Should Weir skip the GP this year?

Soviet athletes were bred to glorify the State. In return they were given complete living conditions, schooling and lots of athletics by the best of coaches.
that was a better life than most Russian peasant children got.

janetfan said:

OK. FYI, Dorothy's Dad made a very good living.

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Dorothy's father made a good living but it was not sufficient to comfortably support her skating, including ice time, Carlo Fassi's fees, living accomodations, etc. Hamill's autobiography discusses this at length. One of Dorothy's most haunting memories is her mother handing her the last $5 they had, so Dorothy could get something to eat, while her mother went hungry.

Joesitz said:

Soviet athletes were bred to glorify the State. In return they were given complete living conditions, schooling and lots of athletics by the best of coaches.
that was a better life than most Russian peasant children got.

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Alot of Soviet kids were bred from a night of too much vodka drinking
Same as kids in the west except in Germany it might have been from beer, in USA from whiskey, etc., etc

I always admired aspects of socialism and never saw anything wrong with them seeking excellence where they could. Isn't that what we do too?

It is true that their most talented athletes may have had advantages - and how is that much different than it was in the West? I always remember the advantages the best athletes had in school when I was growing up. I was a cracker jack b-ball player and believe me I had many breaks because of it. I never had to go to gym class and got a double lunch hour. I could get tutoring and always from the cutest girls

Champion boxers sometimes have only one fight a year and train for six months for it.

There's being in shape, and then there is being in "ring shape."

Or rink ready!!! hahaha
This is my first post so I thought I'd make it a silly one.

Thanks for joining us tricia90. Welcome to the forum! :agree:

I always think that part of the problem with doing too many competitions is the lack of ice time you get at competitions. You get a few official practices and that's it. Factor in the travel time if your competitions are all over the world, the recouperation from jet lag etc and you can pretty much kiss good bye to 2-3weeks of proper training time when you go to a competition.

With a lot of sports like tennis - the competitions are all part of the training and experience. You often have matches lasting hours, where one, two even four or five mistakes in 4 minutes costs you very little and you can make up for it. It builds stamina you get used to the competing, it becomes noramlised. I'm not sure it's the same for skating.

Ant

Yes, the figure skating competitions are all over the world, but so are tennis tournaments also. It is true that a skater loses practicing time while competing, but a competition brings vital experience.

Men´s freeskate programme is four and half minutes and it is in an ice rink, a tennis match can last 5 hours and it often happens in really hot weather and one can catch up from some mistakes, but it is better the lesser one makes mistakes. Besides, a player has several matches in one tournament, they really need a very good stamina, which comes from training, I´d suppose.

Jaana said:

Yes, the figure skating competitions are all over the world, but so are tennis tournaments also. It is true that a skater loses practicing time while competing, but a competition brings vital experience.

Men´s freeskate programme is four and half minutes and it is in an ice rink, a tennis match can last 5 hours and it often happens in really hot weather and one can catch up from some mistakes, but it is better the less one makes mistakes. Besides, a player has several matches in a tournament, they really need a very good stamina, which comes from training, I´d suppose.

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Yeah, I never got the whole "competing is so hard"-thing. I mean, I know it's hard, I am not saying that they don't have a stressful schedule - but is it more difficult than let's say, football? 90 minutes playing at least once a week, most of the times outside, that means snow, rain, wind. Plus other evil players who try to break your legs all the time.

I feel a bit bad for saying this, because I don't have all the facts about Johnny's health - but how about eating something here and there? I e.g. can't even pay attention in a lecture if I haven't eaten in the morning. And there are dozens, really dozens of studies that prove that it severely damages your health if you don't eat decently (e.g reduces you leukocyte and lymphocyte count). The average man needs between 2200 and 2600 calories a day. An athlete can eat, depending on his sport, around 3000 a day. You can't eat that much salad and drink that much coffee.

