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 | SWIFTER, HIGHER, STRONGER
JULY 30, 1996TRANSCRIPT |
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How hard should you train to become an athelete at the Olympic games? The potential physiological and psychological toll can be so high. A child psychiatrist squares off with a former Olympian and a gymnastics coach, over when "a goal" becomes a dangerous obsession. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET provides a backgrounder.
JEFFREY KAYE: Those who are serious about
July 17, 1996:
A group of former U.S. Olympians explain the thrill of competing at the games.
Review the Online NewsHour Forum on amateur vs. professional status at the Olympic Games.
Historians consider the modern Olympic games on July 22, 1996.
sports start young. At the Broadway Gymnastics School in Santa Monica, competitors are between seven and fourteen years old.
COACH: (talking to little girl) Yes, very good. Oh, yes.
JEFFREY KAYE: Their coach, Henry Vanetsyan, not only teaches technique. Vanetsyan, who trained the Soviet Union's men's team for 15 years, instills lofty ambition.
HENRY VANETSYAN, Gymnastic Coach: Anybody, if you can do something, you have a dream. Maleah, come over here. Why you want to do gymnastics? Tell us, please. Don't be shy. Tell us about. Why?
MALEAH McGUIRE: (small girl) Because I like it, and I want to go to the Olympics.
HENRY VANETSYAN: You have a dream.
JEFFREY KAYE: You want to go to the Olympics? Tell me. How old are you?
MALEAH McGUIRE: Nine.
JEFFREY KAYE: Nine.
JEFFREY KAYE: At nine, Maleah McGuire trains with her friends three hours a day, five days a week. Most competitive athletes, professional as well as amateur, can identify with the motto of the modern Olympics, swifter, higher, stronger. But what are the limits of human performance, and how far should the body be pushed? Those are questions not only for athletes but increasingly for scientists.
MARILYN PINK, Centinela Hospital Biomechanics Lab: Over the years, we've seen many world records broken, and humans have pushed ourselves further and further to the edge. The thing is we never know where that edge is. We don't know if the world's flat in terms of performance, or if it really is curved, and we can come 360 degrees with it.
JEFFREY KAYE: Marilyn Pink is director of the Biomechanics Laboratory of Centinela Hospital in Inglewood, California. The lab is just one example of the intersection of sports, medicine, and science. One project has been to learn about the physiology of baseball pitching.
MARILYN PINK: I'm going to have you take a deep breath.
JEFFREY KAYE: In a demonstration, electrodes are applied to the shoulder muscles of college pitcher Bob Walla. High speed film was loaded for motion analysis.
SPOKESPERSON: Bob, you ready?
BOB WALLA: Ready.
JEFFREY KAYE: As Walla pitched, a technician noted the ball's speed. A computer recorded electrical activity in each of four shoulder muscles, and the camera whirled. By assimilating all the information, researchers can better understand the dynamics of movement.
MARILYN PINK: What we'd like to understand is which tissues are really involved with the sports, which muscles fire when, how intensely do they fire? Are they firing with a lengthening contraction? Are they firing with a shortening contraction? What's the range of the motion at the joint at that instant? How would I most effectively and efficiently exercise that muscle?
DR. LEWIS YOCUM, Sports Physician: The research in the lab gives me a better understanding of a lot of the pathology that I see in the surgery.
JEFFREY KAYE: Dr. Lewis Yocum, the associate medical director of the lab, is also the physician for the California Angels Baseball Team. Yocum says the lab's research helps him understand what surgical procedures are best for injured players. In addition, by studying which muscles are used when, doctors an trainers can prescribe exercises to avoid stress and prevent injury.
DR. LEWIS YOCUM: As opposed to the old concepts of more weight is better, we're realizing a lot of times less weight, if done properly, can get you a quality product, can get you much better results. We don't have to go for no pain, no gain. There's other ways to educate muscles and to treat them properly.
