The Tech Edge In Training

The Oxford Boat Club's chances didn't look good. Archrival Cambridge's crew team was on average 16 pounds heavier than the Oxford Blues. And in rowing, the rule of thumb is that taller and heavier usually equals more powerful and faster. On Apr. 6, at 4:48 p.m., the 250,000 fans lining the banks of the Thames River in London held their collective breath. Both crews in the 149th annual Oxford Cambridge Boat Race had crossed the finish line nearly simultaneously. Which had won? For a few moments the two crews slumped across their oars as the boats drifted under the dark arches of Chiswick Bridge. Then came the decision: The Oxford Blues had beaten their archrival by one foot, the closest margin in Boat Race history. "MORE POWER." Oxford beat the odds with the help of OmegaWave, a high-tech diagnostic tool that monitors an individual's cardiac, energy, central nervous, and hormonal systems, among others, to give coaches a real-time look at how the athlete is responding to training. Each day, Oxford coaches attach electrode clips to their top rowers' chests and heads to determine how each is adapting to his training regimen -- and whether the upcoming training session should be more or less intense. "With OmegaWave we set up a higher-intensity workout than we would have dared do previously," says Derek Clark, the Oxford crew's technical adviser and a former coach of the Swiss Olympic team that won rowing gold medals in 1996. "We won because we were able to get more power out of the crew's relatively lighter, smaller bodies, than the bigger, heavier Cambridge guys" could deliver. Rowers and runners, gymnasts and golfers, and more are increasingly using technology to individualize their training regimens -- and give them an edge. In 2002, Nike (NKE) launched the four-year Oregon Project, a high-tech experiment where six athletes live in a house skimmed of oxygen in an effort to recreate the thin air found at the high altitudes from which the world's best marathon runners hail. GREEKS AND RUSSIANS. Since 1999, more than 2,000 athletes have signed up with Carmichael Training Systems, a Web-based company that matches up runners, cyclists, and triathletes with world-famous trainers who design individual programs for them based on such biofeedback such as heart rate and power meters, which measure an athlete's output in electric wattage. And it isn't only full-time athletes who are getting in on the act: One of OmegaWave's latest clients is a 73-year-old retired school teacher who cross-country skis in winter and kayaks in summer. The system, which includes a laptop, software, printer, and a set of electrodes, costs $25,000 to $35,000, depending on the number of users. Most of the new technologies try to combine science with the theory of "periodization," the division of training time into discrete blocks focused on different fundamentals -- endurance, strength, and speed, for example. The ancient Greeks first developed periodization to train athletes for the Olympics. But it wasn't until the early 20th century, after the Russian Revolution, that the methods resurfaced. Since then, Russia has led the way in refining periodization theory. OmegaWave was developed at the University of Irkutsk in Siberia to test the physical fitness of cosmonauts. MILLIONS OF WORDS. Now, the computer revolution is making high-tech training increasingly accessible to a much wider range of athletes. Take Dartfish, a Swiss company that develops digital-imaging software to help improve coaching. DartTrainer software runs on any off-the-shelf laptop connected to a digital camera. Using a remote control, the coach digitally records an athlete's movements, then watches an instant replay to see what went right or wrong. With Dartfish, the coach can also play two images simultaneously to see how the athlete's movements -- and results -- have changed over time. "A coach can tell a tennis player that his elbow angle was too low on a serve, but the player may not understand what he means," says Victor Borgonzoli, president of Dartfish USA. He argues that "if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million." Dartfish has been endorsed by 10 international governing bodies including those for track and field, volleyball, gymnastics, and swimming -- plus the U.S. Professional Tennis Assn. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Borgonzoli says, his software was used to help train 45 Olympic medalists from the U.S. and five European countries. INSTANT FEEDBACK. Now, sports companies are following the time-honored pattern of trying to convert tools used by full-time athletes for sale to amateurs. This June, Nike plans to launch a $369 product called the Triax Elite, an integrated watch, heart-rate monitor, and accelerometer -- which tracks distance and speed. The three components are linked together wirelessly so runners can glance at their watch and instantly see whether they're achieving their goals and/or beating their personal best. The information can also be downloaded to the Net so runners can keep track of their progress and use the information to create new goals and training plans. "The components aren't magical," says Peter Ruppe, vice-president of Nike's equipment division. "But when you interrelate them, they become powerful." Even big-ticket items such as OmegaWave are making their way into the mainstream. The Bellingham Athletic Club, in Bellingham, Wash., recently purchased OmegaWave to design weight-loss programs for its members. After all, losing weight is one of the top reasons people join a gym. And if they don't see results, they're likely to quit. Web trainer Carmichael Training Systems offers personal coaching programs for as little as $29.95 a month, though top athletes -- including Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong -- pay far more for Carmichael's services. "REWARD STRUCTURES." Of course, technology will never become a substitute for hard work and intelligent training. "The bottom line in distance running is that you have to work really hard," says Pascal Dobert, who competed at the Olympic Trials in 2000. "While it may be helpful to know how taxed your anaerobic system is, and how recovered you are after a session, I think experience and good coaching can tell you the same things." In fact, Oxford grad student Roger Bannister proved that -- when he ran the first sub-four-minute mile in 1954. Moreover, the highest-tech tools are still out of reach for many aspiring athletes. Sandy Hamm of West Allis, Wis., whose twin boys Paul and Morgan are both gymnastics champions, bought four $3,000 laptops, a $2,500 video camera, a $2,000 projector, and a $500 screen so that his kids could reap the benefit of Dartfish's $3,000 software. Still, technological insights into human physiology are doubtlessly reshaping the way athletes train and perform -- among them weekend joggers. "People need reward structures," says Nike's Ruppe -- ways to track their progress. "We're at the beginning of something that's very important.