Comment by redelbee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by redelbee | Hacker News Reader

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Thank you for the Hitchcock anecdote about creativity under pressure, that idea is new to me.

When it comes to the physical realm, perceived effort (or “rating of perceived exertion”) was shown to be as effective as heart rate for pacing interval training in this study and others it references:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4296211/

From my layman’s perspective it makes sense that perceived effort would be a great guide to overexertion as those perceptions seem to be driven by the same system that prevents us from overreaching in general. Tim Noakes calls it the “central governor” that keeps us from doing harm to ourselves:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_governor

Perhaps the best way to set yourself up for success is to decide on an optimal threshold and try to stay within its bounds, no matter the endeavor. It seemed to work for Hitchcock’s creativity and we know it works in the physical realm as well.

Then you can stress the system to see if it’s beneficial or not. Maybe we should all be doing “creative interval training” to increase our capacity for creation, just like we would to increase our cycling capacity!

Perceived effort, and ability to self-monitor it, varies greatly. An experienced athlete may be much better at this, though often with some form of outside assistance: pace clocks, splits, speed measurements, heartrate monitor, etc.

The inexperienced or untrained athlete may mistake effort for result, often sacrificing form (which may be none too perfected to begin with) in the effort. This especially is where the perceived effort vs. actual attained performance diffrence manifests.

For activities such as swimming, formal coaching involves an extraordinary level of focus and time on stroke technique. The biomechanics of moving through a dense fluid make proper execution of stroke, recovery, turns, starts, and breathing critical to efficient and effective performance. I've had the experience of sharing a pool with swimmers who were faster through the water but worse on turns --- I'd recover the half-bodylength they gained on me each lap with tighter turns and a more efficient kick and glide off the wall. Coach noticed too.

Even more ... pedestrian ... activities such as running, or mechanically-integrated activities such as cycling and rowing have a significant element of technique involved, though in my estimation probably less so than swimming. The remarkable deviation in styles of elite and novice or poorly trained athletes is starkly evident to even casual observers.

In high-skill sports, from ballet to tennis to golf, the requirements for form over raw strength are even greater.

And I'd argue in each case that a tremendous effort exerted with poor form will virtually always result in a lower achievement --- slower speed, longer oveerall time, shorter distances or hights jumped, less weight moved, etc. All the more so at the limits of performance or ability.

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