JEFFREY KAYE: Such as--
DR. LEWIS YOCUM: Specific exercises. Many times we have a professional ball player who is working with two, three, or four pounds maximum working in a specific playing. That's all they need. They take any more weight than that they may actually be doing damage, overloading muscle groups.
MARK EICHORN, Pitcher, California Angels: This is a strong one for me. I can do a lot of these.
JEFFREY KAYE: Mark Eichorn, a pitcher with the California Angels, works with light weights on his shoulder muscles. Eichorn had shoulder surgery early last year.
JEFFREY KAYE: Can you feel the different muscle groups that you're affecting?
MARK EICHORN: Yeah. Yes, I can. Yes, I can. And, you know, each exercise, I feel, you know, working different muscles.
JEFFREY KAYE: Eichorn is on the Angels' disabled list. Before he can return to competition, he must demonstrate his proficiency to the team physician, the pitching coach, and to Angels trainer Ned Bergert. Bergert says the pressure for hurt athletes to return to competition comes not from the front office but from the players , themselves.
NED BERGERT, Angels Trainer: If anything, we have to check ring ‘em to try to hold ‘em back to go out before they are 100 percent and they won't re-injure themselves because when we've put in, you know, hours and weeks of time and effort to get ‘em back, we want to see them on the field and perform continuously once they get on the field and not come back and visit us in a couple of days after, you know, things happen.
JEFFREY KAYE: Angels relief pitcher Troy Percival had elbow surgery in June 1993. He says he's now a better pitcher than before the operation thanks to better exercises, exercises developed as a result of the research. Percival pressed to come back as soon as possible after his operation.
TROY PERCIVAL, Pitcher, California Angels: And in this case they told me it was going to be a year to a year and a half. I tried to push it. I was throwing at eight months but I wasn't a hundred percent till a year, year and a half. I pushed myself because I didn't like sitting and watching, so I pushed myself as fast as I could.
JEFFREY KAYE: The pressure on Olympic athletes is more concentrated, says Marilyn Pink. She was responsible for physical therapy at the Olympic Village during the 1984 Los Angeles games.
MARILYN PINK: Think of yourself. Now if you were going in and you had one day to prove yourself after training for twenty years and you caught a cold, but you only have--this is your one moment of glory, so you at all costs, you will take risks, you will perform with that cold or an injured elbow or an injured wrist and still do the best that you can.
JEFFREY KAYE: For serious competitors, particularly in gymnastics, the risk of injury is constant at any age.
JEFFREY KAYE: Do you worry about an injury or pain, something hurting? Has that happened to any of you?
GIRLS IN UNISON: Yeah.
JEFFREY KAYE: All of you.
LITTLE GIRLS LAUGHING: Yeah.
JEFFREY KAYE: Wow. What happens when you hurt, when something hurts?
LITTLE GIRL: You go easy.
LITTLE GIRL: You rest.
YOUNG GIRL: It depends on how bad the injury is. Like if it's a really bad sprain, then you wouldn't come in--I mean, you might come in and just do bars or something.
LITTLE GIRLS: Struts.
YOUNG GIRL: Or struts.
JEFFREY KAYE: But they would continue, despite the pain. David St. Pierre, a member of the U.S. Gymnastics Team, has competed in pain. St. Pierre just missed a spot on this year's Olympics team.
DAVID ST. PIERRE, Gymnast: To be at that level, to be that good, you have to sacrifice. You have to train, you know, five hours, six hours a day. You have to devote your life to it, to a certain degree, and--
JEFFREY KAYE: It becomes your life.
DAVID ST. PIERRE: It does. It becomes your life, and I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily, you know, because, like I said, to be No. 1 in the country or to be No. 1 in the world, that's what it takes. It takes working through injuries. It takes competing when you're in pain. It takes, you know, hard work. It takes sweat and guts and blood sometimes, but that's what it takes.
JEFFREY KAYE: For world class athletes, physical sacrifice is a given. That's a value deeply ingrained from childhood.
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