Something I wrote a while back for another website…
If you were seriously ill, you would likely go to a physician for treatment. That physician would likely diagnose your problem and perhaps prescribe some type of medication to treat the problem. In such a case, you generally feel safe in assuming that there is good scientific evidence showing that the prescribed medication is the best way to treat your illness with minimal side effects. In short, you would assume that your physician used evidence-based practice.
Now imagine the horror if you found out that the medication that your physician prescribed was not based on any scientific or even anecdotal evidence. Instead, imagine your physician had prescribed the medication simply because one of the other doctors in his office was prescribing it. If something like this happened to us or anyone we know we would be a cause for great concern.
For some reason though most people do not hold their sport trainers to the same standard as their physicians. In fact, in sport there are many examples where performers are asked to do things or follow training programs that have no scientific, anecdotal, or even rationale evidence suggesting that it works. Instead, sport trainers often prescribe workouts because:
1. It is easier to do it that way.
2. They have always been done like that.
3. They read in a magazine that (fill in the blank with great athlete's name) did it that way.
4. They think that it should work so why not try it.
5. They don't know any other way of doing it
