Theophilos PILIANIDIS1, Nikolaos MANTZOURANIS1, Athanasia SMIRNIOTOU3, Michail PROIOS2, Fani BERBERIDOU1, Polixeni ARGEITAKI3
Abstract
The aim of this study was to assess the progress of the world records as well as to evaluate the ability to predict the future world records in the jumping events in Athletics by calculating the Biorhythmic cycles. 259 officially recognized world records (134 men’s & 125 women’s) were evaluated in the events of high jump, long jump, triple jump and pole vault. The world record holders in the above events were 126 athletes (75 male & 51 female) from 1901 until 2009. The rate of improvement of the world records in the jumping events was calculated by using the equation: Progress Rate (%) = LWR – FWR /LWR x 100, where, LWR: Last World Record & FWR: First World Record. The prediction of the future records in men’s and women’s jumping events in relation to the world record holders’ Biorhythms (physical, emotional, intellectual) was based on the linear regression. The progress of the world records in the jumping events in Athletics from the first in 1901 till the last in 2009 ranged from 15.1% to 33.4%. Furthermore, the regression model showed that the Biorhythmic cycles cannot affect the superior performance in either male or female top-level athletes. In conclusion, this study does not confirm the predictive potential of Biorhythms in the future world records in Athletics.
Key words: sports, Biorhythms, competition, performance.
Introduction
The interaction between the Greek words bios (life) and rhythmos (rhythms) interprets the idea of the “body clock” which evaluates the internal “timer” and affects the human behaviour. At the turn of the last century the Biorhythmic theory was presented in order to predict various aspects of a man’s life through simple mathematics which could differentiate the biological functions (Swoboda, 1904; Fliess, 1906). This theory is characterized by rhythmic periodical cycles which have an impact on a man’s life with emotional or behavioral fluctuations as well as variations in the physical performance based on the individual year, month and day of birth. According to the basic idea, the three subdivisions of Biorhythms are the Circadian, the Ultradian and the Infradian (Teltscher, 1920, in Appel, 1987; Laerun, 1985). The Biorhythm charts illustrate the principle that the people are influenced by physical, emotional and intellectual cycles. The above cycles are repeated in a time period of 23 days in the physical, 28 days in the emotional and 33 days in the intellectual phase, which respectively represent the positive, negative and crucial days (Dzlerzykray, 1980; Coveney & Highfield, 1990).
The existed bibliography regarding the role of the Biorhythmic cycles in sports is still controversial. The majority of Biorhythm studies which were held in the 80s’ and 90s’ assessed the athletes in running, jumping and throwing events in Athletics and did not present any significant interaction between the Biorhythmic cycles and the training periodization for the enhancement of the athletes’ peak performance (Holmes et al., 1980; Faria & Elliott, 1980). More specific, the prediction via the Biorhythmic cycles of 1051 world records from 200 athletes as well as the effect of the Biorhythms in 29 false starts in sprinters did not prove that the role of biological rhythms in athletes peak performance is significant (Uzunova 1988; Shaposhikova, 1989). In contrast, other studies support the biorhythmic theory in the sport science, especially in world-class level individual sports athletes (Bahchevanov & Boyadjiev, 1994; Perrin, 1984). Specifically, the confirmation of the positive effect of the biological cycles during the annual training preparation is derived from studies which support the role of the Biorhythms in the outstanding performance of the sprinters Jesse Owens and Evelyn Ashford (O'Neil & Phillips, 1980; Coulet, 1987).
The purpose of the present study was to assess the rate of progress of the world records in the jumping events as well as to evaluate the effect of the periodical Biorhythmic cycles (physical, emotional, intellectual) in the competitive performance of the world record holders. Furthermore, this study will estimate the prediction accuracy of the future world records in the jumping events in Athletics through the Biorhythms.
