Research
How To Check A Coaching Technique Before You Use It On A Client
From the FASTER syllabus: this article is taught in full in Movement Trainer (AFT) — where the full research module is taught →
In short: Movement Trainer names three fallacies that move through the fitness industry unchecked: appeal to nature (natural means better, no evidence needed), appeal to authority (a claim believed because someone with a following said it, not because it holds up), and post hoc (assuming the thing that came before the result caused the result). The course's own line is blunt about how often the second one is the real story: 'if someone has a technique, then it is fairly certain that they are calling to authority.' The fix isn't becoming a research scientist — it's building a personal library of what you've checked, filtering it when a decision is actually needed, and writing it up in your own words.
The question this answers
Not "which technique is correct," but "why do I believe this one is." Movement Trainer names three specific ways a trainer ends up repeating something nobody checked, and once you can hear which one is happening in a sentence, a whole category of industry noise gets a lot quieter.
Three fallacies, named plainly
Appeal to nature. Believing a natural supplement beats a synthetic one without looking at what either one does. Natural is not evidence, just a word that sounds like it.
Appeal to authority. Believing a claim because someone with a following said it, not because the claim holds up on its own. The course doesn't soften this: "if someone has a technique, then it is fairly certain that they are calling to authority." Trigger point therapy, fascial manipulation, most of Strength and Conditioning: the course names them as examples built on exactly this.
Post hoc. Assuming that because a result followed a change, the change caused the result. A client improves after a new supplement is added and the supplement gets the credit, when better sleep, a less stressful month or more consistent training could have done the same job.
Why the second one matters most
A supplement claim or a coincidence are relatively easy to hold at arm's length once you know to look for them. Authority is harder, because a real coach with real results is usually somewhere in the story, and their results are genuine. The fallacy is assuming their technique works FOR THAT REASON, without anyone checking whether the reasoning behind it holds.
What this looks like from a chair, not a lecture
A trainer reads a caption online: a well-known name says a certain tempo builds size faster than any other approach. Nothing in the post explains why, just that this person says it and has the following to back it up. The trainer starts programming every client on that tempo. Three weeks later a client asks why, and the honest answer is "because I saw someone say it works." That's the whole chain, and somewhere further up it, their coach was told the same thing by theirs, and nobody in the chain ever checked.
FASTER's own answer to this, in John's words
"Learn how to find information without having to remember it all (Research well without needing the academic background). Save it all in your personal library. All levels of evidence accepted, but then filtered when you need to make the decision. Your words, not AI, we want you to have the knowledge."
Nothing gets thrown out for being anecdotal or thrown out for being a single study. It goes in the library either way. The filtering happens later, when an actual decision is on the table for an actual client, and the trainer doing the filtering is the one who read it, not the algorithm that summarised it.
The fear this answers
Someone weighing up this course, worried they're not academic enough for the research side of it, isn't being asked to become a research scientist. The course says so directly: the goal is to make a trainer "immune from industry fads," not to produce papers. Spotting "because a famous person said so" for what it is takes no lab equipment at all.
What to do next
Movement Trainer (AFT), £375, teaches the full filtering module alongside the levels-of-evidence system that sits next to it. PT Manager's exercise generator runs the same habit inside the software, filtering its library by what a movement does rather than which brand or coach's name is attached to it, and it opens free the moment a trainer signs up with any FASTER course.
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You just read one answer. The course is all of them.
Movement Trainer (AFT) — where the full research module is taught: every answer marked by a real tutor, with free return access for life. The price is on the page, payment plans at checkout, no sales calls.
Also worth a look: PT Manager's exercise generator, free with any FASTER course.
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Frequently asked
Does spotting a fallacy mean the technique is wrong?
No — a fallacy is about the REASON given, not the result. A technique defended with 'a famous coach uses it' might still work; the point is you can't tell from that sentence, so it isn't a reason to adopt it.
What's the difference between appeal to authority and just trusting an expert?
An expert's own tested reasoning is worth hearing. A claim that stops at 'because they said so' has skipped the reasoning and handed you the conclusion instead.
How does this connect to PT Manager?
PT Manager's exercise generator filters its library by what a movement actually does to a body, the same 'check it, don't inherit it' habit this post is teaching.
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