all posts post new thread

Off-Topic Why I trust coaches more than sports scientists

Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)
mprevost

mprevost

Level 7 Valued Member
And I am a sports scientist. I have felt this way forever but couldn't quite put my finger on the reason for it. It became crystal clear after reading Nassim Taleb's Antifragile. I highly recommend the book. He introduces a few simple ideas that have broad application to so much in life, including training programs. I am on my 3rd reading of the book and every time I get a few new insights.
 
It’s a truly original line of thinking on Taleb’s part. Brilliant.

-S-
 
I can't recall this topic in the text (probably should read it again...), but who would you want to work on your cars engine; the mechanical engineers who designed it, or the grizzled mechanic who has been fixing engines for decades?
A good coach will (should) have lots of hands on experience dealing with athletes in real world settings.
 
Even more germane than that, optionality and tinkering beats science. It requires little intelligence, just the ability to discern the difference between better or worse. In sports, we also have the evolutionary force of competition. Win or get fired means that what works will survive, while what doesn't gets weeded out. Not so with academia and even science to some extent.
 
Finished reading Antifragile around 10pm on a Thursday in February 2016. Next morning I drove down to Tucson for my SFG I cert. Picked up a copy of S&S during cert. Opened book up mid week the following week and noticed 2nd quote in book is the following:

Competitive " sophistication" (rather, complication masked as sophistication)
is harmful, as compared to the practitioner's craving for optimal simplicity.

-----Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile
 
mprevost said:
Even more germane than that, optionality and tinkering beats science.
Click to expand...
I know that I may be going against the crowd here, but I think that the problem is that many people don't know what science really is. As you are a scientist, you will probably follow me.

Somehow, many think that science is a list of complicated studies done by people in a lab, disconnected from reality. This is not true.

Science is first observing. Then making hypothesis to explain why things work a certain way. Then test this hypothesis. You do this sometimes at a table, but also in the field.

Some only do experiments (typically the coach) and see quickly what fails and what works. An experiment does not prove anything, but after a while, enough experiments will lead you to the right direction.
Some do studies and need a lot of time to see results. But what they do is repeatable and is more than anecdotal evidence.

We need both approaches. They do not oppose each other, they enrich each other.

In my engineering school, we did a lot of "academic science" (in what people think science is: equations and calculations). But we also had to work on tooling machines and built stuff.

If you are not convinced, read about the true story of many scientists like Galileo, Newton, Poincaré and al. :)
They did not only wrote equations. Although they did write equations.
They did not only experiment. Although they did experiment.
 
I think with sports science and human sciences in general there are many problems with the studies because they only scratch a tiny bit of the surface and too big generalizations are made based on the results, even if they are valid in the specific study. And I don't blame the scientists for the generalizations, but the consumers.

In part Pavel mentioned on this in his interview by Joe Rogan. In one case we have an Olympic champion weighlifter and we have his notes for an Olympiad and we have seen him train ten sessions a week all of those four years. In one case we have novices or amateurs who follow a set scheme for eight weeks, with tests before and after.
 
Antti said:
I think with sports science and human sciences in general there are many problems with the studies because they only scratch a tiny bit of the surface and too big generalizations are made based on the results, even if they are valid in the specific study. And I don't blame the scientists for the generalizations, but the consumers.

In part Pavel mentioned on this in his interview by Joe Rogan. In one case we have an Olympic champion weighlifter and we have his notes for an Olympiad and we have seen him train ten sessions a week all of those four years. In one case we have novices or amateurs who follow a set scheme for eight weeks, with tests before and after.
Click to expand...
I think he also mentioned in the same interview that he would only frequent a physician that can deadlift more than himself.
I'm a big fan of science and most scientist. I do however have a hard time trusting anyone that does not walk the talk and have some skin in the game and boots on the ground.
 
The greatest thing so far I took from this book - looking beyond the concept.
In my humble opinion, the phrase "I trust coaches more than sport scientists" needs to be de-conceptualized. Like "I trust more practioners with theoretical knowledge and rich experience, rather than bare theoretics". Of course if this is what you meant. It's oversimplification, but presents the idea more clearly for me. The proportions of science/practice in the curriculum of each individual can vary, but there is definitely no black or white here.
Just my 2 cents.
 
Science has limitations; study length, funding, etc. Science can help tell us why things in the field work the way they do. I don't drown myself in academia, but I've yet to see or hear of a study that came FIRST and changed coaching strategy.

All Taleb's works are worth multiple re-reads. The idea of "optimal simplicity", Occam's Razor, etc is just a good idea for life.
 
+1 for @jef. Science and practical application are not enemies.

I totally agree with the idea that, when your life or money are on the line, your best bet is on practical experience. And I agree with the idea there is an issue of trust when a scientists/academics primary motivator is simply to produce content, with no sense of accountability for the effectiveness of what they produce. That's why we trust the practitioner - his livelihood is directly attached to getting results, not presenting himself as an expert.

To me, there are hard sciences, and soft sciences. Physics, chemistry, biology - researchers in these fields are either right, or wrong. There is no middle ground. Anything that involves humans, particularly the mind - economics, sports, psychology - has so many variables to deal with that its impossible to always be right, and they are instead judged (in principle) by how often they are right. Even the good ones are still wrong some of the time.

