The Scientist and the Lawyer

“A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.”

Friedrich Nietzche

This sentiment has been echoed many times by many brilliant men, but I’m not sure I’ve read it better articulated than this and it speaks to something I feel like the fitness industry could use a lot more of – good science. If you think about it, being involved in fitness is one of the greatest responsibilities you could possibly bring on yourself. Regular exercise is one of the pillars that form your vitality – how you feel, how you move, and how long you’re going to stick around on this Earth. Even if that isn’t why someone starts training with you, is it really that much less important to help them to love how they look, to perform and stay injury-free while playing a sport that makes them happy, or experience the profound joy of achieving a goal? If someone has chosen this responsibility, I believe that they have also chosen the burden of continuous self-improvement.

Now, what does this have to do with lawyers and scientists?

For starters, it’s worth mentioning that I don’t have anything against lawyers. Their job is both noble and necessary in the context of the job itself, but I’ll get to that later. First, we’ll talk about scientists – specifically, how a scientist responds having been posed a question. Let’s say that question is something like: “What is the best program for improving strength?”

Step 1: Gather general data from previous experiments which are relevant to the question.

This one is pretty simple – read, watch, or talk to people that have asked the same question and performed experiments already. Use a variety of sources and look for similarities and differences. If there are large differences, try to understand why by looking closer at their experimentation. Findings from larger pools of data with more controlled conditions are generally more reliable, but a scientist understands that even the most conclusive findings can only be called “the most likely to be true”, not necessarily “the truth”. If there are different, but positive findings, look at the consistencies between them. These will form the foundation of what can be called a positive finding in your own experiment. In our case, it may be as simple as “Did most of the tested athletes become stronger in a safe, measurable way?”.

Step 2: Form a hypothesis.

Based on the best available data from previous experiments, what conditions do you believe will yield the most positive results? Essentially, this is an educated guess – emphasis on the education.

Step 3: Conduct an experiment to test your hypothesis.

This is where those under your instruction try the program, you do it yourself, or both. It’s also the part where new data is created that will benefit you and those that come after you on the same path.

Step 4: Analyze the results of the experiment to draw a conclusion.

Weigh the data against the hypothesis, and see how it matches up. If your findings are positive, fine tune as needed and continue the experiment. If not, go back to the research stage and start again with a new hypothesis. To a scientist, nothing is sacred but the truth.

Now, let’s take a look at the lawyer’s approach:

Step 1: Conclusion

As you can see, already a huge difference. The lawyer starts with a conclusion which is their client’s position. They don’t start with a question of what is right, true or correct, because that isn’t their job. Their job is to represent their client to the best of their ability and trust in the judge and jury to decide who is right. Lawyers in the movies that take it on themselves to gather evidence or dramatically roll over on their crooked clients in open court would in reality end up in a lot of trouble. That’s all well and good for the legal system, but if you’re having trouble seeing what this has to do with the fitness industry, think of it this way:

Lawyer = A coach, trainer or marketer

Client = Equipment, exercise technique, program etc. that the person has created themselves or otherwise aligned themselves with

Judge and Jury = The clients, athletes, peers, friends or anyone else who would be exposed to the information and possibly listen to it or pay for it

Now, let’s say hypothetically that a trainer with no kettlebell training or experience whatsoever decides they’re going to cash in on their growing popularity and make a kettlebell DVD or start offering classes. It’s far too easy to justify this kind of behaviour by blaming the people that signed up for the class or bought the DVD, because it’s up to them decide what’s right using their money. The fitness industry isn’t a courtroom, and if you call yourself a trainer then it IS your job to do what’s right, and strive to offer the best possible product even if it isn’t necessary in order to net clients. It isn’t their job to know the difference between one convincing trainer and another, that’s part of the reason they’re looking for one in the first place. The fact that someone has taken a step to seek out help from a trainer to achieve their goals is a precious, important thing in a time when anyone can flip through youtube videos for an hour and think they have it all figured out. Some trainers will reward them for taking that step, others will make them regret it.

Step 2: Gather Specific Data that Benefits the Conclusion

Working backwards from a conclusion, the next step is to gather data that at least appears credible to support the conclusion. If you happen to be the lawyer on the right side, that data will be much easier to find, but even if you aren’t, the unfortunate truth is that credible-looking data can be found to support just about anything. If you were looking for all general data that was relevant to the question, you still may have found that study or article but also overwhelming evidence against it. That would have forced you to further scrutinize it, and perhaps you would have found that the experiment was flawed, or inconclusive, or that the findings were changed to suit an agenda. There is nothing easier, however, than not finding these things when you’re choosing not to look for them. If it looks official enough and you sell it well, then it can do the job.

This is made even easier by rampant confirmation bias – something to which no human being is entirely immune. If someone knows someone that threw out their back doing squats, they’re more likely to nod and listen when someone starts shouting on the internet against overwhelming evidence that squats are a dangerous exercise that should be banned in all gyms. Take a closer look at the horrific form that led to that injury? Who has that kind of time?

Step 3: Create a Compelling Argument

Fitness would hardly be the first industry in which one side had conclusive, legitimate evidence but was overshadowed by an opponent that was more charismatic, engaging and marketable. Sometimes the evidence alone isn’t enough, and this is something the scientist types can learn from the lawyer types. It isn’t just about debates, it’s about teaching. One thing that all the world’s best teachers have in common is that they can articulate a very complicated topic in such a way that someone with much less education can understand it. It can be a long and difficult process to not only seek out the best information but then learn to articulate it well, but it’s necessary to take care of your clients.

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Perhaps the biggest problem I have with this sequence of events is that once someone aligns themselves with a certain belief system in fitness, the analysis and experimentation is often lost and protecting the product becomes more sacred than the truth. A great example would be the argument of “hardstyle” kettlebell training versus GS. They are two entirely different training systems that happen to share a common piece of equipment and are often looking to achieve completely different goals. This is not a ‘right or wrong’ argument, and the fact that someone would be arguing that one is right and the other is wrong already tells me that they have not gone out of their way to gather general data and learn about the other side. It’s easier to deliberately choose ignorance on behalf of both themselves and their clients and protect the product you’ve aligned yourself with. The fitness industry needs more trainers with the scientist’s mentality. Educate yourself, gather data from a variety of credible sources, and hold the truth sacred. Challenge yourself to be open to change, if that’s what the evidence tells you. Your clients aren’t likely to up and leave you because you were making a mistake teaching them the kettlebell clean and want to correct it. They want - and deserve - a trainer that puts his clients’ safety first and genuinely wants them to achieve their goals, and sometimes change is part of that.