knee and hipextensors to the shoulder and arm mus-cles, does not activate in sequence, thelifter may not raise the bar high enough,

or else it may sway precariously backand forth.

Sarah L. Smith, a biomechanical spe-cialist at the Colorado Springs trainingcenter, tested McRae to track thesmoothness of the S-shaped trajectorythat the bar must trace from ground tofull extension. The analysis involvestwo cameras and two platforms con-taining sensors that record the forcesapplied through each foot. If the loadon each foot differs, the lifter may losesymmetry between his hands—that is,he may raise one side of the bar fasterthan the other. Testing showed thatasymmetries in McRae’s lifting made itdifficult to catch and stabilize the barduring the snatch, a finding that led toseveral refinements in technique.

Choosing One’s Parents

McRae’s ability to lift more thantwice his body weight may be a

matter of birthright or his early expo-sure to the sport—or perhaps a little ofboth. Sports scientists often ponder therole of genes and environment in themakeup of the elite athlete.

The physiologist Per-Olof Astrandcoined the often repeated maxim: to be-come an Olympic athlete, choose yourparents well. That genetics probablyplays at least some role has been demon-

strated by Claude Bouchard, an anthro-pological geneticist and exercise physi-ologist at Laval University in Quebec.In the 1980s Bouchard studied paternaland identical twins. He found that somepairs of sedentary twins were able tonearly double their maximum oxygenuptake after 15 to 20 weeks of physicaltraining, whereas others showed mini-mal gains in fitness. These findings sug-gested a genetic basis for the superiorphysiology of top-notch athletes. Bou-chard is now looking for genetic mark-ers that would distinguish between thosewith a high response to training andthose who adapt less well.

As yet, no elite training programs seekout competitors with specific “athletic”genes. But they often do the next bestthing. The physical typing of a prospec-tive athlete—the systematic recruitment

Training the Olympic Athlete60 Scientific American June 1996

STRENGTH TRAINING with weights isa critical part of the regimen of the Mc-Cagg sisters and the rest of the U.S. row-ing team. But this type of training is justpart of their periodization routine: the pro-grammed scheduling of training by year,quarter (macrocycle, which is not shown),month (mesocycle), week and day (graphsand table on opposite page). The volume,intensity and type of training are carefullyvaried until the tapering-off period justbefore the Olympic Games begin.

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of youngsters based on traits undergenetic control—has become a fix-ture of many national programs,particularly the now defunct EastGerman sports machine. The Aus-tralians, in fact, have demonstratedthat these principles can be applied ina country that does not exert heavy-handed control over its citizens’ lives.The Australian rowing federationworked with coaches and sports sci-entists to develop a profile of wom-en athletes who had the potential tobecome world-class rowers. Quali-ties such as height, body-fat compo-sition, limb length and cardiovascu-lar endurance were surveyed. Ath-letes without these characteristicsare not excluded from considera-tion, however. The Australiansshowed through this program thatthey could field international ath-letes within two years.

If a comparable program existedin the U.S., two women who wouldhave been targeted are the identicaltwins Mary and Betsy McCagg.

The McCagg sisters, stalwarts of theU.S. women’s rowing team, are perfect-ly endowed for their sport. Both are 188centimeters (six feet two inches) tall andweigh 79 kilograms (175 pounds). Bothhave body-fat compositions lower thanthat of the average college-age male(meaning most of that weight is muscle)as well as long legs that facilitate the ex-ecution of a long, powerful stroke.

The McCaggs also demonstrate thatgenes are only of value in an environ-ment that permits development of one’snatural physical assets through training.The family also had a multigeneration-al tradition of involvement in the sport.The McCaggs’ father and grandfather—

as well as many other family members—

rowed competitively while attendingHarvard University and other easternestablishment colleges.

After finishing their rowing careers inan exceptional high school program,the sisters attended Radcliffe College,with its long tradition in women’s row-ing. Expectations for the twins remainedhigh from the outset: they joined theRadcliffe varsity team as freshmen. Intheir sophomore and junior years, theteam went undefeated. Both sisters madethe Olympic team in 1992; their crewof eight scored a sixth-place finish.

