BooneThink

Many of our academic experiences suggest that our perception of reality is often times constructed out of false information. Even after decades of the same perception, most academics fail to see through the apparent unchanging features of the same information. A few get it though. They begin to see things not not as what they believed to be. Life is full of such examples, including the idea that the sun rises and sets every day. We know it isn’t true, but we continue to believe it. It is our perception of reality, and it is wrong.

How did exercise physiologists become part of sports medicine? The answer is simple. Like the man who became a giant as he walked across the distorted room, the illusion of sports medicine manifested itself to the observer because the organization itself was distorted. Because exercise physiologists assumed a normal mindset within sports medicine and did not have reliable cues to compare with, they took the image of sports medicine itself at face value and saw the actual value of the organization as benefiting exercise physiologists.

Therefore, they lived and saw the sports medicine illusion! Unfortunately, many academics continue to see the distorted room and its accompanying restrictions on exercise physiology. They make assumptions about what is exercise physiology and who is an exercise physiologist from distorted thinking. Eventualy, the perception becomes a learned act of failed reality by which they unknowingly contruct their exercise physiology reality to fit the sports medicine assumptions.

Surprisingly, there is very little discussion on this point. Most of my colleagues prefer to write research papers. Writing about the curriculum in exercise physiology isn’t very exciting. Similarly, the substitute of exercise science and dozens of other academic degrees for exercise physiology isn’t a popular topic to write about either. Here, the power of yesterday’s thinking and/or its inertia continues to impact the change process. Without doubt, both will continue to exert a big price tag on student employment and career options.

Once leaders in the field, many academics have lost contact with the roots and identifiability with students and others (such as non-doctorates). Once the field was pioneered by research, now its effectiveness is called into question without an adequate study of other important professional development issues and concerns. The consequences of these failures have taken many forms, but common to all of them is the “personal trainer” mentality. Most certainly, the cluster of academic pursuits and learned beliefs, attitudes, and values of a 4-year college education was never meant to drive the personal fitness industry.

In sum, the illusion has gone on far too long. Under the banner of the “sports medicine flag,” it was possible to rise to a certain level of recognition. The experiment is over or, at least, it should be. The illusion is not the exercise physiologist’s reality. It is instead a socially imposed dehumanizing group ethic to maintain itself.