USA vs USSR Sport Science

I recently read a great intro in a book called Supertraining, by Yuri Verkhoshansky. The first edition came out in 1993, possibly not coincidentally after the fall of the Soviet Union. He was the top sport scientist over the years, and is regarded as one of the greatest experts on the subject.

He relays some very interesting history in the early chapters. He points out that as the nations grew more isolated after WWII, less exercise science was shared. In the United States, a Dr. Cooper published a book called Aerobics in 1968. This was of course extremely successful, and started to steer the exercise conversation towards running and aerobic exercise, rather than weightlifting or strength training. This was not a 100% transformation of course, however there was a large impact on the fitness industry.

Verkhoshansky’s research over the years kept more of an emphasis on the further development of strength training. This was very intense research, and has become a very complex system. He believes that this divergence in training philosophy and popularity was what made the difference in Soviet dominance in the Olympics (except hockey in 1980, of course.)

I have seen some examples of this in our sports programs over the years. Baseball players used to be told not to lift weights, as this would screw up their form. We’ve all seen how this has changed now. One of the first to buck this trend was Nolan Ryan. I read one of his books about weight conditioning, where he knew this would help with injury prevention, and performance. Many professional athletes now lift weights to improve performance, including sports like swimming, basketball, tennis, etc. Some in the industry prefer the word resistance training, as we are tying to make weight lifting sound more scientific, and less meathead-ish.

This story reminds me of Rock IV, which I loved as a kid. It came out in 1985, so I would have been 14 at the time, and at the height of the Cold War. Remember the story line about how bad The Soviets were because their boxer was being injected with steroids? It never occurred to me back then that our boxer, Stallone, was just as jacked, as an actor. I didn’t even know what steroids were at the time.

Were Russian Olympic athletes taking steroids at the time? Probably, but that was not the entire reason for their success. It was one factor. They devoted much time and money to research for their athletes.

Am I saying aerobics are bad? Of course not. I just love the history and progression of sport science. There are so many people to learn from. We now know that resistance training can be just as important as aerobic exercise.