This is a follow-up to a discussion about peer review and the NSCA’s journals
Has the situation changed? In the August 2000 S&C Journal, the NSCA
published its latest guideline for all of its members: “The National Strength
and Conditioning Association’s Basic Guidelines for the Resistance Training
of Athletes”.
This article discussed periodisation in detail and referred to “linear” and
“non-linear” periodisation models that are not classically accepted
definitions and terminology (by the Russians and early architects of
periodisation theory). Moreover, there were semantic errors in defining
linearity as the authors of the article did. Linearity never even existed in
the long term periodisation models used by any of the Russian authorities,
since it has been well known that all of the models that have ever been used
involve CURVILINEAR changes in intensity and volume. It has also been well
known that adaptation is not a linear process.
The article stated that: “The linear model is the most classic model of
periodisation…. the linear model of periodization varies the intensity over
several weeks (or microcycles) of training….. A nonlinear periodization
model varies the intensity and volume over the week.” By no stretch of the
semantic imagination, are these acceptable definitions of linearity and
nonlinearity. Of course, we can do with language anything that we like, but
there do happen to be certain existing rules, conventions and guidelines that
should not be ignored in a reviewed publication. We have to remember that
review always examines the content and linguistic correctness of any
publication, so one cannot simply ignore the latter. If one does change the
rules, then one comments on that fact.
In introducing the “nonlinear” model, the authors omitted the fact that
variations may also be performed at the level of multiple training sessions
offered in a single day (e.g. see Matveev’s book “Fundamentals of Sports
Training”, 1977). This was even done in the “classical” model to which they
referred and it has been a very important factor in the progress of Russian
and Bulgarian weightlifters and various other athletes
In the section on the “linear model” of periodisation, the authors wrote:
“…it should be noted that the weekly fluctuations occur such that …” A
fluctuation implies changes up and down, and implies that the changes are not
at all linear. How can fluctuations exist in a “linear” model, unless those
fluctuations are linear? If that was what the authors meant, then they
should have stated that fact, because the term “linearity” is not extant in an
y of the classical works on periodisation.
LANGUAGE ISSUES
I may sound pedantic or fussy about such details, but one of my jobs at my
former university and on various scientific committees was to annually edit
and review many hundreds of professional articles, research projects, books
and speeches by senior students, university staff and commercially employed
scientists and engineers. I have probably reviewed and edited more than 10
000 such articles in my 20 years as a professional communications specialist,
so I became intimately aware of the importance of linguistic acceptability.
My university became so concerned about the problem of dubious communication
and language skills among its engineering, science and commerce students that
it set up compulsory semester or year long courses in “Professional
Communication” which students had to pass in written and oral communication.
This involved me in editing a textbook called “Professional Communication”
that is still used quite widely in my former homeland, S Africa.
After several years of living in the USA, I am very concerned about the
extremely poor command of the English language here – only a few weeks ago, a
news article stated that 30 years ago teenagers in the USA had a vocabulary
that was about THREE times larger than that of the teenagers of today. Last
night, a TV report commented that the level of English and Mathematical
skills in the USA has dropped to a ranking of below number 40 on the world
scale and that the failure rate in high school English is over 60 percent.
I am fully aware that the government and school boards are very concerned
about all of this – let us hope that the nation appreciates what this demise
in capabilities can mean for our nation.
While this may appear to be peripheral to the topics of strength science and
training which we discuss here, we have to remember that the effective
communication of all knowledge is central to the application and progress of
any discipline, so I will unabashedly continue to comment on cases where
improvement may be necessary. We cannot afford to accept something just
because our audiences “will get the general idea” of what we are trying to
say, least of all in a journal which is trying to be recognised as the leader
in its field.
PERIODISATION INFORMATION
The NSCA Training Guidelines article gave prolific detail on its own authors’
concepts of periodisation and modified versions of it made by various NSCA
members, but failed to give any references or summaries of the definitive
original models of periodisation by its pioneers in Russia – other than a
little by Zatsiorsky and Vorobyev. The name of Matveev (or Matveyev), the
greatest popularist of periodisation theory is not mentioned once, nor are
any of the important models of Bondrachuk, Arosiev, and Verkhoshansky. This
is tantamount to omitting mention of Einstein in discussions of relativity
physics. Instead, many references were made to articles or books on
periodisation written by one of the authors of the article.
While the article contained a great deal of useful information, there are
sections like that on periodisation (American: “periodization”) which would
certainly have profited from independent peer scrutiny. May I now ask,
Steven, if all articles in the S&C Journal are genuinely reviewed or are they
simply read through for the most glaring errors? I was very pleased that its
editor, Jeff Chandler, had the integrity and professionalism to admit that in
at least one case the review process was not be as thorough as it could have
been because of the stature of authors or their connections with the NSCA. I
trust that others will follow his example.
Dr Mel C Siff