>There are some posts there that get the science right
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be uncharitable, but 'exercise science' is not an empirical scientific field like physics or chemistry. It's very difficult to conduct genuine experiments or isolate causes in the human body. It's pretty well-known that lots 'exercise science' studies that prove X were conducted with relatively untrained undergrad volunteers, who would probably gain on any program because they're a) young and b) exercise newbies. Political science has 'science' right in the name too, but I think everyone understands it's not an actual empirical field either (which is fine!)
I'm certainly open to hearing contributions from exercise scientists, but I weight folk wisdom from say the bodybuilding or powerlifting fields at least as heavily
Look, questioning everything is OK but you need to have the initiative, too, to understand what it is that you’re questioning. And by the looks of it, you don’t seem to have read any reference book on sports science, otherwise you’d know that it uses the same anatomy/physiology foundations upon which the medical field stands, and that it is not the case that there are zero repeatable findings in the field of exercise physiology for you to invalidate the entire body of knowledge.
But the broader reason why this analogy doesn't work is that most medical treatments (medical devices, drugs, etc.) are subject to a really stringent approval & evidence of efficacy process. As they should be! But there just isn't anything similar in exercise science. Studies that prove, like, plyometric wall bounces make you more explosive or something are just incredibly underpowered versus the level of evidence required for the FDA to approve a medical device or drug.
If ES studies were somehow conducted with that same level of funding & rigor, I would take them a million times more seriously. In practice, it's an n=10 or 20 study with a bunch of undergrads for a p value of .0501 or something
What studies, exactly, prove that plyometric bounces make you more explosive “or something”? More explosive for the purposes of what? Do you even know the principle of specificity? Are you saying that what we call “knowledge” of anatomy and physiology and nutrition are actually invalid because they’re just derived from college students? Are you even aware that meta-analyses exist and that it takes that degree of veracity before studies make it to reference books, or are you really just complaining about pop fitness articles and discussions that you’ve read from bodybuilding.com? I have to ask, sorry, because your line of questioning is so devoid of rigor that you can only be coming from a position of arrogant ignorance, and it’s glaringly obvious.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be uncharitable, but 'exercise science' is not an empirical scientific field like physics or chemistry. It's very difficult to conduct genuine experiments or isolate causes in the human body. It's pretty well-known that lots 'exercise science' studies that prove X were conducted with relatively untrained undergrad volunteers, who would probably gain on any program because they're a) young and b) exercise newbies. Political science has 'science' right in the name too, but I think everyone understands it's not an actual empirical field either (which is fine!)
I'm certainly open to hearing contributions from exercise scientists, but I weight folk wisdom from say the bodybuilding or powerlifting fields at least as heavily
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy