So your training is evidence based. Who has gathered the evidence? What actually is the evidence? I get it, it is published and peer reviewed – so what? So much research I see is still on untrained college students with a very small number of subjects for six weeks to nine weeks in duration. It always makes me wonder. I am very partial to practice based evidence. Find someone who has been there before, preferably many times, and ask him or her why they do what they do? What mistakes they made and how they corrected them. Learn from others who have a multitude of experiences. Coaches cannot afford to wait for research to tell us what to do. Coaches lead and innovate and science will follow. The ultimate proof is sustained excellence in the competitive arena.
3 Comments
James Marshall
This needs to be pasted onto every undergraduates’ folder this term.
Jason Neil-Dwyer
I am a medic. We rank evidence to account for this. Everyone defaults to Expert Opinion in most things as often there is little/no good study based evidence, this is Level 5, and in the abscence of anything else of sufficient quality is a basis for treatment. Sometimes level 5 is so obvious it can not undergo study testing, such as a plaster cast on a broken ankle, but many things particularly new treatments are not. Studies are Levels 1 to Level 4, level one is best, metanalysis of multiple randomised control trials, while Level 4 is a rigourously reported personal treatment series. The point is all levels carry weight to change practice, and must be recognised in a treatment plan. Critical appraissl is used at all levels to decide on the validity of the evidence. I assume it is similar is Strength and Conditioning science.
Study includes all people subjected to the treatment, it looks objectively at effectiveness but also at harms and durability, an innovator is rarely able to objectively do this, they often ‘forget’ the failures or do not recognise the injury patterns. This does not belittle the innovators as they are vital to progress, but scientific study gives the direction for us minnows to follow. Look at the work on lumbar stresses in crunches, and the fantastic stuff coming out of Birmingham/Nottingham at the moment about HIT, solid. Six pack gurus have advocated crunches in the past now we know this stresses the spine and is not a functional movement. I am fan of FMS/Cook, but like to know the science like this http://www.strengthandconditioningresearch.com/2013/12/19/fms/#button
William Kirousis
Critical thinking – dont leave home without it!