Materials and Methods
259 world records were officially registered in the events of high jump, long jump, triple jump and pole vault in Athletics. The evaluated records were 134 in men’s and 125 in women’s events. The studied sample consisted of 126 top-level athletes (75 male & 51 female). The world record evaluation, from the first which was officially registered in 1901 to the most recent in 2009 was based on the data derived from the official website of the International Association Athletics Federation (www.iaaf.org). Also, the Wikipedia free encyclopedia was used (www.wikipedia.org) for the confirmation of the studied data which was related to the world record holders (year, games & Nationality). The male and female record holders as well as the amount of the world records in each separate jumping event are presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Presentation of the world records holders per event and gender.
|
|
Men (n=75) |
Women (n=51) |
||||
|
Event |
Athletes |
Record |
Athletes |
Record |
||
|
High Jump |
16 |
31 |
15 |
37 |
||
|
Long Jump |
12 |
17 |
15 |
19 |
||
|
Triple Jump |
17 |
23 |
13 |
20 |
||
|
Pole Vault |
30 |
63 |
8 |
49 |
||
In order to calculate more accurately the Biorhythmic cycles, a computer application was developed, based on the programming language Pascal. The data which was evaluated in each separate record holder was composed of the exact date and year of birth as well as the date of the world record. The 100 scale (-100 to 100) was altered and subdivided into a 5 scale in order to clarify the athletes’ Biorhythms (Table 2).
Table 2. The subscales of the Biorhythms’ clarification.
|
Biorhythms |
Subscales |
|
Physical Crucial phase Negative phase Positive phase |
14 to-14 -15 to -50 & -51 to -100 15 to 50 & 51 to 100 |
|
Emotional Crucial phase Negative phase Positive phase |
24 to -24 -25 to -50 & -51 to -100 25 to 50 & 51 to 100 |
|
Intellectual Crucial phase Negative phase Positive phase |
10 to -10 -11 to -50 & -51 to -100 11 to 50 & 51 to 100 |
Statistical analysis
The rate of progress of the world records in the jumping events in Athletics was calculated by using the equation: Progress Rate (%) = LWR – FWR /LWR x 100, where LWR: Last World Record & FWR: First World Record. The data normality was checked by using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov method, while the normal distributions of the variables were confirmed by the probability P-P plots. Descriptive statistics (exploration by event) as well as the estimation of coefficient of variation (Ratio) were firstly applied. The prediction of the future world records in men’s and women’s jumping events in relation to the athletes’ Biorhythms (physical, emotional, intellectual) was based on the linear regression. The “World Records” were counted as a dependent variable for the model linearity, while the world record holders’ “Biorhythmic phases” (physical, emotional, intellectual) were considered as an independent variable for the estimation of the predictive validity of the future world records. For the amount of the data analyses the SPSS-PASW statistical software version 18.0 for Windows, (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL) was used. The level of statistical significance was set at p= 0.05.
Results
The rate of improvement in the world records in both male and female athletes who participated in the jumping events in Athletics from the first in 1901 till the last in 2009 ranged from 15.1% to 33.4%. The applied equation showed that the highest progress in the world records was presented in the men’s pole vault (33.4%), while the lowest rate of improvement among the evaluated world records was recorded in men’s long jump and triple jump (15.1%). In addition, the descriptive statistics showed that the record holders’ performance variation during the 108 years in which the world records were officially registered ranged from 4.6% to 11.4%. The Ratio statistics revealed that the greatest coefficient of variation (CV) in the jumping performance was presented in the pole vault (men’s =11.4% & women’s =7.1%).
Furthermore, the regression model did not confirm that the Biorhythms can predict the future world records in both male and female jumpers. More specifically, the R2 coefficients in the amount of the evaluated events appeared to be low with no statistical significance. Apart from the men’s long jump, in which the R2 was moderate (0.43, p=0.84) the prediction validity of the future world records in the rest of the male and female jumping events was low ranging from 0.01 to 0.17. As a result, the predictive accuracy of the physical, emotional and intellectual phases of the Biorhythms in the future world records of the jumping events in Athletics could be characterized as deficient. The rate of progress in the world records (%), the record holders’ jumping performance variation (%) as well as the R2 coefficients are presented in table 3.
