Chapter 26: Wave After Wave of Nuclear Shocks Are Coming (Second Update—Please Support and Vote~)

Two weeks later, just before Ning Debao was set to lead the team to the Pearl River Delta Invitational, Zhou Bing finally broke the 11-second barrier, clocking a personal best of 10.95 seconds.

He was overwhelmed with an indescribable sense of excitement. How much time had it been? Only two weeks, and he had already made the breakthrough. He had previously assumed he would be stuck at that plateau for a long time. The key was that Gou Laozhi had never given him a specific timeline, whereas Su Shen had told him early on that it wouldn't take long. Sure enough, he broke it in two weeks.

Moreover, he had surpassed the previous mark of 10.99 seconds by a significant margin, nearly jumping to a new level. This was what one would call a substantial improvement. From now on, Zhou Bing could proudly call himself an athlete with the capability to run sub-11 seconds and start striving for the rank of "Master Athlete."

As Zhou Bing "wept with joy" while thanking her, Ning Debao clearly explained that this was actually the result of his accumulated hard work finally reaching a tipping point; it wasn't as if changing his training method was some sort of magical elixir. His previous grueling efforts to break through had all been meaningful, not in vain.

Zhou Bing nodded. He felt that Ning Debao was completely different from Gou Laozhi. If it had been Gou Laozhi, he certainly would have claimed, "This is all thanks to my training; you just need to listen and obey." Furthermore, Zhou Bing wasn't stupid. Although he was a poor student academically, he had enough experience in sprinting to have a say. He understood exactly what the "6-Second Law" that Ning Debao had introduced really was. It was something that completely broke away from domestic conventions and traditional training concepts. Its value to the sprinting world was unimaginable.

And... it wasn't something she had just dreamt up on a whim; she had provided scientific evidence and formulas as a foundation. This made Zhou Bing realize something profound. He understood that he had likely stumbled upon a massive opportunity. If he could grasp it, he would be one of the first in the country to benefit from these "new concepts" and "new results."

As for Gou Laozhi? He could go back to where he came from. Even if he arrived with a palanquin carried by eight men, he wouldn't be able to lure Zhou Bing back. Zhou Bing was now determined to stick with Ning Debao all the way.

Su Shen did not test his limits again. For him, there was no need to rush to break the 11-second mark. He needed to solidify his fundamentals first, ensuring they wouldn't hold back his ultimate potential. Testing his limits too frequently was counterproductive.

Four days later, Ning Debao took the team to the Pearl River Delta Invitational. This was the same competition Su Shen had participated in after joining the sports school in his previous life. Back then, he had reached the finals with a time of 11.32 seconds, but due to a misunderstanding, he never actually competed in the final race. This time, such an issue would certainly not occur.

Zhou Bing, now under Ning Debao’s tutelage, naturally joined them. On the bus, having grown closer to Su Shen, he jokingly said, "Everyone else is here to compete for third place." Because... "First place will be either you or me."

Su Shen just smiled. He didn't pay much attention to this competition; he was only using it to regain the feeling of racing. Therefore, he wasn't overly concerned with the specific result, though that didn't mean he would go easy. The competition offered "Five-Dimensional Points," and for that reason alone, he would compete with full intensity.

"Xiao Tian, why do you love studying so much? With that attitude, you shouldn't be at a sports school; you should be a top academic student." This mindset was actually problematic because, in the future, every field would require highly qualified talent to truly flourish. Why else would the military prioritize raising the overall quality of its personnel? Because high quality acts as a positive driver for progress in any domain.

This was also a factor in why domestic sports development was currently sluggish. Abroad, sports programs were supported by highly educated talent conducting research and verification. Here? Most people only turned to sports as a fallback because they weren't doing well in their studies. Lacking the strong championship-winning teams that countries like Jamaica had, the domestic sports scene had, over time, become perpetually suppressed by Japan within Asia. It was no wonder the slogan in the sprint world was "Resist Japan."