During the summer we get some photos of Johnny, where he looks actually healthy for a change. But when the season starts and continues, he keeps looking thinner and thinner... Changing it now is basically impossible, because that will throw him off his jumps. But fact is that a Brian Joubert lands his jumps with 74kg (I think), and Joubert is only 3 or 4 centimetres taller than Johnny.

(perhaps someone should tell him that not eating enough, makes you age faster, makes your hair fall out earlier etc. - sometimes you have to appeal to people's vanity in order to change their minds)

I remember yagudin in 2001 season, that he had lost too much weight but probably muscle weight and had affected his outcome.

(perhaps someone should tell him that not eating enough, makes you age faster, makes your hair fall out earlier etc. - sometimes you have to appeal to people's vanity in order to change their minds)

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LOL!

hmmmm...while not the biggest Weir fan...where's the discussion of whether Abbott of Lysacek should skip the GP this year?

Jaana said:

Yes, the figure skating competitions are all over the world, but so are tennis tournaments also. It is true that a skater loses practicing time while competing, but a competition brings vital experience.

Men´s freeskate programme is four and half minutes and it is in an ice rink, a tennis match can last 5 hours and it often happens in really hot weather and one can catch up from some mistakes, but it is better the lesser one makes mistakes. Besides, a player has several matches in one tournament, they really need a very good stamina, which comes from training, I´d suppose.

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Ok but that's the point I'm making - exactly how much experience does a skater get by skating for a total of 7- 8 minutes, for the travel time, lack of training while you're there and travel for the whole experience of 8 minutes on the ice, compared to a tennis player who, even if they go out of a tournament 6-0, 6-0, they'll still have at least 40 - 60 minutes on court experience which will count for something and can be learned from, and if they do better than that and play a number of matches and actualyl score some points the amount of time on court can start to apprach and even exceed the time they spend on court training compared to the not even 1% of time the skaters spend on the ice at official practices and competing compared to home training.

Ant

Medusa said:

Yeah, I never got the whole "competing is so hard"-thing. I mean, I know it's hard, I am not saying that they don't have a stressful schedule - but is it more difficult than let's say, football? 90 minutes playing at least once a week, most of the times outside, that means snow, rain, wind. Plus other evil players who try to break your legs all the time.

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Team sports are totally different to individual sports though. Football players never run for the full 90 minutes, the most active players tend to get substituted and it's rare for one person in that team to be going all out anaerobically for the same amount of time and intensity as a skaters does for their programme. The type of physical activity is different and the tactics taken are compeltely different too.

Ant

Sure, that's all Johnny needs to boost himself in the eyes of the ISU judges---sit out competitions. He's already not skated at an ISU competition this past season, thus losing at least 900 points. If he skips the GP, he loses another 900 points, which means he slips WAY down in the ISU Rankings: if he does get to Olympics / Worlds, he won't be in the last two groups for the SP, which will hurt his PCS scores.

Johnny has said he will retire after the 2009-2010 season, so let it be on a high note. He's had a long rest since the US Championships, so he should be well-rested for this coming season.

I agree with Ant.

Also, I don’t know each athlete’s health conditions in all the sports, so I can not say figure skaters are often having more health issues compared with other sport’s athletes.

Also, from my experience, I’m not trusting or depending on books and what studies show so easily, until I by myself get good success by following and experiencing what that study said to do And if it works, then I will suggest it to someone. Each person’s body type is also different so if it worked for me doesn’t’ mean it works for everyone. As far as I know, there are also some health experts who didn’t live longer even though they were teaching to others. At least if they are living long healthy life, I can more believe it.

For weight, I think each person’s right weight is different, because of the body type. Johnny’s original bone structure looks thinner than Joubert and Lambiel, his bone structure may be similar to general Asian guy’s bone structure thickness.

Anyhow, overweight and too skinny are often causing health issues.

In my personal impression, Johnny’s skin looks healthy during off season, I thought during the competition, his skin becomes tired, looks older. I think it may be coming from pressure, he was saying he become sleepless , insomnia during the competitions, that’s also causing health issue for Johnny. And maybe also other skaters as well.

