By Carl Valle
There’s a disturbing and growing trend in sports performance to label coaching methods, speakers, and tools in derogatory terms. It’s time to evaluate education, thought leaders, and training tools intelligently. Some training approaches and equipment are indeed bogus, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is irresponsible.
Many coaches and sports medicine professionals allow false information to continue because refuting bad science is not popular. In addition to those who turn their heads away from the problem, there are those who simply can’t communicate in an engaging way even though they are right about the efficacy of a resource. Myths and misinformation linger way too long because it’s painful to prune bad practices and point fingers at problems. As a result, we have a lot of disappointed coaches.
The only way to clean up this mess we’re in is to focus on criteria and science while staying positive and sensitive to how we communicate. In this blog, I share fair criteria to evaluate what is perfectly acceptable and what is not. I also include examples of true assets and flash-in-the-pan trends.
Important Terminology and Word Choice
As a profession, we need to be very careful with what we say and how we use terminology. Over the last few months, we’ve seen ideas promoted that were disproven long ago, and in the same breath we’ve seen sport science concepts called out that have passed the test of time. Three overarching terms have surfaced repeatedly:
Gadget–Sports training equipment, both low and high tech, is sometimes referred to as a gadget. When most people see the word gadget, the reader envisions a contraption that either doesn’t work or is unnecessary. Gadgets seem like a novelty or things that won’t fill a need, a label that is negative and far from supportive.
Gimmick–A technique or method that has poor credibility is sometimes coined as a gimmick, such as a certain style of training or rehabilitation. Even when evidence-based medicine is promoted, we still see alternative medicine as snake oil in a profession where we have no room for pseudo-science.
Guru–Leaders in performance or sports medicine are sometimes called gurus, which can be praise or a backhanded compliment. Gurus who promote false information in exchange for making a quick buck are a real problem, so it’s assumed that calling a thought leader a guru means they are promoting false doctrine and care more about the business side of education than its effectiveness.
All three terms are far from positive, and while the last one can go either way, the trend points to guru turning into a bad label down the road. It’s not that these terms are inaccurate, it’s that using them without specifically sharing the how and why of a problem isn’t very helpful.
Of course, sometimes we see all three problems connected at once, as a guru can promote gimmick training and sell gadgets. We saw this with the balance and unstable surface training in the late 1990s and early 2000s when gurus sometimes sold unstable equipment directly or had business relationships with catalog companies. Although some business practices can be ugly, some amazing coaches, equipment, and techniques exist that are honest and effective.
The Line in the Sand: What Works and What Doesn’t
I have a simple breaking point when it comes to education, experts, and equipment: Does the person or thing in question actually help get results? I don’t care about price or who is involved, I care about results and value. Sometimes education comes free or at a bargain price and sometimes it comes at a premium and must be weighed carefully. Occasionally, equipment is about convenience and refinement and may or may not be worth the price. Finally, some methods are excellent choices like flywheel training while other options like magnet therapy fail to work in both the rehab and training worlds.
Science can help discover what works and how effectively, and I draw my line when something is no better than a control.
Popular sports technology has taken a hit due to validity and other issues associated with measurement. For example, several coaches and media outlets pointed out that the Fitbit data was not accurate enough to be useful in research. True, the Fitbit has some challenges, but what professional team is using a consumer product as their primary way to manage heart rate monitoring? Grouping Fitbit with a force plate is foolish. Yet we see a lot of measurement tool systems dismissed as not valuable because anything objective is very scary to some professionals. They’d rather be safe and comfortable in the “ignorance is bliss” zone than be held accountable.
Methodologies are often scrutinized. Two examples are suspension training and Kinesio taping. Based on investigations into these practices, their value is extremely low. Those who are attached to specific methods because they promote the education behind them are influencers and are either leaders advancing the profession or simply snake oil salespeople.
Some massage techniques, for example, are claimed to cure disease and paralysis as well as repair bones and emotional trauma, all while the influencers are charging enormous fees for us to attend workshops. It’s up to coaches to know what is simply too good to be true and what things have some promise even if the research is scant.
Gadgets: When Does a Tool Become a Toy?
