Peter’s First Post: Greetings to All, Special Thanks for a Few, and an Introduction to Evidence-Based Practice

Rob beat me to the punch of getting the introductory article posted, but I’ll go ahead and reiterate what he said anyway: we’re extremely proud and excited to launch our new site! It had been a work in progress for quite some time, so it’s great to see the vision we had for Integrative Human Performance finally come to fruition and we’re excited to share it with you.

 

Before I go any further, I want to thank two people without whom this project would not have been possible. Aneesh Ashutosh is our incredibly talented website designer and all-around tech expert, and Rob and I cannot thank him enough for his help. He has been an absolute pleasure to work with and we’re greatly looking forward to continuing to work with him in the future. Anybody looking for web design help should look no further than Aneesh—we give his services the highest recommendation. We’d also like to thank Matt O’Connor, who has helped us out with the vast majority of our artistic design and photography work, as well as some behind-the-scenes tech work. Matt is remarkably bright and gifted in a number of areas, including art, technology, marketing, and business, among other things, and his knowledge and guidance have been instrumental in bringing the website together. We highly recommend Matt as well for anyone needing help in any of the aforementioned fields—he’s truly a jack-of-all-trades.

 

Now, on to what I know you’ve all been dying to hear about: me! In spite of all the groans and eye rolls that were probably just induced, I do believe a brief introduction is in order: my name is Peter Nelson, and I’ll be your guide for the remainder of this journey; please keep your hands and feet from breaking your computer screen, even when I tell really bad jokes like this one. Actually, I’m the co-founder of Integrative Human Performance along with Rob Palmer. Rob and I have been close friends since even before we were interested in human health and performance—that takes us back to high school, for those of you keeping count—so if shstuff ever gets weird on this site then that’s the explanation we’re going to go with.

 

Much like Rob, my journey into the field of human health and performance enhancement has been a constant learning experience. I have had the great fortune to work with and study under some of the brightest minds the field has to offer, including (but certainly not limited to) Robert McLean, former Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Colorado Avalanche and Pennsylvania State University Men’s Ice Hockey, and most recently the staff at Cressey Sports Performance, a facility in Hudson, MA. Founded by Eric Cressey, Tony Gentilcore, and Pete Dupuis, Cressey Sports Performance is widely considered one of the best training facilities in the world, especially for baseball players. Though my journey has a long way to go and my desire to learn and improve will never be sated, I enjoy helping others and sharing the knowledge and experience I do possess as well as new things I discover and learn about; that is what I hope to accomplish with this website.

 

Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is a systematic approach that incorporates controlled scientific research, personal experience, and expert opinion to guide decision-making. (Image from http://www.asha.org/members/ebp/)

The last thing I want to address in this post, which Rob actually already touched upon, is our approach to the overwhelming amount of data, information, and opinions on nutrition, physiology, supplementation, exercise science, neurobiology, psychology, and so much more that falls under the umbrella term of “human health and performance”. We do our best to adhere to an evidence-based model, which is a systematic approach that relies on a weighted combination of controlled research, personal experience, and expert opinion to guide our decision-making. This model has long been the gold standard of the medical field, and Rob and I believe that it should be the gold standard in the human health and performance field as well.

 

What needs to be understood about following this type of approach, however, is that it is hard. Inherent in the decision to allow the evidence to guide your work is the acceptance of the fact that you may be forced to change your views from time to time in the face of newer, more compelling evidence. This is no easy task, since it violates human tendencies in two ways. First, if we’re presented with new evidence that contradicts work done or advice given in the past, we must admit that we were wrong, and nobody likes to do that. Second, sometimes the evidence we’re presented with goes against what we believe to be true and thus, a la the confirmation bias, we discredit or ignore the contradicting information. This conflict of interest is, in my experience, the single most challenging part of staying faithful to an evidence-based model, and it is why anyone, including ourselves, may stray off the path, so to speak.

pyramid
The weighted nature of EBP is summarized in this Hierarchy of Evidence: at the top of the pyramid is the most valuable and reliable evidence–highly controlled research such as systematic reviews and meta-analyses–while the least valuable evidence–expert opinion–is found at the bottom. (Image from http://www.lib.msu.edu/staffdir/)

Why am I giving a disclaimer about how we may be wrong in our beliefs and/or hypocrites if I want you to respect us and read our material? Good question. The answer is that as proponents of evidence-based practice, we believe that we are obligated to encourage you, our readers, to follow this same approach. Just because we endorse this model does not mean we are exempt from it—on the contrary, it places on us a responsibility to be an example for others and to practice what we preach. So think critically, evaluate the evidence we put before you, and question everything we say. After all, that’s the only way we know what we’re saying is worth a darn thing.

 

Alright, I think I’ve gone on for long enough. I look forward to sharing my journey into the field of human health and performance with you, and I’m excited to hear from you as well! As Rob mentioned, we encourage you to suggest topics for blog posts, ask questions, recommend readings and resources, or flat-out tell us we’re wrong. We appreciate feedback, as it makes us better at providing valuable content for you.

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