Pressure and nerve makes stress, whether they eat right which are considered as healthy in studies, I think stress is the biggest reason to make illness.

Figure skaters look to me , they need to focus many things during the competitions, all the elements, plus choreography, feel with music.
It looks harder than just focusing on only running, or speed skating, tennis, or other sports , for example team sports. It looks harder than other sports to me.

It's a good question to ask why figure skating competition is so hard? I never thought about it before. Yes, most other sports, popular sports, have competitions once a week or more during high season. Why figure skating is so hard with just 6 GP, one national, one world, and every four year the Olympic?

That makes me think that maybe because figure skating is totally different than the other sports such as tennis. It is very complexed with combination of sports, art, and performance.

First of all, the less availability of ice. You have to have ice to practice, while many other sports you can practice in school, in community center, even on your driveway, and the designated place to practice like tennis court are in much more abundance than ice rinks. (our local rink gives more and better time to public session which elite skaters can't practice, or to hockey).

Second, unlike other sports, like Ant and other posts pointed, you have quite a long time window to make up for mistakes, while one minor mistake in the SP or LP can tank a skater.

Third, in that small time window for SP and LP, a skater has to not only showcase their athletism in the form of jumps, spins, speed, but also their appreciation of the music through subtle moves, body movements, transition moments with the music, which requires great focus and energy to cover. That's also why when a skater has perfect clean jumps at practice when he/she jumps alone may deliver a UR jump during a competition program.

One more thing I can think of, there are so many elements skaters have to practice. 6 different jumps, many differents combinations of spins. If it takes 3000 times of practice to perfect one technique, it will be much more achievable to execute 3000 great serve than to land 3000 clean 3Lz. And on top of that, you have to woven all these different technical elements into the context of the music in 3-4 minutes.

All of these and even more (I am sure there are more that I didn't mention here) make figure skating a hard sport. But with less competition, the sport gets even less audience, which translates into less $$$, which makes the sport even harder in the way that it's very difficult for a skater to succeed.

This is my longest post. I am definitely not an expert of the sport, but just a fan of the sport. This is what I think, hopefully it makes sense to some experts here

gocaroline said:

One more thing I can think of, there are so many elements skaters have to practice. 6 different jumps, many differents combinations of spins. If it takes 3000 times of practice to perfect one technique, it will be much more achievable to execute 3000 great serve than to land 3000 clean 3Lz. And on top of that, you have to woven all these different technical elements into the context of the music in 3-4 minutes.

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Thanks for interesting remarks. I think the comment above gets to the heart of it. It is difficult to comprehend how many hours of training go into learning and mastering all of the elements that are part of figure skating. Not only that, but the extremely high number of repititions that are needed to get a skater using a degree of "muscle memory" to execute all of the required elements is astronomical. It can also cause injuries or a weakening of certain muscles and tendons.
I spent a few years training BJJ and couldn't belive the number of reps required to get into a comfort zone - to learn to let your instincts take over. To rely on your training, stop thinking too much and so forth.
So even for one event - an SP and LP - a skater is practicing and training to get as finely tuned as possible. It must be very demanding on the body not to mention the mental aspects.

dancingqueen said:

Also, from my experience, I’m not trusting or depending on books and what studies show so easily, until I by myself get good success by following and experiencing what that study said to do And if it works, then I will suggest it to someone. Each person’s body type is also different so if it worked for me doesn’t’ mean it works for everyone.

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I really admire the scientific basis of your explanation. Thousands and thousands of scientists work on theories (because it's you know, actually important - there are underweight people, there are lots of people threatened by starvation; it's useful to know how underweight and malnutrition influences the immune system). But you don't care. You might try a thing or so and then based on your expertise and the really representative result of a, well, 1-person-study, you might think about suggesting those tips to others. If you are interested in, you know, science, I can recommend the following articles: Leptin - Lymphoid Atrophy, Energy Restriction - Natural Killer Cells, Ballerinas - Immunological Markers, Thymus - Malnutrition, Malnutrition - Immunity,

dancingqueen said:

As far as I know, there are also some health experts who didn’t live longer even though they were teaching to others. At least if they are living long healthy life, I can more believe it.

