Evidence-Based Practice Versus Practice-Based Evidence

It’s becoming increasingly fashionable in the strength coaching industry to talk of “evidence-based coaching” and “science-based coaching,” as if by paying lip service to these clichés is somehow a gateway to becoming some sort of omnipotent being whose methods are unquestionable and “right!”

Crippled Research

I don’t question the importance of delivering a well-researched and subsequently effective program to athletes. Instead, I question the true relevancy of a large proportion of current strength and conditioning research from the world of academia. It strikes me that much of the research is crippled by an ingrained desire to limit and control variables and to create a clinical environment whereby statistical analysis is straightforward and conclusions can be churned out with confidence that the results are repeatable in follow up studies.

Nowhere in this world of the research laboratory do we get a sense of the realities of everyday practical coaching experience. It more often than not reworks the same conclusions with only slight manipulations of miniscule variables. Those conducting the research are often exonerated from immersing themselves in the real world depths of time and resource restraints and of local politics and personality/ego management that makes very real differences in real world strength coaching.

Limitations

Strength and conditioning research should utilize and embrace these “limitations” and “controllable variables” to its advantage. On a day-to-day basis, it is these limitations that can sometimes have a far greater impact on the development of an athlete than anything written in a scientific journal. Conducting substantially more independent research in the field with coaches, teams, and athletes in a completely organic setting surrounded by their own limitations and restraints would produce far more relevant and up-to-date data and conclusions to guide the best future practice (a “practice-based evidence” approach if you like).

Strength and conditioning research and the consequential evidence-based practice works at a level of generality. A “practice-based evidence” approach works with a much deeper link with the realities of coaching. Such an approach requires a detailed acknowledgement of the context and limitations that much scientific research tries to eliminate. It gives a real voice to the practitioners and athletes in the field, recognizing that they have first-hand knowledge and experience of what works best, what needs to change, and how it could realistically change.

Research Challenge

Good quality strength and conditioning research should present challenges to the well-documented and well-known routine ways of doing things. It should highlight new ways of working, and it should excite people into thinking of innovative ways that they can change their methods in a real world setting. There are strength coaches who can achieve the most extraordinary results for their athletes, and their experiences and messages deserve to have the platform to inform future practice every bit as much as the conclusions drawn from academia.