Dear Wayne,
I will answer your questions individually as you have presented them.
1) A level of 8 should be achievable for most who adopt healthy practices. This is why I feel level 8 is appropriate for a majority of bowlers. Daily exercise, maintaining a decent level of incidental physical activity and maintaining healthy practices will ensure this result on the beep test. I think we would all agree that smoking is not a healthy practice and in my opinion this would negatively affect their chances of achieving a level 8. Perhaps if they also do some aerobic training, then achieving this level may be possible. An athlete with a bad knee or ankle would struggle. None of the guys mentioned to me of any previous injury before partaking in the beep test Sunday. The beep test is a standardised test which is used in most team and individual sports because it has strong correlations with general health (BMI), aerobic capacity and physical fitness when tested in a laboratory environment, where direct measures of VO2max are taken. A walking test in a controlled lab environment on a treadmill may be an alternative but it's more expensive and difficult to execute such tests because you can't test all athletes at once.
2) It would be inappropriate for me to provide further information beyond what I have already stated. There is talk of providing this information in an anonymous fashion to TBA registered coaches in official forums such as conferences, etc to aid in their knowledge.
3) I am not sure about whether the women will be subject to the same testing. The decision on what future fitness testing is conducted is not up to me. I merely test using proven and standardised protocols and provide my results and interpretations to the coaches. I am only a consultant.
4) By all means a bowler can bowl in a regular tournament without being "cardio fit" as you put it, but what we are saying is that there appears to be a relationship between physical fitness and successful elite bowling performances from the preliminary data we have collected thus far. Although this is anecdotal evidence, a lot of the pro and elite bowlers I have talked over the years seem to do some form of basic physical training in preparation for bowling practice sessions and tournaments.
5) Injuries happen on all surfaces, including softer and so called "safer" surfaces. Just because a surface is commercially available and widely used doesn't necessarily mean it is safe. There are a number of factors which influence lower body injuries but no one factor is directly implicated in injury incidence. This is because there are a number of confounding extrinsic and intrinsic factors which are plausible and potentially working in combination. So, given the scientific research currently, to say ground surface is the main factor affecting injuries appears to be a gross generalisation. The reason we tested on this surface Sunday was because we had very little option to test elsewhere, we did not want to inconvenience the bowlers by testing them at another location, we felt the results would be important and valuable to the bowlers and their coaches and that the overall risk of injury to the bowlers would be minimal.
Chris, the above post probably answers your questions. Can I finish by stating that I wasn't involved in the selection of players, but from my understanding, there are virtually no implications in terms of selection points on the results of the beep test because everyone achieved a level 8 with the exception on one bowler who achieved a level 7 and lost 5 out of the 10 points available. I think the TBA accepts that the overall process probably needs a little work and revision, but we all need to put the results and implications of these results into a little perspective. I would highly doubt that what the bowlers achieved on the beep test would be the determining factor of whether that person was selected or not for the Australian team.
Regards
Ken
