When it comes to your health and to your strength training, more specifically…Do you rely on social media trends or real science for your exercise routine? And how do you know if your workouts are actually safe and effective?

Amy Hudson and Dr. James Fisher break down what “evidence-based strength training” really means, exposing common myths and highlighting why scientific research – and not old paradigms – should drive your fitness decisions.

• Hosts Amy Hudson and Dr. James Fisher unpack evidence-based strength training.
• Dr. Fisher believes that personal trainers should embrace an evidence-based approach, for the fact that people see them as part of the healthcare continuum, just like doctors, dentists, etc.
• Dr. Fisher explains what “evidence-based” actually means and what it entails.
• Remember: when it comes to strength training, there’s a lot of misinformation on social media platforms.
• As Amy points out, hearing someone talk about the benefits they got by training a certain way doesn’t automatically translate into you achieving the exact same result with the same workout.
• There are a variety of factors that could impact that, such as your varying ability levels, the metabolic competencies of your body, where you are with your joints, and more!
• Dr. Fisher touches upon the ACL reconstruction surgery he had and how that plays into the topic of evidence-based strength training.
• “Many institutions rely on evidence-based processes and on scientific research to drive their methodology forward. And strength training is no different at all,” says Dr. Fisher.
• Amy and Dr. Fisher talk about what evidence-based strength training actually looks like.
• Did you know that about 90% of exercising injuries are a product of free weight strength training?
• Training alone or having a supervised strength training session? According to some scientific evidence, supervision shows greater benefits in almost all facets of health, well-being, and physical adaptation compared to unsupervised workouts.
• The historic thinking and old paradigms that exist have been debunked by more recent science. 
• And that’s really what evidence-based training is all about: being able to move with the scientific process.
• Interacting with coaches and asking them key questions is something Dr. Fisher believes anyone should do.

Mentioned in This Episode:

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Previous episode – Why Most People Fail in the Gym (And How Supervision With a Personal Trainer Can Help)

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SHOW TRANSCIPT

And the reality is once we base something on scientific principles, we can then adapt that for the individual client. Of course we can.

And understanding that one size really doesn’t fit all necessarily when it comes to health outcomes or when it comes to exercise. Welcome to the Strength Changes Everything podcast, where we introduce you to the information, latest research, and tools that will enable you to live a strong, healthy life. On this podcast, we will also answer your questions about strength, health, and wellbeing. I’m Amy Hudson. I own and operate three exercise coach studios. My co-hosts are Brian Saigon, co-founder and CEO of The Exercise Coach, and Dr. James Fisher, leading researcher in evidence-based strength training. And now for today’s episode. In today’s podcast we are going to be discussing evidence-based strength training. If you follow exercise accounts, watch videos over the years, you’ll see different fads come and go when it comes to exercise recommendations, tips, tricks, hacks when it comes to exercise that people recommend and show you to do. Dr.

Fisher has studied evidence-based strength training for years and is one of the most foremost experts on this topic. So today in this episode we’re going to break down why evidence-based strength training is important either as a personal trainer or if you are a client working with a personal trainer why that’s important for your workout in terms of safety in terms of efficacy in terms of efficiency And then what that looks like as well.

What does that look like to have evidence-based workouts? So Dr. Fisher is here to break all this down for us. And I’m super excited for you to, uh, dive into this topic today.

Yeah, absolutely. This is a really fascinating topic. And I think the term evidence-based has been banded around a lot more and more recently. And it’s a really important term. You know, it shows that or it implies at the least that we’re doing something with some kind of evidence-based behind it, some kind of scientific research behind it. Um, in, in the present case, of course, what we’re saying is that exercise professionals are applying evidence or prescribing strength training based on an evidence-based, based on the current body of research, um, and based on maybe experience and client values and preferences. So all of these things kind of come in together. And the reality is that we should absolutely think about strength training in that format because as I said there, it’s prescribing, it’s prescription. So we can really make the analogy that our exercise professionals, you know, coaches at the Exercise Coach and Personal Trainers should be using this information because they’re often seen by clients as part of the kind of health care continuum in the same view as doctors, dentists, nurses, x-ray technicians. And of course we know that they follow an evidence-based practice. We know that as research and technology move forward, so their methodology or their prescriptions or their drugs that they use, their pharmaceuticals, so progress with time based on science, not just based on fads or fashions. Right, so if you’re working with an exercise professional, you want them to be telling you to do something that is evidence-based, just like you expect your doctor to do, just like you would expect your dentist to do. Absolutely. So let’s talk about what that involves.

