Today, at the Ironman World Championship Medical Symposium in Kona, Hawaii, Greg Whyte, OBE, PhD gave two fascinating, thought-provoking presentations to the assembled group of physicians and health care professionals. His talks were titled, ‘Limits to Human Endurance Performance‘ and ‘Sudden Death in Sports‘.
Professor Whyte is a professor of Sport & Exercise Science, a well-regarded author (Unstoppable: Inside The Mind of the Extreme Triathlete – see below), a TV presenter in the UK, a prolific public speaker, a former Olympic pentathlete who is deeply entrenched in the ultra-endurance sports.
In his first presentation in Kona today, he talked about the dramatic world record of Roger Bannister who broke the 4-minute barrier in the one mile for the first time in history. At the time, the common thought was that a human would die if they ran faster than 4 minutes in a mile. Professor Whyte recalled the quote from Bannister who reportedly said, “When I crossed the finish line and saw that my time had broken 4 minutes, I assumed that I had died.”
When we consider the running achievement of Bannister in 1954, he set (broke) psychological barriers for runners and the sporting communities in the 1950’s. Similarly, the marathon swimming achievements of Sarah Thomas and Jaimie Monahan and the ice swimming achievements of Ram Barkai and Lewis Pugh in modern times all serve to set (break) psychological barriers for swimmers – like Bannister did for runners in the 1950’s.
In the past, Professor Whyte has talked about The Mind Over Matter In The Ice, together with Professor Heather Berlin, Barkai of the International Ice Swimming Association, and Steven Munatones in order to share information, education, and heroic activities in the global ice swimming community. See their talk below:
In 2014 Professor Whyte OBE, PhD, DSc, FBASES, FACSM was awarded an OBE for his services to Sport, Sport Science & Charity, and was voted as one of the Top 10 Science Communicators in the UK by the British Science Council. He is an Olympian in modern pentathlon, and is a European and World Championship medalist – and later became an expert in the field of sports and exercise science. He is currently a Professor of Applied Sport and Exercise Science at Liverpool John Moore’s University and Director of Performance at the Centre for Health and Human Performance in London. He is the preeminent authority on Exercise Physiology and Sports and Exercise Performance in the UK. An internationally recognized expert in the field, he has extensive professional experience assessing, treating and improving the performance of patients, sporting enthusiasts and athletes ranging from cancer sufferers to celebrities attempting their first mountain summit to gold medal-seeking Olympians.
For more information on the Medical Symposium, visit ironmansportsmedicine.com.
For more information about Whyte, visit @gpwhyte or his website at U Perform. For this new book, Unstoppable, see below:
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