Improving the Best Rowers

The McCaggs compete in either eight-or two-woman crews for sweep

rowing, in which each crew memberpulls one long oar with both arms. Asmuch as any event, the 2,000-meter dis-tance they traverse in six to seven min-utes requires a balance of athletic phys-ical capabilities: muscular power com-bined with a highly honed aerobiccapacity, and an ability to tap into one’sanaerobic pathway for more musclepower.

The McCaggs and the rest of the na-tional team came to the training centerin Colorado Springs in 1991 for a phys-iological and biomechanical assessmentto determine why they encountered dif-ficulties in the last 500 meters of a race.To their coaches, it appeared that theyhad failed to develop the requisite an-aerobic capacity—and so were unableto achieve the increase in rowing powerrequired in a final sprint.

Testing at the training center showedthat, in actuality, the team had attaineda level of anaerobic fitness matching thatof the best rowers in the world. Whatthe members lacked was sufficient aero-

Scientific American June 1996 61

MCCAGG SISTERS ready their oars for a dailytraining session on the Tennessee River; theircoach, Hartmut Buschbacher, watches a video ofthe two women rowing.

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bic capacity to carry them through thefirst 1,500 meters of a race without ac-cumulating debilitating levels of lactate.

Later in 1991 someone with ideasabout how to solve the problem of theanemic finishes arrived in the U.S. Thatyear Hartmut Buschbacher, the formercoach of the East German women row-ers, took charge of the U.S. nationalteam. Ironically, it was an East Germanjunior women’s team coached by Busch-bacher that had beaten a U.S. team onwhich the McCaggs had rowed in1985—an event that stiffened the sisters’resolve to become more competitive.

Buschbacher soon established a full-time resident athlete program in Chat-tanooga, Tenn., with a group of 15 care-fully screened women. His philosophyof coaching borrows extensively fromthe systematic training principles for

which the East Germans were known.Buschbacher applied concepts of peri-odization, alternating different mixes ofvolume and intensity of training thathelped to correct the aerobic deficit [seegraphs and table on preceding page].

Evidence that Buschbacher’s strategymay be helping came last summer whenthe McCaggs, racing in a team of eight,won the world championships in Tam-pere, Finland.

The Mental Game of Target Practice

The Olympic events that rely less onbrute strength and more on skill

and mental conditioning than any othersport are the shooting and archerycompetitions, in whichwomen can match orbetter the perfor-

mance of men. One female shooter, 27-year-old Tammy Forster, started downthe path to becoming a national and in-ternational champion by watching tele-vision. At the age of four, seeing OlgaKorbut’s gold-medal-winning gymnas-tic feats made Forster vow to go to theOlympics. The opportunity to becomean Olympic athlete presented itself inForster’s backyard, where her father, anexpert rifleman and an occasional en-trant in shooting contests, showed eachfamily member how to use and takecare of guns. Parental involvement inshaping the young athlete, a theme inthe McCaggs’ career, also encouragedForster. Once her commitment becameclear, her father decided to take classesin how to train shooters—and he nowserves as one of her coaches.

By the time Forster was 15, she wastraining for 90 minutes a day

with an air rifle or an un-loaded small-bore (.22 cal-

TAMMY FORSTER prepared for the Olympic trials at the 50-meter shooting range atthe U.S. training center. Forster did not qualify for the Olympic team.

Training the Olympic Athlete

ACTUAL TARGET SIZE (above left) for anevent in which athletes aim a rifle without ascope from 10 meters (left). A laser tracking sys-tem detects where Forster aims the rifle (above).


iber) rifle indoors. She is a testament tothe benefits of perseverance, showingthat intensive training can in somesports make up for a lack of innate abil-ity. Not a natural talent, Forster ob-served her sister shoot equally well whilespending only a quarter of the time inpractice. Forster nonetheless stayed withit. By 1985 she had won a silver medalat the junior national competition, andshe chose to go to West Virginia Univer-sity to train with Ed Etzel, an Olympicgold medalist in 1984.

In 1991 Forster took up residency atthe Colorado Springs training center.Her stay has allowed her to devote fulltime to training for the 10-meter air-riflecontest and the three-position shootingevent. The latter contest requires firinga small-bore rifle (one shooting a small-diameter bullet) at targets 50 metersaway while lying, kneeling and stand-ing. She has especially labored on themental-rehearsal techniques she needsin order to muster the focused concen-tration essential to excelling in this event.Her efforts have improved her skills, al-though she fell short of winning one ofthe two open spots on the women’sOlympic shooting team in the 10- and50-meter events. Forster’s training, how-ever, provides an illustration of the ben-efits psychology brings to sports.