Yeah. Well, first of all, we make the assumption, and it’s true in almost all cases, that exercise professionals have some kind of qualification. They’ve done some kind of learning to put themselves in a position where they are now prescribing exercise or prescribing strength training is the obvious example in this case. So they’ve gone through this learning and really what we’re talking about with evidence-based training is that there is this degree of continued learning. They are engaging in scientific research in some format or that there may be their senior organization or the organizations they adhere to are providing information based on an evidence-based based on the scientific research that’s available to them. Rather than based on sort of fads and fashions. Um, and this is not to dispel that some methodologies won’t work, but it’s fearful for me because I see so much exercise and information or misinformation on social media sites. And of course we see a very muscular person or very lean and athletic person and our biases want to suddenly believe that person this person says I should do a hundred squats a day and that’s how you get ripped or I should do you know whatever exercise and that will be the key to bigger biceps or becoming most muscular or or so forth and of course the reality is we see this person, uh, and we see. Kind of maybe the excitement of it.

I, and we kind of maybe get caught up in that and the reality is there might not be any evidence around that. It might just be a fad or a fashion when we talk about that. Um, you know, cattle bells, we were talking just before the show, we were talking about some of the fads and fashions in the exercise industry of kettlebells and freeway suspension trainers and bodyweight training or calisthenics.

And this is not to say that they’re just a fashion. There has been evidence around their use. And we know that if you train using any of those methods, you can probably improve your body composition and your strength and your health. But kettlebells originate in Russia in the 18th century. So are we really implying that technology and time hasn’t moved on since then to something that’s more efficacious and more productive or more efficient or safer in some format.

Um, the analogy is, you know, there’s ancient methods for anesthesia.

You know, doctors used to rely heavily on, uh, plants with psychoactive properties and, and, you know, give people things like opium, you know, but we wouldn’t expect a medical professional to still use those methods. So it’s really important that we, we follow this scientific process.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And even, you know, it’s very tempting for us as humans to really believe anecdotes. I mean, I picture two ladies out to coffee and one lady says, I’ve been doing X, Y, and Z for my fitness and health and it worked for me.

And so then the other lady decides to implement that and go a hundred percent in. And it may be just one person. I think we all have had that experience over our lifespan of hearing recommendations, seeing fads come and go, um, or those anecdotal stories and understanding that one size really doesn’t fit all necessarily when it comes to health outcomes or when it comes to exercise. It really doesn’t because of all of the varying ability levels, the metabolic competencies and of our body, where we are at with our joints and with our health and our age and all of these factors play in and so I think the case that you’re making really resonates is that okay so if I’m not going to base it on one person’s ideas you know what should I be basing it on? Yeah absolutely, absolutely and the reality is once we base something on scientific principles, we can then adapt that for the individual client. Of course we can. So for example, somebody might not have the same hamstring flexibility for a specific exercise, so we might adapt the range of motion. Or somebody might be experiencing low back pain and therefore we don’t prescribe certain exercises, but we do prescribe other exercises. So there is of course a degree of individuality to that and that is a big part of evidence-based practice.

