Hacker News Reader

Comment by sailingparrot | Hacker News Reader

The author is talking about progress within one game/set/race not over the long term. In lifting during your first rep you can notice that your stance was slightly too wide and adjust it for the other 4 reps. Just like in rowing if your first paddle is a bit out of sync you can fix it.

The point is those are activities with highly repetitive efforts and you can adjust after each one with feedback.

Golfing is not like this, if you miss your first swing, you can’t micro adjust for the second one, because it’s going to take place under completely different conditions where the feedback you just got does not apply usually.

View on HN

That is not my read on the post, and your point doesn't really make sense. The objective of all these activities is measurable improvement. The practical discipline in each practice session for each activity is the bare minimum to improve and every activity has it. The point of the post is that some activities tend to see consistent, linear improvement over the long term where others tend to see droughts/plateaus.

Running is a great example because a dedicated runner, even a hobbyist, can expect to see 3-5% improvement in speed/endurance or whatever every season. But no runner expects to see improvement during a single run. But the same isn't true for activities like golf or language acquisition (my own example).

Running improvement isn't actually like this, except for beginners.

First, you actually do quite a bit of periodization at the season level, so you might have a long base block, followed by a more stamina/quality oriented block, then race specific sharpening, followed by taper and an A race, and then rest. Improvement is distinctly non-linear across these phases, and you'll actually start each season fairly far behind where you were at your peak.

There are also plateau effects, where you've basically adapted as much as you can to an existing stimulus and you need to find new ways of triggering adaptation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com