In the training world, everything other than the ground and the human body is considered an artificial object. A barbell, for example, is a serious training option. But when used in a fitness setting for bodybuilding, it may generate a different perspective and hold a stigma. Equipment is part of the solution to training, as the right medicine ball or a wise choice in squat racks makes a difference.
The issue we see now is that the more modern equipment options, such as data collectors and modern approaches to conventional training, are unfairly attacked or are in much need of criticism. Technology isn’t only about wireless features and slick software, it includes elegant design and usefulness. Unfortunately many of the technology companies have failed sport enormously by offering equipment that doesn’t work well or has poor efficacy, or by providing no customer service.
It’s a bold move to call a piece of equipment a toy. Most of the time, I see name calling as a way to camouflage the following three fears:
- Lack of Education—Those who simply don’t know what to do with the equipment
- Fear of Transparency—Those who simply hate objective evaluation or a way to track outcomes
- Apathy or Laziness—The age-old issue of extra work or extra effort creating a burden
There is a big difference between buying a top of the line sled to a fitness gadget pitched in an infomercial, but many coaches don’t point out what they prefer and what they don’t like. Some equipment, like the VertiMax and the Shuttle MVP, has been researched and found not to provide a unique benefit. Options exist that benefit athletes and have relevance to training but may not be a good value for budgeting. The VertiMax can improve vertical jumping ability, but it’s no different than a box jump, based on the research.
My favorite example of “tool or toy” is the simple modern dodgeball. It’s equipment for a child’s game, but for me it’s an invaluable solution to safe agility training. The Gatorskin brand offers a super soft solution to prevent head and eye injuries while the shell allows for a great grip and high-speed throw. Conversely, many pieces of weight training equipment used in sports training and commercial training are constantly used improperly, thus making an argument for education.
‘A carpenter never blames their tools’ is overused and misses the point, says @spikesonly. Click To TweetThe quote often tossed around on social media, that a carpenter never blames their tools, is overused and misses the point. Sure, amazing people can do amazing things with limited resources, but we should empower the skilled, not force them to make due with lesser options. Great tools enhance an experienced and brilliant coach or therapist. I learned a big lesson when visiting coaches before and after a renovation. I was impressed to see the priorities when money was not an issue. When money was scarce, I loved to see what coaches fought for and what they built with their own hands when compromises were not an option.
How to Solve the Manual Therapy Crisis
Soft tissue therapy is a prime candidate for a scientific overhaul. Many mock sports massage and manual support for athletes. The fact that the claimed benefits from massage have not held up to scientific scrutiny plagues manual therapy. While there’s very little evidence that massage helps recovery, most of the research done measured the wrong response or used the wrong instrumentation to properly gauge change.
Manual therapy serves an important role in making neuromuscular changes to the body, but I only use therapists who are skilled and work hard. I’ve found that sports massage creates a local change to tone that reduces an alarm reaction, which is unnecessarily residual after training or competition. Sure, other than the comfort and endorphin response, massage won’t make a difference for most athletes. But enough research does exist to say massage does something to merit its use.
One athlete came to our training group with a post-return to play MRI showing a scar formation, and this spooked all involved. Even with eccentric training, the size and location were foreboding, and people laughed at the idea that massage could break down the scar tissue. I responded that time and intense eccentric work could remodel a scar, and massage could manage tone to reduce guarding and hypertonia of the tissue.
Scar tissue responds to both tone management from #massage and resistance training, says @spikesonly. Click To TweetAfter eight weeks, imaging showed the scar had changed from centimeters to millimeters. The scar didn’t melt from digital pressure—the tissue responded to a combination of local tone management and resistance training. If the therapist wanted to gain attention, he could have said the medical imaging was evidence when, in reality, the therapy was complementary.
Manual therapy education took advantage of the wellness culture by infusing spirituality into the courses and marketing. How many courses used religious themes to develop a tribe of loyal followers? Far too many. Sometimes ancient therapies, like acupuncture and other placebo driven options, have resurfaced in different forms with modern instrumentation.