I get grumpy about discussions like this because people then use the existence of soft science to say that all science can be wrong, therefore I can just believe whatever I want.

For my car, I'd personally like to have that grizzled, experienced mechanic who also happens to have a master's degree in mechanical engineering. That would be the equivalent of the doctor who deadlifts.
 
The problem with sports science is the intervention length too short to tell how far the results go in linear fashion. The good thing is their results should mesh with other known observations, and nutritional and metabolic science.

The problem with many coaches is they tend to specialize, and their specialty might not align with my goals. Training philosophy is one thing, nuts and bolts are another. The good thing is if your coach is non-specific or a good match for one's individual goals, you're dealing with someone who's seen it work on a number of folks.
 
mprevost said:
And I am a sports scientist. I have felt this way forever but couldn't quite put my finger on the reason for it. It became crystal clear after reading Nassim Taleb's Antifragile. I highly recommend the book. He introduces a few simple ideas that have broad application to so much in life, including training programs. I am on my 3rd reading of the book and every time I get a few new insights.
Click to expand...
Good call on the book. I'm re-reading it.
 
WhatWouldHulkDo said:
+1 for @jef. Science and practical application are not enemies.

I totally agree with the idea that, when your life or money are on the line, your best bet is on practical experience. And I agree with the idea there is an issue of trust when a scientists/academics primary motivator is simply to produce content, with no sense of accountability for the effectiveness of what they produce. That's why we trust the practitioner - his livelihood is directly attached to getting results, not presenting himself as an expert.

To me, there are hard sciences, and soft sciences. Physics, chemistry, biology - researchers in these fields are either right, or wrong. There is no middle ground. Anything that involves humans, particularly the mind - economics, sports, psychology - has so many variables to deal with that its impossible to always be right, and they are instead judged (in principle) by how often they are right. Even the good ones are still wrong some of the time.

I get grumpy about discussions like this because people then use the existence of soft science to say that all science can be wrong, therefore I can just believe whatever I want.

For my car, I'd personally like to have that grizzled, experienced mechanic who also happens to have a master's degree in mechanical engineering. That would be the equivalent of the doctor who deadlifts.
Click to expand...
Except in physics you can be both right and wrong at the same time...:cool:
 
It's not that science is not useful. It is. It is just that science gets too much credit for progress, when much of what is credited to science has been discovered by tinkering and optionality. Tweak it and see if it is better or worse. Some people don't understand the difference. Just because you are using lots of equations and sophisticated equipment does not mean it is science. Science starts with a hypothesis, which is tested, and therefore rejected or supported. Tinkering starts with an idea or gadget which is already working, which gets modified in an attempt to make it better. Most of what people think is "science" is really test and engineering, with a sprinkling of the fruits of science thrown in.

For training programs (especially training athletes), compare spending 25 years studying the scientific literature versus 5 years actually training athletes. I've done the former and I can tell you that without the latter, you have a very shallow, questionable foundation for writing programs. Best would be to have both, but 25 years as a coach and 5 years of studying the science, rather than vice versa.
 
One of the most interesting things we have learned from sports science is how much variability there is between people in how they respond to the same exercise. Look at pretty much any study and there is a lot of variability within groups.

As an example, a study may report that group A had more muscle growth over an 8 week period than group B, because on average this was true. However, within group A, some of the individuals might have hardly had any muscle growth and some of the individuals in group B may have had really high muscle growth. People using sports science to inform training plans would say, train like group A did, but this would not be the best advice for everyone, and is really misrepresenting the science. There is no substitute for experience, unless you have made all these sort of measurements on yourself! Never trust a trainer who tells everyone to do the same things either. It sounds like a basic point, but you see it all the time in how science is reported, and a lot of people get bad advice as a result.

The same is equally true for nutrition, different people can handle carbohydrates and fats etc much better or worse than others.
 
I am a big fan of Barbell Medicine's monthly research reviews. They talk about them on the podcast and you can subscribe to the written version (I have not seen those but I see an offer for the Jan 2020 edition for free).

Basically these are the best combination -- smart people with advanced degrees and LOTS of hands on coaching experience reading the literature and interpreting the results and implications for people who train for strength and performance.
 
BladesFanUK said:
One of the most interesting things we have learned from sports science is how much variability there is between people in how they respond to the same exercise. Look at pretty much any study and there is a lot of variability within groups.
Never trust a trainer who tells everyone to do the same things either. It sounds like a basic point, but you see it all the time in how science is reported, and a lot of people get bad advice as a result.
The same is equally true for nutrition, different people can handle carbohydrates and fats etc much better or worse than others.
Click to expand...

This! I've read many dozens of fitness research papers and it seems like they always get good results out of some of the participants. Doesn't matter what they do, some folks will respond and some won't, and always some drop right out.

Is also interesting to see just what the difference is in things like MVC or test activities that were not part of the intervention, and how few studies even include metrics like that. One thing I've come away with consistently - you'll get better at what you do, and it takes a lot of work to make a meaningful impact on unrelated efforts.
 
Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)
Back
Top Bottom