What Philosophy Can Teach Us About Endurance

December 20, 2019 4:43 PM

To train athletes to truly push their limits, it helps to draw inspiration from the French social theorist Michel Foucault. Seriously.
posted by smoke (7 comments total)

I was an English major who took a bunch of theory and gender studies classes and now I run a fitness boot camp and this truly could not be more my shit.
posted by saladin at 4:51 PM on December 20, 2019 [17 favorites]

Also you need to wear the correct clothing.
posted by demiurge at 9:30 PM on December 20, 2019 [3 favorites]

I really enjoyed this. I was expecting it to be hand-wavy, but it seemed to have really useful backing for things like "run by feel" and "just put in some miles." Though whether this isn't cramming Foucault into an existing coaching method, I wouldn't know. As good a reason as any to pick up Discipline and Punish, I guess.
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:42 AM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

Did Foucault construe himself to be doing "philosophy" (Derrida, for example, did), or something new and different?
posted by thelonius at 12:21 PM on December 21, 2019

Every time I fire up Strava to have a run, and when the knowledge that I'm keeping records of my own bodily performance makes me run that little bit faster at the end or a little bit further, I think of the kinds of biopolitics that was in Discipline and Punish, but even more in Bentham's self-surveillance and behavioural change ideas. It's not because there's anyone paying attention, it's that I'm behaving as if there were. Fucken panopticon app.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:01 PM on December 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

I already feel that being pressured to read and honor Michel Foucault is like being pressured to remake myself into a caged animal that runs around an oval track again and again.
posted by sneakysock at 4:17 AM on December 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I tried running by feel for my entire life, and after about a quarter mile, I felt like I didn't want to run any more. It wasn't until I was 34 that I tried couch to 5k, with prescribed intervals, that I was able to push myself over the hump. And three months later I was able to run 3 miles on the regular.

I was self coached for about 8 years and had done two Ironmans when I decided to hire a coach to offload some of my planning. I paid a guy to look at my training, schedule my swims/bikes/runs, giving me time/distance/pace, and I took off two hours from my next Ironman. And it was so nice at the time to let go of that incessant planning and analysis. I had more than enough to do with actually doing the sessions, working my job, taking care of my house and family, etc.

There definitely is a place for self governance in athletics, but the entire process is voluntary. Nobody made me race and train, nobody yelled at me that I wasn't doing things the right way, and doing these races gave me a new appreciation for my own capabilities. C25K, Higdon, beginnertriathlete, etc. gave me structure, but the motivation was still internal.

And I realize that the article was directed more at actual elite athletes, and someone who is under a contract may feel pressure to conform to a training schedule that may be substandard for them, or even result in career ending injury. But I think that "make a better athlete" has only some overlap with "make a stronger citizenry", and the article misses that point.
posted by disconnect at 5:42 AM on December 24, 2019 [1 favorite]