One 
of the things I have noticed over the last year or so on social networking sites in particular is the rise to prominence of a new cult. This cult calls themselves “The Slayers of Bro-Science.” Who are these people? Are they athletes? Bros? Scientists? Well unfortunately, most of the time they are nothing more than an average gym goer with no industry recognition or scientific background. They are frequently recycling and often misinterpreting the opinion of more respected trainers or nutritional scientists.
But there is something that really gets me. Unlike the actual sports or nutrition scientists who aim to progress our knowledge and our sport, this cult of followers take their pleasure in hiding behind a computer screen and commenting on an athlete’s YouTube video, calling them out for following “Bro-Science”. Forget the fact that the guy in the video is a pro-bodybuilder, physique athlete or successful fitness model, what they are doing is wrong and the guy who spends more time trolling through bulletin boards, bashing every athlete whose methods are different from theirs than they do actually training, feels it is their duty to correct them. Protected by the shield of the Internet, fuelled by jealousy and the insecurities of their own life, they let the successful athlete know that what they are doing is wrong! If only that athlete were able to listen to the scrawny guy behind the computer maybe they would get somewhere…
It is the rise of this cult that has prompted me to write this article. The fact is we all have different opinions and methods. If your view is right and backed by science, get out there and prove it by putting it into practice! Don’t use it in an attempt to bring down those who are out there and doing it, whether you agree with their methods or not. For me, science and experience should be used hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin, for a coin needs two sides.
We are living in an era where advances in science are taking our sport and what we know about it to new levels. Optimal training and nutritional methods for certain goals that we knew to work just from experience years ago have now been backed by science. Other methodologies have been improved upon as well thanks to science. In fact, science has played a major role in the advances made in other sports too. You won’t see any elite level sports teams who do not have a team of sports scientists on board as the team does everything they can to ensure that they have the edge over the competition. Looking at bodybuilding, the advances in exercise and nutritional sciences have played a large part in the progression of the sport which has lead to the physiques of 80’s not being able to come close in terms of sheer size and conditioning to those we see at the highest level today. The greatest sprinters from the 80’s would struggle to make the final of the 100m at the last Olympics. Science has played a major role in these advances. We are lucky to be around in an era where new research is being conducted all the time and its results made publicly available almost instantly. This is exciting and offers the foundation for new training and nutrition protocols to be introduced to further enhance our performance and maximize our progress. But, and especially for anyone new to the gym, does this mean that we cannot learn from experience? Does this mean that the 16-year-old kid stepping into the gym for the first time cannot learn from the guy who has been training for 30 years?
The fact of the matter is in our sport, as well as in other professions and in life; there is no substitute for experience. I am not saying that this means science should be ignored, far from it, nor am I suggesting that we should take everything that the more experienced guy tells us as fact. What has worked for them may not necessarily work for you! But I am suggesting that we can learn a lot from both science and experience. Science offers some incredible insights; but, to best utilize research we need to learn to analyze it ourselves and consider all the variables that were in place that made up a particular scientific study. We then need to form our own opinions and interpretations of the research and understand that some studies completed in different conditions may have produced different results. This understanding will then allow us to implement changes that will improve what we are currently doing. Science is continuing to evolve and in the world of the physique athlete, there are still many things that have yet to be proven by science. Should the results of one study suddenly stop us from implementing a type of training or nutritional protocol that has consistently provided us with results? It certainly does NOT for me, but it will make me look into the research and see what variables may have been different in the controlled study compared to what I am currently doing. When you do this, often you may find that you are working in slightly different circumstances to those in which the research was conducted and those differing circumstances may explain why the method you are using works for you. Alternatively, it may lead you to a way of improving upon what you are doing. The key is to be open-minded.
Sometimes we do things because they work! There is not always a scientific explanation as to exactly why they work simply because science has yet to discover that explanation. As advances in science continue to be made, what we believe to be fact today may well be proven to be wrong tomorrow but similarly, those who are slaying Bro-Science today, in doing so may only be creating the new Bro-Science of tomorrow.
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