"The future of sports is closely linked to knowledge. You have to read more to run faster." Zhou Bing certainly couldn't grasp this idea from Su Shen right now, but that was fine. Influence is passed down through generations; he just needed to be a guide. Our people are no worse than anyone else in any aspect—whether in the white-dominated world of swimming or the European- and American-dominated world of sprinting—the Chinese could carve out a path to victory. This was a fact history had already shown the world.

Zhou Bing watched as Su Shen read an all-English academic journal on the road. He tried to take a look himself, but after ten minutes, he was "fishing"—nodding off and falling asleep. There was no helping it; this wasn't reading material for mere mortals. It appeared he really wasn't cut out for studying. He decided to just rest and ensure he was in top shape. In any case, as far as these things went, he would just follow the coach's arrangements. Zhou Bing drifted into a deep sleep.

Su Shen, meanwhile, chatted with Ning Debao from time to time, guiding her step by step through the revision and refinement of her research paper.

Upon arriving at the Pearl River Delta Invitational, Ning Debao treated everyone to a good meal, and they settled into their hotel. The invitational was spread over three days, allowing for a generous schedule with one race per day, which helped athletes maintain their form. While this idea seemed good now, in the long run... it was actually more disadvantageous than beneficial.

Once accustomed to this model, athletes would struggle to adapt to the international format of two races in one day—or even two races in half a day—for semifinals and finals. This conclusion had been mentioned in three prestigious, long-standing SCI core journals: *Physical Therapy in Sport*, *International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism*, and *Journal of Sport Rehabilitation*.

What was the reasoning behind this? Su Shen had cited this in his own future papers, using the Japanese teenage prodigy Ryota Yamagata as a counter-example. Simply put, why was it that Yamagata could clock a terrifying 10.01 seconds at 17, yet rarely broke the 10-second barrier thereafter? You have to understand that when he ran that 10.01 at 17, he arrogantly declared he would defeat Su Shen, become the best in Asia, and then claimed he would close in on 9.6 seconds to compete with Usain Bolt. Yes, you heard that right—that was exactly what he said; he was that arrogant.

But the results that followed were clear to everyone. Even 10 seconds was a massive hurdle, let alone the realm beyond it. Why did he face such problems? Later, research papers discussed the relationship between bodily adaptability and the subconscious distribution of physical energy.

Yamagata initially used a two-race limit for his training units, but later, in an attempt to improve faster, he increased it to three, four, five, six, seven, or eight races per training unit. It looked like he was working harder—and did working harder automatically mean becoming stronger? Unfortunately, it was a mistake.

This is because the human body possesses "tacit cognitive characteristics." If your training units closely resemble the competition format, you will better approach your daily training state during actual races. However, if your training units are fragmented, dispersed, and arbitrarily increased in volume, it creates a "tacit cognitive characteristic." Your body will subconsciously distribute its state and energy based on these training units.

In anaerobic exercise, in particular, muscle memory establishes a potential way of distributing energy. If your limit training unit is two reps, your body will subconsciously designate two as the optimal state. Conversely, if your training unit is four reps, your body will subconsciously designate four as the optimal state. Don't underestimate this difference; for top-tier athletes, this "body-default energy supply" means that two reps will result in a greater energy output than four.

This is why you would later hear Su Shen say that after changing coaches, his limit training intensity actually decreased, shifting more toward targeted strengthening of specific areas. This argument was also published in his papers, aligning with the views of the aforementioned journals. Interestingly, Usain Bolt also changed his head coach because he felt his previous coach's limit training was excessive and caused him discomfort. His parents even strongly opposed this, thinking he was just being lazy and didn't want to work hard—a fact clearly recorded in Bolt's documentary.

Therefore, the "crazy training method" isn't necessarily correct. Unfortunately, the world had yet to formulate a concrete theory of "default bodily energy configuration," and it was even less likely to exist domestically. At that moment, even Japan, the leader in Asian sprinting, was still using the "crazy hard training" method.

This was a topic Su Shen planned to discuss with Ning Debao next. Yes, it would surely be another "subversive" nuclear shock. But since Coach Ning had already been shocked once, her adaptability should be better this time, Su Shen thought silently.

The next day, after Ning Debao led them through their stretches, Su Shen spotted a familiar face—the man who would eventually be known as his strongest domestic rival.