Classics are works of art, literature, and science that have stood the test of time and remained, without changing their value and meaning, in human society as the highest standards and coordinate systems that guide our creative activity. The presence of classics provides significant, meaningful, and value-based guidelines, both for creating something new and for avoiding mistakes and unnecessary repetitions.
That is why we read the classics – Shakespeare, Goethe, Balzac, Maupassant, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov – and look at paintings by Da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Velázquez, Picasso, Kandinsky, and listen to the music of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff.
In philosophy, it is impossible to ignore the ancient Greeks: Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc.
Similar classic works exist in the field of human movement, physical education, and sports. This includes many different disciplines used to describe and explain the construction of movements of various modalities, from the most accessible and "natural" to the most complex and comprehensive.
Even if I say that this is only about the field of running, in reality, it will turn out to be an almost boundless ocean of accumulated knowledge, both practical and theoretical. The former includes experience and traditions passed on from one generation of teachers to another, in different types and forms. The latter includes facts studied and analyzed in various studies, generalized in the form of hypotheses, theories, and concepts, which then form what Thomas Kuhn (1962) called a paradigm.
Thus, in order to have a good idea of the evolutionary process in the area under study—the trends, deviations, and possible lines of progress—it is necessary to know the main stages and critical points of development. Often, these stages and points have a relative or direct connection with certain successes in sports, athletes, and coaches, but it is vital to learn to draw on other scientific disciplines to analyze the bigger picture in order to distinguish between the norm and idiosyncrasy, progress and getting lost in details. It is necessary to note the development and achievements in various fields of science related to physical education and sports. All these achievements have their theoretical and practical value, which must be understood both in absolute and relative terms; that is, what was significant then, does it remain significant today, and whether the main scientific plot was lost in favor of seniority of opinions.