Table 3. World records progress, the performance variation and the regression coefficients (R2).
|
Event |
First World record (yr) |
Last World record (yr) |
Rate of Progress (%) |
Performance Variation (%) |
R2 |
|
Men |
|||||
|
High Jump (m) |
2.00 (1912) |
2.45 (1993) |
18.3 |
5.3 |
0.17 |
|
Long Jump (m) |
7.61 (1901) |
8.95 (1991) |
15.1 |
4.6 |
0.43 |
|
Pole Vault (m) |
4.09 (1920) |
6.14 (1994) |
33.4 |
11.4 |
0.06 |
|
Triple Jump (m) |
15.52 (1911) |
18.29 (1995) |
15.1 |
5.3 |
0.04 |
|
Women |
|||||
|
High Jump (m) |
1.65 (1932) |
2.09 (1987) |
21.1 |
6.6 |
0.14 |
|
Long Jump (m) |
5.98 (1928) |
7.52 (1988) |
20.5 |
6.7 |
0.01 |
|
Pole Vault (m) |
4.05 (1991) |
5.06 (2009) |
19.9 |
7.1 |
0.01 |
|
Triple Jump (m) |
12.43 (1981) |
15.50 (1995) |
19.8 |
6.6 |
0.07 |
Discussion
From the beginning of the 20th century the sports scientists had already identified the linear improvement of human performance, especially in world-class athletes (Κumar & Rai, 2000). The results of this study confirm that the progress of the world records in the jumping events in Athletics was linear in both male and female athletes. Historically, the improvement of the world records in the jumping events, especially from the late 60s till today, resulted from a number of beneficial factors which affected the technical elements in the jumping performance. Thus, the training periodization (Verchoshanskij, 1999), the doping use (Franke & Berendonk 1997) as well as the innovative equipment, such as the synthetic track surfaces, the thick matress or the carbon-fiber poles (de Koning, 2010) contributed to the progression of the world record. The greatest improvement of all the vertical and horizontal world records in the jumping events was recorded in the pole vault. A possible explanation for the above finding comes from the technological evolution of the vaulting technology. So, the transitions from the tubular aluminum poles to fiberglass and later to poles with the E-glass and S-glass materials give the benefit to the world-class athletes to improve their world records.
The prediction accuracy of the future world records in the jumping events through the Biorhythmic cycles did not confirm this theory. Similar with the bibliography, this study did not justify that the physical, emotional and intellectual phases of the top-level athletes’ Biorhythms could positively or negatively differentiate the achievement of the world records in the jumping events in Athletics (Siegel, 1978; Todorov, 1988; Pilianidis et al., 1993). More specifically, the evaluation of 330 records in the running, jumping and throwing events in Australia from 1969 to 1977 as well as the assessment of 700 men’s records, which were broken from 1913 to 1977 in this country, did not prove that the Biorhythmic charts could affect the athletes in the records days (Quigley, 1982). Similar with the above, another study, which evaluated the annual training periodization in 610 top-level athletes, reported that the Biorhythmic cycles did not contribute to the ideal competitive performances of these athletes in the running, jumping and throwing events in Athletics (Reilly et al., 1983).
The qualitative approach in the evaluation of the role of the biological rhythms in the record achievement is still in conflict. The world record holder in women’s high jump Italian Sara Simeoni did a World record of 2.01m in the 4/8/1978, a day in which all her Biorhythmic charts (physical, emotional and intellectual) were in absolute negative phases (Gulinelli & Zambardino, 1986). In contrast, the French pole vaulters who participated in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games took into serious account their Biorhythmic cycles with the gold medal winner Pierre Quinone (5.75m) to have all his biological charts in positive phases (Perrin, 1984).
Conclusion
In summary, the world records in both men and women jumping events in Athletics presented a linear improvement from 1901 to 2009 as a result of the innovative equipment, which plays an important role in the top-level athletes’ ideal performance. In fact, a record is an “extreme value” and it seems reasonable to evaluate the Biorhythms theory in order to predict the future world records in Athletics. Similar with the majority of the relevant bibliography, this study has shown that the prediction of the future world records in the jumping events by the use the Biorhythmic cycles is deficient and invalid. Clearly, other exogenous factors may possibly affect the superior performance of the world-class jumpers in Athletics.
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