For the most part, old ideas are new options to people unfamiliar with the science. One would think that a modern world would remove the antiquated approaches used to support athletes. Instead they stay alive because they provide hope to an athlete who needs something more than time and exercise to heal.
Policing therapy courses requires an understanding of what is possible and what is probable when a therapist manually does bodywork with an athlete. Simple changes to the autonomic nervous system, tone control, and transient range of motion are the constraints with which we should work.
Gimmicks surface when practical application options are exhausted, says @spikesonly. Click To TweetTechniques and methods are not limited to sports massage and bodywork; coaching has plenty of training styles with a wide scope covering the art of sports preparation. We tend to have tribes of preferences versus unemotional method options. Gimmicks surface when practical application options are exhausted, and it becomes easy to be lured across blurred lines. That’s when too many coaches leave their craftsmanship.
The lesson learned from manual therapy techniques, be they ART, MET, FRT, STR, NMT, and the countless three letter acronyms, is that methods matter, but efficacy is king. We need to focus less on why a technique is special and more on the science and application as to why and how they help.
Certifications, Educators, and Experts in the Profession
Many of the issues concerning certifications, educators, and experts are summarized well on the blog written by Brett Bartholomew, especially speakers and authors who are unfairly crucified for their success. It’s easy for presenters and speakers to become targets because of their success or worshipped because they’re on a stage.
My goal here is to prevent presentations from turning into infomercials for personal gain. Presenters can focus on their biographies or on the coaching and rehabilitation material they want to share with fellow professionals.
Certifications
The core issue with guru-ism is the certifications market, not necessarily the people sharing the information. Coaches want to be respected by their peers, but this turns into a slippery slope. Sharing education is an ethical act and a commitment to exchanging ideas, experiences, information, and opinions. Too many times, I see presentations that are about the presenter, the presenter does not cover the topic properly, or the information is so shallow nobody gets much out of it.
While being a great presenter requires poise, great delivery, and subject knowledge, it still is a lecture on a topic to inform the audience. Now that education is a way to advertise subliminally to the audience, some presenters focus on their brand of education to form a tribe, or they are undercover salespeople for the companies and products they’re talking about. It’s fine, and in fact encouraged, to have professionals share their expertise on topics that focus on implementing solutions, be it equipment or supplements, but it needs to be a tasteful and very small part of the presentation.
Continuing Education
Continuing education is a requirement for many certifications, and it’s tricky to get the best information the right way today. It’s important to realize that because education is big business, it’s easy for coaches and therapists to get lost in a sea of bad information unless they do their homework. Some oversight exists, but for the most part, the quality and depth come from those coaches and sports medicine professionals who do their due diligence and work together to endorse the right people in education.
Podcasts
Podcasts are a great way to promote great people or add fuel to the wrong people’s fire—those who simply are on a book tour or similar. While I love the fact that great coaches and sports scientists are accessible through podcasts, these professionals need to talk about their areas of expertise, not their commercial endeavors. I appreciate the time many experts give up to talk to a host, and it’s up to the host to keep a speaker on the right track by asking great questions. Plenty of brilliant people can appear flat and not useful if softballs are lobbed their way, as happens when questions from callers and emails dictate the content.
Blogs
Blogs and online articles are a problem for the fitness profession, as the reader tends to be the uneducated regular Joe. But those who don’t like online educational resources forget that accessibility is not the issue. Working hard to get an article from a library is not what drives inaccurate information. If we make information open to others, we give the profession a chance to fact check and literally share the information that provides value.
While it’s true that anyone can create a blog, not everyone is going to succeed in having readers loyally adopt the information, as free doesn’t mean it comes without a cost. Writing is about putting ideas down and allowing the readers to vote by the amount of time they spend on the page. The best metric is how someone decides to spend their time with a fellow sports medicine and sports training professional’s content.
Social Media
Social media is perhaps the best and worst medium. It inspires me to write a counterargument and allows quick access to useful research and fantastic people. Lots of heated arguments drive important discussions on what works, and some exchanges lead to unnecessary insults. For the most part, social media has value. What’s amazing is the number of people who call others “keyboard warriors” from the convenience of a touchscreen. If we use social media properly and work collectively, we can police a lot of the nonsense.
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