In late October 2008, a news story was circulated by several fitness, science, and news blogs (with no mention on any swimming blogs I could find). Why? Because the news item struck a cord with swimmers who would rather forget all about it, I’m sure. The news? Ballet dancers are fitter than international swimmers.
Syndication of the article on the various sites was pretty much the same, so to read the article you can just go to the ScienceDaily.com reprint.
The article under scrutiny was presented as a news item in England, and briefly summarized an experiment conducted by Professor Tim Watson and Dr. Andrew Garrett of the University of Hertfordshire. The unpublished experiment was presented at the 2008 Health and Human Sciences Research Institute Health Showcase.
Briefly, the experiment involved administering 10 standardized fitness tests (including tests of strength, endurance, balance, flexibility, and psychological state, among others) to the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet School, along with a squad of national and international British swimmers (including Olympians).
The results were portrayed as groundbreaking news: that ballet dancers are better athletes than swimmers, and that they scored higher on 7 out of 10 standard tests of fitness. Moreover, the ballet dancers were apparently 25% stronger than swimmers when tested for grip strength.
Contest or Study of Differences?
My critique isn’t of the original experiment conducted by Professor Watson and Dr. Garrett, but of the spin put on the news story to make it more shocking/interesting. The news article made it sound like a contest between swimmers and dancers. The actual purpose of the experiment can be derived from the abstract posted on the University of Hertfordshire website, which reads:
“There is not just one version of fitness
8 Comments:
I understand that dancers are very skilled at what they do, as I am sure I could never do that. However, the claim that they are more physically fit than competitive swimmers is just astonishingly falsoooo.
The resistance training of many miles of swimming in the Earth's greatest liquid is an exercise that no others come close to.
Who likes to eat fish or other seafood?
- How often do you get a piece of fish that has "too much fat" on it. Yeah, never. Case closed.
that's why the story got so much press, cuz it was so shocking to hear. but really the study never intended to see which athlete is better, they just wanted to create profiles for them.
it's obvious the fitness tests are bias to athletes who work out on land. have a dancer swim a few laps then see who's got endurance.
Hello, I just wanted to comment and say how much I enjoyed your post. I'm loving your blog too – great writing and pictures – thank you for sharing them !
Elise, thanks for the positive feedback and thanks for reading!
-EricT
I always tell my kids that I want them to become a better athlete first before they try to be a better swimmer. One is going to led to the other and I guess that's what a few swim coaches could learn frm this article. It's not about going from one end to the other end of the pool but how we can do it the most efficient and fast way.
Haha, "Yeah, case closed"
Eric, I appreciate the time you put into posts like this. Critiques of academic articles/stories involving them may be my favorite part about your blog. I feel like most other water bloggers do not have the background to speak to these subjects the way you can. Keep it up.
Also, I love commenting on your blog like someone that couldn't call you on the phone or drive to south west ohio and tell you in person.
Yeah if my phone broke you could just reach me on here haha
I think it is true. A ballet dancer who does not swim regularly couldn’t beat an olympic swimming champion at all or viceversa. However, depending on the objective of the experiment the researcher could have done several different things. For example:
1. Find the most common exercise or test for the aspects to be evaluated and perform them on the athlete. This is the one the researcher chose in this case: used a common ground.
2. Test each group of athletes in their own familiar ground. Swimmers tested with swimming-like training exercises and ballet dancers with dancing-like training exercises. This choice wouldn’t be very helpful since both groups are supposed to master their discipline. What exactly would be measured this way?
3. Test each group of athletes in the other group familiar ground. Swimmers tested with dancing-like training exercises and viceversa. Again, what exactly would be measured this way? Was this going to help fulfill the objective of the research.
It is certain that in order to perform any type of experiment with scientific purposes there is a method to be followed and designing the test must be done very carefully.
It does not sound logical to compare swimmers vs. dancers (totally different and demanding disciplines) and even that, I believe, was carefully decided while following the scientific method. Certainly, swimmers are better at swimming and ballet dancers are better at dancing. However, with all the respect for every athlete in every different discipline I really believe ballet dancing goes beyond demanding on the human body.
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