You know a doctor when using sticking with the example of anesthesia won’t just use a given amount they will use a given amount based on the body weight of the person. You know they won’t just do a surgery, they will do the surgery that’s appropriate for that person. You know, a personal example for me is the ACL reconstruction that I had. I had a lateral tenodesis as well. Some people will know what that is and many people won’t. But I actually had a part of my IT band, my iliotibial band, kind of severed and reattached in a different place to add my knee stability specifically for the sports that I play. So doctors and surgeons and medical professionals follow this evidence-based protocol. A doctor will choose a treatment because of clinical trials have shown that it’s better than the alternatives, but it exists across a number of institutions in society as well. So evidence-based education, so a school will adopt specific teaching methods that are proven through research to improve student retention or student learning outcomes and so forth. And of course, evidence-based policy within government should exist that the data that’s collected by governments through census or other forms have shown which interventions have worked or what’s worked in society to support the economy or to stabilize education or, I don’t know, crime or whatever it might be. So many, many institutions rely on evidence-based processes and rely on scientific research to drive forward their methodology. And X-Slizen, strength training specifically, is no different at all. It should absolutely be this way. And really the talk about evidence-based training is something that does really come around in the last 10 or 50 years. And it’s great to hear it discussed, but this is really about kind of just clarifying exactly what that is for, uh, for our clients and for the listeners.

Yeah. So exactly. Cause we don’t want to just be guessing, right? Otherwise we’re sort of just trying a little of this and trying a little of that, throwing spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. And it might be very easy to waste our time if we’re just guessing. So let’s talk about then what does evidence-based strength training look like?

Yeah, that’s the key question, isn’t it? So we know that there are a lot of modalities that do work to improve strength and that can improve health and so on and bone mineral density and many of the other healthy facets that we have. So one of the key things that I often talk to coaches when I’m training them or personal trainers when I’ve worked with them in the past is, they should always ask the question, is there a safer alternative? So for example, 90% of injuries are a product of free weight strength training.

Okay.

There’s, there’s no getting around that as a statistic. Um, and they’re primarily from dropping the weight or the weight falling on a person. So if there’s a way to avoid. A free weight exercise. If there’s a machine based alternative, then the question we can then ask it is is it as efficacious so does it still achieve what we’re trying to achieve and if it does and it’s safer then we can use a resistance machine rather than a free weight we can also look at things like range of motion in training it are extremes in range of motion absolutely necessary to increase strength and or hypertrophy or make any of the other benefits that we might want? Or of course, from a health perspective, there’s almost no difference in range of motion at all in the range of motion that we train through. And we’ve obviously talked about this on a previous show. But there’s also no difference really between strength adaptations between a larger or smaller range of motion or even hypertrophy. Any difference that exists is so small that it potentially again isn’t worth the risk for the joints and connective tissues to work through a more dangerous range of motion.

One of my favorite points about evidence-based strength training, and this is really the key one that most exercise practitioners should work with, is that supervision shows greater benefits in almost all facets of health and well-being and physical adaptation compared to unsupervised workouts. So if you’re turning up at the exercise coach you can be guaranteed that that session, you’re going to get more from that session than you would if you were going away doing it on your own. But you’re also over the long term going to increase your strength to a greater extent, you’re going to increase your muscle mass and improve your body composition, you’re going to improve your cardiorespiratory fitness. So all of these things we know that supervision makes such a big difference and of course we’ve done a previous podcast where we talked about supervision. So we’ve covered many of the facets around evidence-based strength training but without the umbrella terminology of this is all evidence-based.

Yes, absolutely. I remember the study that you cited in the supervision podcast about the group of individuals that worked with a trainer. I think they were 65 plus. And then after they stopped working with the trainer, they were invited to continue the training on their own and they did not maintain their gains.

Was that, am I remembering that one correctly?

Matthewhew That’s absolutely correct. They, they were with trainers for, for a period of time and then they were invited to continue training. They agreed that they wanted to continue training, uh, and they lost, uh, they lost strength and they didn’t continue to make improvements in the same way that they would have, uh, with a, with a coach by their side.

And there’s other variables. Historically, there’s been something called the strength endurance continuum and that’s the idea that to get stronger, you have to lift very, very heavy weights. But to build muscle mass, you have to use a more moderate weight. But then if you want to improve muscular endurance, you have to use a lighter weight and do a higher number of repetitions.

And of course, there’s a number of papers now that show that the strength endurance continuum is, for the most part, you know, complete nonsense. That if you increase your strength, you will also increase your muscular endurance. And you can use any weight and still make improvements in muscle mass and muscle hypertrophy increases in muscle size. So it’s really you know the historic thinking and kind of the old paradigms that exist have been debunked by more recent science and that’s really what evidence-based training is all about being able to move with that scientific process.

