Burden of Proof

Recently, on one of my new favorite sites, because it deals with my workout, there was a debate about the effectiveness of the program. The program is CrossFit. The question, posed in a most rude and upsetting manner was "What evidence?"

The question is a good one. What actually constitutes evidence? What makes a good evidence-based practice? Most of us who train, talk to others about training, and those of you who properly train others probably think the evidence is the comments, thoughts, accolades associated with your clients, friends and self, getting fitter. Truthfully speaking, yeah. That is damn good evidence, but it is not scientific. There are a few concepts that scientists try to follow and most exercise routines do not follow them closely, if at all.

Take for example the notion of peer-review. Most exercise routines are not published, that is most exercise routines you see trainers at the gym using, do routines on a DVD set you just ordered, or stick to the age-old traditional programming rampant in magazine like MH. I have never heard of a trainer publishing the results of his clients, but heck I'm new to this. There is a reason right? Each and every client is different and unique. So how do we utilize peer-review. Most of us don't. We use our results as evidence. I think this is just fine when it comes to this type of treatment program. That is, you are trying to make that client meet his/her goals, so their individual progress is the evidence.

Another example of a technique science uses is the burden of proof/falsifiability. That is, a scientist must state their ideas in a way that is inherently falsifiable and testable. And that leads to the other aspect of science that many of us rely on: replicability. Scientists need to be able to replicate methodology in precisely, or close to precisely, the way the original person executed it. When it comes to fitness this might be impossible. If you are training an overweight person and an underweight person the methods are drastically different, right? If you are training youngster versus a retiree: different, etc.

OK, so all this does not mean that there can never be an evidence-based fitness program and I think CrossFit is the new movement. Let me explain. First, peer-review is one of the worst aspects of scientific processes. It is an archaic, failing discipline in science as evidenced by the many journals that are opening up their pages to commentaries, using Web 2.0 technology to allow continual author-reviewer-scientific community correspondence. We are no longer in the times when a paper gets submitted, peer-reviewed, and then rejected or published. Rather, we are now in the age of a paper gets submitted, peer-reviewed, rejected or published, and if published opened up to a number of wonderful mechanisms for continual discussion about the research which includes, but is not limited to: blogging about the article (that is, blogging on the journal site for all to see), ability of readers to write commentaries and letters to the authors, editors, and reviewers, and so forth. As for the other aspects of scientific inquiry we cannot avoid them to be true to ourselves: burden of proof, falsifiability, and replicability. That is where CF steps in.

The entire CF process is transparent. The WODs are generated daily and people then post their scores, times, loads, reps. It is never peer-reviewed, but completely transparent. It is testable. They ask the question: can you make a better athlete than me? If you can, show us. And where there is evidence of other programs providing good outcomes, CF recruits their efforts. Take for example the recent combinations of West Side's conjugate methods and Pose running with CF programming.

Generally speaking, evidence-basis in fitness is very necessary. We've all kept a log of our progress at some point in our workout lifetime. That is we recorded that last time we bench pressed 225 10 times, this time I did an extra rep. Woo hoo. But there is more to it than this. It is not just about getting a big chest and pressing more weight. Fitness is defined as Health. So bench pressing 225, 315, or 500 lbs does not always equal "Health". In fact, for some of us, and in my opinion, that produces an individual that is far from healthy, or fit. Rather it produces a specialized athlete that can bench press a lot of fucking weight. They are not generally healthy. That is the measure that we need to use as our benchmark: are they generally healthy? Has our programming helped them to be more healthy or less healthy? If the latter, how can we adapt to change that? If the former, how can we target the things that are helping to increase their health/fitness? This means that while our programming needs to be regimented, structured and scientific, it also has to be adaptable. This is also a hallmark of good science. Good scientists are able to realize when an experiment is going awry, when unexpected results are either interesting or not and make decisions about taking a new path, or staying the course.

Of course I am so biased, but my impression of health/fitness comes from what our ancestors could have done or needed to do to survive. So I define health/fitness as being able to act like a caveman. When I just wrote that line, I was going to follow it up by saying, "Just teasing". But I am not teasing. Imagine your inner caveman and what s/he would have to do in her day. I can provide a few examples from my warped brain:

What my inner caveman had to do                       How to train for that (now)

Chase an animal                                                   Run, squat, snatch, jump

Drag an animal down                                            Pull, push, engage core

Swing from branch to branch                                Pull-up, core, balance

If our trainees, partners, friends and family, and colleagues can act like a caveman then that makes them a good candidate for my tribe. They can join my group. They will likely be the folks that can contribute to group success, engage in camaraderie, help others, produce! The proof is, as they say, in the pudding - or or us the health and fitness that our clients/trainees exhibit.