ASEP 2009 National Conference
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009The 2009 National Conference of the
American Society of Exercise Physiologists is being hosted April 2nd-4th at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.
“Challenging Convention
Making Fitness Functional”
Invited Speakers Include:
- Kary Mullis
- Greg Glassman
- Mark Rippetoe
What if everything you knew about science was wrong?
Science is a process of trial and error. It always has been. Its strength lies in the fact that mistakes eventually are discovered for what they are, and in the long run, unlike any other global institutions, art, politics, religion, science comes through with the goods. We have been showered by the benefits of this process for the last three hundred years such that average individuals are now in possession of things that kings would have gone to war for in the 17th Century.
What non-scientists and scientists alike do not always understand is that the process often follows false leads that take fifty to a hundred years to repair. Due to the rapidity with which scientific findings are spread in today’s world, mistakes, which are a natural and integral part of the process, cause disruptions and misapplication of global resources.
In this last century untested paradigms are often and inappropriately the subject of great public concern.
This is not usually the fault of incompetency or dishonesty. It is the way science has to operate. The
public and scientists who publicize new scientific findings have to keep this in mind, so that reactions to science, our most valuable public resource, are not hysterical.
Human caused global warming, ozone depletion, GM foods, expansion of the universe, string theories, the AIDS epidemic, etc. are tentative working hypotheses and subject to normal scientific assessment and revision.
CrossFit
CrossFit training delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. This makes this system of training different from virtually all other commercial systems. The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs. The needs of Olympic athletes and our grandparents differ by degree not kind. Our terrorist hunters, skiers, mountain bike riders and housewives have found their best fitness from the same regimen. Many thousands of athletes worldwide have followed our workouts posted daily on the CrossFit website and have distinguished themselves in combat, the streets, the ring, stadiums, gyms and homes.
CrossFit is based on experimentation in the gym, experimentation intended to produce constantly
improving fitness in all of its participants. To this end the development of the CrossFit system has progressed from the “Black Box” where the primary considerations were inputs (exercise organizations) and outputs (fitness effects) to the point that concrete definitions and explanations are possible using basic biological and physical theories and laws. CrossFit definitions and its scientific underpinnings often seem at odds with conventional exercise science wisdom. This presentation will carefully and systematically illustrate the scientific and logical foundations upon which CrossFit training is based.
Science vs Practise
Several years ago, three weightlifters were talking about training one afternoon. The gym owner, the professor, and the student all agreed that their common observation about how trainees progress from the novice through the advanced stage was unrecognized in the exercise science literature. They decided to write a paper about it and get it published in a journal, so that their common observation could aid other coaches who might not have made the same observation in setting up programs for their athletes. What happened amazed them. After all, such a simple, self-evident observation about human adaptation to stress should have either gone in the “Duh!” column, or been welcomed as a clarification of what everybody else basically knew. It wasn’t. This particular process of “peer-review” publication illustrates a couple of the very important problems exercise science must solve about itself before it can productively investigate its primary topic.
More information:
- Conference Program
- Conference Schedule
- Online Registration
