The Concept of Athlete Durability

Patrick Kane has struggled over the last few seasons with major durability issues, which has negatively impacted his performance.

I recently listened to a very interesting episode of the The Real Science of Sport Podcast by Ross Tucker and Mike Finch, on the topic of Fatigue Resistance or Durability. Highly recommended!

The episode focuses on the concept as it relates to the endurance athlete, mainly the marathoner and the tour cyclist; however, it did get me thinking of how this could be applied to other sports where aerobic endurance is not the primary outcome.

Paraphrasing the information in the episode, those athletes within the top 10% of professional cycling are far more durable than those in the “peloton” as measured by their ability to produce peak power over longer periods of time. This creates a massive performance superiority that allows these athletes to continue to push the pace or sprint when other cyclists are fatigued. This provides a huge advantage at the Level of Competition in that over the course of an hours-long race or stage in professional cycling; the top riders have a very low drop in their ability to produce peak power outputs over the course of that time, while the other riders are unable to maintain their respective power outputs for similar durations. In the end, this is what creates the separation between elite cyclists and very good ones.

What is Athlete Durability?

To try to understand how the concept of durability can be applied to athletes of other domains, it may be necessary to put together some information surrounding the term.

There are differing frameworks surrounding the concept of durability depending on the scientific background it applies to; therefore, a specific definition is not truly attainable. However, it is possible to pull some characteristics of those definitions and apply them to the concept as it relates to high performance of athletes.

There is a fundamental component to durability that must be considered as the starting point. Durability can be thought of as:

The ability of the athlete to continually resist any factor that would create an impairment to the performance of that athlete both in time and over time.

This means that durability is a quality possessed by the athlete individually. Referencing the athlete as a system means that durability is a state of the system that provides the opportunity to continually produce the necessary measurable outputs without a breakdown in the system that impacts the ability for production.

 In this way, we can then be more accurate in our description of what durability is and means to an athlete. At Absolute, we would consider durability to be two things:

1. It is a quality of the athlete that allows them to continue at a lasting state of performance by being able to resist any and all influences which tend to cause any change, breakdown, decay, or dissolution

2. It represents a state of high ecological efficiency.

The Case of Patrick Kane

The first round of the NHL playoffs just finished with a couple of upsets (see: Boston and Colorado). Although not entirely an upset, but maybe a somewhat unexpected result was the New Jersey Devils beating the New York Rangers. The Rangers made a deadline acquisition of Patrick Kane, arguably the best American-born player ever, to make a deep playoff push in the Eastern Conference. Unfortunately, Kane did not meet the task. After game 3, when the Rangers needed him most, he became a non-factor for the rest of the series. There could be a number of tactical reasons as to why Kane struggled so much during games 3-7, but it was evident that physically he could not match the pace or intensity that was being dictated at the Level of Competition.

It is the opinion of Absolute that this was a durability issue, and the reason Kane faded so dramatically as the intensity of the series increased was a direct reflection of his durability.

It was a few years ago that Kane completely revamped his off-season training to include a more “functional” basis. Movement-based training that involved the core patterns that were relatively unloaded, footwork, agility, etc. - things that, as a smaller skilled player in the NHL, Kane had already possessed. There was much made about how his new style of training made him feel great and physically ready - of course! Doing things we are already good at and not venturing into the uncomfortable is great for endorphin release. What he didn’t do was train ecologically to acquire the physical capacities that he needed.

The year after revamping his training, Kane scored 110 points (2020); however, since then, he has regressed, making this a statistical outlier. Kane has been physically breaking down since this time which was extremely evident for the majority of this past season, particularly later on. As a result of the Chicago Blackhawks not competing for the playoffs the last few seasons, the grind of the playoff push as well as the actual playoffs, hid Kane’s durability issue.

Durability in Detail

Durability has much to do with the ecological approach taken by Absolute.

It is necessary that durability rests on a foundation of physical attributes that allows the athlete to have success at the Level of Competition. At Absolute, this is represented by Point B.

Point B represents the depth of capacities that exist both within the internal and external environments, whereby there is an interplay between the capacities that exist in the internal ecosystem that allows for the emergence of external capacities and the display of high performance.

Within this framework rests a system efficiency that must occur ecologically insofar as each fundamental capacity allows for the funneling of system-based resources into others. What is the major resource that the system uses to become efficient and subsequently be able to maintain efficiency?

Energy.

Energy is the most valuable resource to the human system and the prime currency of durability.

Energy is constantly being exchanged and converted amongst all system levels within each ecosystem. Within this conversion occurs the loss of energy and the tendency toward disorganization, decay, and eventual breakdown, the exact opposite of durability. Those athletes that are able to adequately minimize energy dissipation and maximize the conversion between ecological niches will increase their ecological efficiency and, in so doing, will be better able to maximize their durability.

It has been reported that Patrick Kane has some moderate to severe hip limitations, which for a hockey athlete and one as quick and shifty as Kane is a recipe for performance decline. Hip joint health and function is a necessary foundation within Point B for a hockey athlete. The hip joints in these athletes are the basis of energy exchange and, therefore, efficiency considering the demands of hockey at the Level of Competition. The hip joint issue has more than likely been building for years and was never addressed in any sort of training that would create lasting biological change. It is not surprising, given this information, that his durability has suffered dramatically over the same time period.

Previously, we have written about athlete longevity. Durability goes together with longevity:

Durability + Longevity = Elite Performance Outcomes

Absolute Concept: Athlete Durability + Career Longevity = Elite Performance Outcomes.

Durability is a Trainable Quality

Can this concept of durability become a trainable quality?

The second part of our Durability concept will answer this question.