Well, I’m thankful for people like you who, who research and, and know the answers that support everything that’s being done across Exercise Coach Studios and many other strength training facilities. It’s so important to know what the science says so that you could base your practice on that. I know. And when you were just talking there, I’ve, I’ve thought about so many just clients I’ve talked to over the years and, um, you know, who maybe work out with a trainer for a time and then they take a break and they, they maybe they’re out of town and they go somewhere else. Um, in Minnesota, we’ve got, we’ve got a lot of people who have cabins up north. So they have a second home on a lake, um, several hours away and they spend maybe all summer up there. And they will say, I tried my best to replicate the exercise coach workout or the workout I was doing with my trainer.

And I just couldn’t, it, I didn’t even come close. Whether they were trying to replicate it on machines or whether they were trying to replicate it with body weight, no matter what it was, without the trainer there, they were not achieving the same level of exercise intensity that is necessary to really see those continued improvements in our fitness that you were just mentioning. And so, it’s very, very important. And I’ve have seen that firsthand.

Matthew Feeney Amy, I need to say you give me too much credit. I’m not the only exercise scientist that exists. There are a number of wonderful, wonderful exercise scientists that are producing a great deal of strength training research, and they’re really driving this area forward. So a lot of the time I’m great deal of strength training research and they’re really driving this, this area forward. So a lot of the time I’m going away and reading their research and their things that we’re talking about on this podcast, you know, we’ve, we’ve cited a number of other authors. We’ve had a number of guests on this podcast. So this is really kudos to all of those people who are really driving this, this industry forward. And of course, they’re producing this evidence base for many people to use for their recommendations. So, yes, yes. Thank you to all who have contributed to this. Perfect. So, Dr. Fisher, just as a conclusion, as we wrap up, I mean, what would you want the listener to know today when they consider their exercise options? if they are a person who wants to engage in strength training, what would you tell them in terms of considering an evidence-based strength training approach?

Yeah, well, of course, the reality is that most clients and trainees won’t wanna go there and read all the research themselves. You know, they don’t need to make themselves an expert in exercise to get the benefits of exercise. Now, of course, if they want to do that, then they can, of course, engage in that.

And I, and I would never discourage anybody from doing so, but I think the key thing is to ask questions of your coaches. So meet with a personal trainer, meet with an exercise coach, talk about the goals that you have, um, talk about the methods that are used, ask them questions, you know, the great thing about evidence-based science is it stands, it stands the test.

So if you ask somebody a question about why you’re doing something instead of something else, or why such and such is the best method, then hopefully that coach or that trainer can answer that question and give you more information. And if they can’t, that might be a bit of a red flag that maybe they’re not as well educated or they’re not really sure why they’re using that process.

Now they might of course say that it’s the best methodology for you, or they might say it’s the most evidence-based or so forth. So but I think we can ask questions of these, these processes that we engage in, in the same way that if you go and see a physician or a general practitioner and they talk to you about a medical condition, they will lay out the options for, for reserving that medical condition, whether it’s the different drugs that are available, the different methods that are available or processes, you know, you would meet with a surgeon or meet with a, you know, a medical professional to talk through the options that are available and you should do exactly the same thing with an exercise professional and they will of course hopefully have a foundation of exercise science background and have that as their evidence base and then maybe make tweaks along the way to suit you as a client. So, um, but, but asking those questions is absolutely key.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Uh, at our studios, we offer, we have a scientific support paper that is right there for coaches to study, for clients to see, um, that undergirds everything we do. And that’s very, very important. It’s very, um, it’s a tool that we have that I just thought about as you were talking too. So it lays it all out and that is so so so crucial. Well I hope if you were listening to this episode you came away with some food for thought when it comes to making your decisions in terms of how you’re going to participate with exercise, the importance of a trainer, and the importance of a trainer who is using evidence-based approaches. So thank you for being with us. We will see you next time on the podcast and we hope you remember, strength changes everything.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please share it with a friend. You can submit a question or connect with the show at strengthchangeseverything.com. Join us next week for another episode and be sure to follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Join us next week for another episode and be sure to follow the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts so that you never miss another episode.