TechBLOGogy

I don’t know about you, but every time I watch the Olympics, I always ask myself the question, “You know, how much faster / better are they than the average guy?” Well, I got the chance to find out. While I was hanging out with Dr. Brad DeWeese at ETSU, filming a few spots on how technology is changing the Olympics, we had the idea to pit me, the IT guy, against 3 time Olympic medalist, Steve Holcomb. Since we were there at the Olympic Training Facility, we had the tools to measure it properly. It was a forgone conclusion that I was going to lose… it was just a question of how BAD. As it turns out, I was able to do 60% of what Steve was… not too shabby considering Steve basically trains for a living! After the cameras stopped rolling, Dr. DeWeese and I continued the conversation and he told me that overcoming the 38% of the 40% gap wasn’t the hard part, it was the remaining 2% that separates the average guy from a true Olympian. I was telling a friend about all this after the fact, and he reminded me that, while I’m not an Olympic athlete, I’m probably far from the average person. That said, full disclosure… I actually do workout on a regular basis and have been doing bench press since I was in middle school. So, for a person that works out regularly, there’s STILL a huge gap. 🙂 While all of this was just for fun, Dr. DeWeese did tell me that I did better than he thought I would. I don’t see myself having a career in bench press anytime soon though! I did ask Steve if we could start the hashtag, #60percentAsGood, though.

–Dan Thompson