In the 2011 adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball there’s a scene of confrontation between the old-fashioned baseball scouts and the forward-thinking new front office of the Oakland Athletics. The disagreement boils down to a fundamental difference in team-building approach: data vs. feel. The front office was all in on sabermetrics, a cutting edge data and analytics system that allowed more in-depth insight on player performance. The scouts believed that more subjective standards worked fine for finding new players, epitomized in one scout’s self-evident declaration that “he can play, and we need people who can play.”
The takeaway is meant to be on the importance of progress, of not clinging to the old ways simply for the sake of how it’s always been done. While this line of thinking undoubtedly has merit, it begs the question of whether the opposite might also be true. In a world where data is more easily accessible than ever, what is the benefit of trusting how you feel?
Until recently, I had taken for granted that I knew how I felt. But in the last year, I’ve had to reevaluate my sense of health, comfort and confidence, and what “feeling good” even means.
I have written about my injury history in these blogs, but I did not mention my recent POTS diagnosis. Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome means my heart races when I stand too long or work out too hard. I deal with near-constant dizziness and lightheadedness, and have to monitor myself so I don’t do too much.
I lost trust in my body. My mind raced to worst-case possibilities. A short walk or trip to the grocery store—tasks I hadn’t thought twice about before—made my skin crawl with anxiety. I became beholden to my Garmin, and whatever it said, I took as gospel.
Heart rate too high? Sleep score too poor? It must be true. My watch said so.
External data tools were important for confirmation. The problem was real. I was not imagining things, but I became so watch dependent that I experienced my own form of range anxiety, where electric vehicle drivers become nervous to get stranded too far away from a charger. It felt safer to keep my watch on, to check every minute throughout the day. I was afraid to be untethered, which made me lose sight of how I actually felt. I needed to be told how I felt.
Data sensory overload
We know more about ourselves now than possibly at any point in history:
- Sleep,
- Heart rate
- Hydration
- Body composition
A recent workout revealed that I was attempting to connect four separate fitness apps in order to aggregate all of the different information they were collecting. I had been trapped in a technological web of my own creation.
It’s a truly modern sensibility to believe more is more, but data isn’t necessarily a substitute for knowledge. Just because that information is accessible doesn’t mean we’re using it effectively. What good is the data if you don’t know what it means? Are we actually learning how to optimize our bodies and minds, or are we training ourselves to accept whatever an app tells us about ourselves?
With such an overabundance of statistics, it makes it hard to decipher where to even start. More important, where do we stop?
Perception is reality – or at least as good
I had a conversation with one of my coaches centered on the idea that if you think you had a good night’s sleep, that’s just as important as actually having good sleep.
This ties back to separating what your watch or other health metric tells you from how you feel. It’s possible to get a solid sleep score, but still feel sluggish or off-balanced. Conversely, you can wake up feeling energized even without a long or deep enough sleep. In one of these scenarios, you feel much better, regardless of what the data tells you.
Similarly, if you do the same workout more than once, and rate the difficulty a 3/10 one day and 5/10 the next, the workout itself didn’t get harder. You can find out whether something changed in your fueling, hydration or recovery since the last time you tried it, but there are a number of factors that play a role.
One of the most common sports platitudes is that if you feel good, you play good. Sometimes this is tied to conditioning or pre-event rituals like music or clothes. It goes deeper than that. It’s about confidence, not perfect circumstances. It’s about trusting yourself, both in mind and body—not only in overcoming challenges, but knowing when to push through and when to pull back. That’s something no app can compare to.
Reflection
I’ve talked in past articles about how much CrewLAB’s focus on reflection. CrewLAB helped clarify my thoughts on my training and recovery. I like having the opportunity to reflect right away on my latest session. I am building an archive of myself— how I felt, who I was:
- Disappointment at how far I feel now from where I was a year ago.
- Frustration at missing splits, hitting heart rate threshold in a workout that was only supposed to be Zone 2.
- Coming to terms with the fact that my endurance isn’t what I want it to be.
I celebrate the wins. It’s not productive to wallow in the areas of improvement. Feeling good has a lot to do with knowing I can handle challenges. I look back and realize that my “bad” days now are better than past bad days. My bad days today can be better than past “good” days.
Reflecting also gives me the opportunity to incorporate the data I’ve collected with a more organic and subjective view of myself. Having the numbers lets me trust my training. I can be more instinctive. I don’t measure my worth by the numbers, but I can use the numbers to help me get better.
My advice is to use data to monitor performance and benchmarks, but keep the athlete at the center point. We are still at the beginning of this journey of integrated data tools, and every day we use them we are creating a road map for future athletes.
More insight on the balance between hard data and organic observation can be found in CrewLAB’s conversation between Olympic great Drew Ginn, and noted biomechanicist Valery Kleshnev.
