Mladen Jovanović posted a question on his Facebook page about the Omega Wave and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) in general. An excellent decision thread ensued from some of the best coaches and practitioners I know. Some of the most insightful comments came from world-renowned coach Henk Kraaijenhof. I thought his comments alone were worth sharing.
The [Omega Wave] gives the coach more objective information about the readiness of the athlete, next to the subjective information he always got. So you got more information to process, to decide and to base your program upon. But for some coaches that is just too much and the OW makes from good coaches better coaches and from mediocre coaches confused coaches.
In Holland we have this saying "the athletes should listen to his/her body" which always makes me laugh, since the body doesn't speak at all, It just "mumbles" diffuse thoughts: "pain in head"or "pressure in chest" or "fatigue in legs". But we aren't even able to distinguish between a headache and a brain tumor, between just a sore pectoralis and a threatening myocardial hypoxia. Rather crucial information don't you think so? An even that, the body, the patient or the athlete cannot verbalize or write down in a reliable way. So I sincerely doubt the information about stress or fatigue, or being in shape, coming from the athlete himself/herself only. Now people ask me: but do you need an expensive machine to know all of that? And my answer is: well, I do, since I am no half as good a coach as you are, a coach who knows the status of all these physiological systems just by observing or listening to the athlete or reading his/her training log....
Black box: even my stopwatch is black box to me, I cannot see how pushing a button twice results in a number, but I seldom doubt the outcome. And there was a time my life was based around the numbers on my stopwatch wink emoticon
And the reliability of my stopwatch? Every time when I push it twice, I get different numbers LOL
In all honestly I believe that there is little room for quackery or "magic" tools in elite sports, in the end the results always tell the truth. But looking around I see a lot of "magic" interventions in supplements, therapies or treatments in which cases much less back-up or research is available to support the claims. Still I see and read very little critical views on that. Now the OW comes from the clinic, has the basic research done a long time ago and I think one is extremely stupid to assume Russian research is inferior to Western or American research.The fact that so much of our basic understanding in sports training comes from the former East Block confirms that. A few names in periodisation: Matwejew, Werchoshansky, Bompa, Bondartshuk, Platonov, Issurin ...... where are Smith and Jones?? If the basic conditions for the overall validity of those tests would be doubtful, these test would have been discarded a long time ago since a therapy can only be as good as it diagnosis (clinical use) and any training program based on the wrong testing and monitoring results will direct the coach, the training load and the athlete in the wrong direction and this will show in the results as well! Forget the hype and the marketing, forget the "non-believers" and armchair critics, who never took and will take the effort to learn enough about the OW, and there is a solid system left, maybe not perfect but better than anything else on the marker which pretends to do the same, as far is at is concerned OW is still lightyears ahead. And of course "me too" products will always claim to be better just like any Cola tastes better than Coca-Cola....
Improving Sprinting Speed DVD
The Henk Kraaijenhof File
Henk Kraaijenhof has several decades of experience as a performance coach in a broad array of sports.
He has worked with the following athletes: Nelli Coorman, former world record holder and 60m World Champion (1987-1989); Merlene Ottey, 100m and 200m; Sandra Farmer-Patrick, 400m hurdles; Letitia Vriesde of Surlaname, 800m (1:56.65 in 1995); Mohammed Aj-Malki of Oman, 400m (44.65 in 1988); Patrick Stevens of Belgium, 200m; and Troy Douglas, 100m-400m. Kraaijenhof's experience extends to conditioning as well, having worked with Mary Pierce (2004) and soccer player Edgar Davis.
He was a conditioning consultant for the Netherlands Olympic men's volleyball team (2000). Olympic men's field hockey team (2008), Oman Sal, Juventus Football Club (1997-1998), Vancouver Canucks (2011), and UKAthletics. He has also worked as a mental conditioning consultant for BBE, an elite unit of the Dutch Marines Corps.
Kraaijenhof has collaborated with Prof. Carmello Bosco on the development of the first vertical vibration platform 1998 in Dr. Marco Pozzo and the development of the first intenllgent strength training machine Exentrix.
Kraaijenhof combines his decades of experience and knowledge in this accumulation of intellect that is destined to push the envelope of your - or your athletes' - performance.
Bio: Ultimate Athlete Concepts