The roots of the sports psychologyfield that are the basis for Forster’s skillsextend back almost a century, whenNorman Triplett discovered that ath-letes performed better when competingagainst one another than when compet-

ing against the clock. Sports psychologybegan to gain a broad appeal in the1970s, when the profession started ap-plying a set of cognitive and behavioraltechniques to athletic training. At thattime, new research showed that mentalpractice alone could improve motorperformance.

As elements of her rehearsal training,she combines a number of techniques—

among them, muscle relaxation exercis-es, mental visualization of a perfor-mance, and recording of her accomplish-ments and day-to-day emotions in ajournal. She also sets out a series of re-alistic objectives that she can accomplishduring each practice.

Relaxation exercises allow the shoot-er to heighten concentration and to rec-ognize sources of muscle tension in theshoulders and back that can affect theaccuracy of a shot. During visualization,Forster may picture herself aiming andshooting; at other times, she sees herselfas a bystander watching the event fromthe sidelines. The more active imagery,when she actually imagines holding therifle, seems to yield more of a perfor-mance gain.

Forster repeats a visualization routinebefore each shot she takes in competi-tion. In her mind, she moves slowlythrough each step, from standing on thefiring line to bringing the rifle into posi-tion to firing an actual shot. She goesthrough this mental exercise before eachof the 60 shots in the three-position com-petition. Invoking this state of focusedcalm before each shot, a shooter mayspend up to two and a half hours in pre-paration and firing, the time limit for a shooting event. The winner, who isgauged on accuracy, not speed, will hitthe bull’s-eye with more than 90 percentof the shots made in the two events.

Forster has also worked directly withU.S. Olympic sports psychologist SeanMcCann to allay the perfectionism thathas sometimes caused her to lose confi-dence in the accuracy of her aim. To as-

sess her technique, she shot a rifleequipped with an infrared laser. Ananalysis of the placement of the beamon the target showed that her aim wasnearly flawless. But she continually triedto make adjustments, and so her abilityto remain steadily fixed on the targetdeteriorated after five or six seconds.

McCann helped Forster develop visu-alization routines that included a seriesof verbal cues to quell these fears—therepeating of simple words like “relax”or “ready.” Persistence has yielded somepayoffs. During her residency, Forsterhas won two world cups, and last yearshe placed second at the national cham-pionships—a testament to the accom-plishments that accrue from the slow,deliberate pace that characterizes thismost cerebral of sporting events.

The combination of physical andmental training employed by the roweror shooter applies across the full rangeof the 29 Olympic sports, from swim-ming to baseball. Sports science and

technology have contributed to a trendin which world records in all sports keepfalling. Winning times for horses in theKentucky Derby have declined at aslower rate than records in the one-milerun have. It is certain, moreover, thatthe Olympic Games in Atlanta this sum-mer will once again challenge the limitsof human performance.

Training the Olympic Athlete Scientific American June 1996 63

The Author

JAY T. KEARNEY, who holds a doctorate degree in exercise physiology fromthe University of Maryland, is a senior sports physiologist for the U.S. OlympicCommittee. From 1974 to 1986 he was professor of physiology at the Universi-ty of Kentucky, and from 1988 to 1992 he served as director of the sports sci-ence and technology division of the U.S. Olympic Training Center in ColoradoSprings. He was on the flat-water canoeing team slated to go to the 1980 Olym-pic Games in Moscow, but the team stayed home because of the Carter admin-istration’s boycott protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Professionalsfrom the U.S. Olympic Committee’s sports science and technology division con-tributed to this article—in particular, research assistant Susan Mulligan.

Further Reading

Training for Sport and Activity: The Physiologi-cal Basis of the Conditioning Process. Jack H.Wilmore and David L. Costill. Human Kinetics Pub-lishers, 1988.

Theory and Methodology of Training: The Keyto Athletic Performance. Tudor O. Bompa.Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 1994.

The Olympic Factbook: A Spectator’s Guide tothe Summer Games. Edited by Rebecca Nelson andMarie J. MacNee. Visible Ink, 1996.

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Training the Olympic Athlete