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I sincerely loathe that kind of comment. Of course very healthy living people and health experts can also die early. And because they do, they don't know what they are talking about? I really admire your logic.

dancingqueen said:

Johnny’s original bone structure looks thinner than Joubert and Lambiel, his bone structure may be similar to general Asian guy’s bone structure thickness.

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What is that? Do you mean mineral bone density? Because if you can see that by looking at him, congratulations - you will get a job in every hospital in this World. Or do you mean his frame? And even that is hard to judge without objective facts, like the wide of his hips... Best would be to put Joubert, Lambiel, Weir, Takahashi etc. in a CT and analyse their frames.

dancingqueen said:

Pressure and nerve makes stress, whether they eat right which are considered as healthy in studies, I think stress is the biggest reason to make illness.

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Eating enough and a healthy balanced lifestyle will often also increase you psychological health.

Medusa said:

I really admire the scientific basis of your explanation. Thousands and thousands of scientists work on theories (because it's you know, actually important - there are underweight people, there are lots of people threatened by starvation; it's useful to know how underweight and malnutrition influences the immune system). But you don't care. You might try a thing or so and then based on your expertise and the really representative result of a, well, 1-person-study, you might think about suggesting those tips to others. If you are interested in, you know, science, I can recommend the following articles: Leptin - Lymphoid Atrophy, Energy Restriction - Natural Killer Cells, Ballerinas - Immunological Markers, Thymus - Malnutrition, Malnutrition - Immunity,


I sincerely loathe that kind of comment. Of course very healthy living people and health experts can also die early. And because they do, they don't know what they are talking about? I really admire your logic.


What is that? Do you mean mineral bone density? Because if you can see that by looking at him, congratulations - you will get a job in every hospital in this World. Or do you mean his frame? And even that is hard to judge without objective facts, like the wide of his hips... Best would be to put Joubert, Lambiel, Weir, Takahashi etc. in a CT and analyse their frames.

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:scratch:. ??? Who said I don’t care ? Can you read my post more carefully ?
I said, when I found good health care , I will try it first, and if I found good results with it , then I suggest to someone. I’m not crazy about people who are teaching to others without first trying what they are teaching. And if you did try what you are suggesting and it worked for you, that's great.

Studies are great. What I said was, I don’t believe so easily. Not that I don’t believe studies . So far my health life is going well for my own health care. But also, just because it worked for me doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for others.

You know, you are free to believe whatever you want, I never said you should not believe or follow all the studies and book.
How was your personal experience by following those studies that you are suggesting ?
I’m more interested in one’s successful personal experience with a study rather than only just reading it. It has more conviction to me.

Of course , very healthy living people and health experts can die early. However, if a group of health experts are dying young or are often getting illness, compared with another group of health experts who are living to healthy old ages, wouldn’t you more believe the health experts who are living a healthy long life ?
That’s my meaning.

You were comparing height and weight between Johnny and Joubert and Lambiel. Johnny himself also said his bone structure is thinner compared to many others. And when I saw him, I also felt the same. Have you also seen him in person and at close distance ? My point is we can not measure by only height.

Medusa said:

Eating enough and a healthy balanced lifestyle will often also increase you psychological health.

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Of course that is important and it helps. But what about a good night’s sleep ? Insomnia ? There are also to be taken into consideration mental stress. People often don’t eat normal when under stress or when they can’t sleep well.

No need to be so rude and aggressive , at least that was my feeling from your post.

Anyway, I’m busy today, so I won’t be coming back for a while.

sillylionlove said:

hmmmm...while not the biggest Weir fan...where's the discussion of whether Abbott of Lysacek should skip the GP this year?

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Everything I said goes for Abbott. I did not make him the focus of the thread because he has already recognized that he will have to change his training to peak later in the season.

Evan has been peaking later in the season for the past few years. His GP is never that strong, and he shines more at nationals and worlds and at the 4CC, so I not really worried.