If you spend some time on the fitness side of social media or YouTube, you may have heard of “Science-Based Training”, or “Science-Based Bodybuilding”. Depending on who you ask, you might learn that the folks who promote this style of training are small, weak, and waste their time in the gym. Others might praise their methods, standing by the style as the way to go if you want the best results in the lowest amount of time.

If you’re like me, hearing controversy over the word “science” next to training might confuse you. When I was originally certified to be a personal trainer, one of the first things I learned was to train and coach my clients using science-based practices. Science, for our purposes, means the study and observation of the effects specific changes in training methods has on the overall results of said training. All this really means is that instead of thinking of it as nerdy “science-based training”, you can think of it as “evidence-based training.”

All evidence-based training seeks to accomplish is the optimal training, nutrition, and recovery to get the people who lift the result they want. You might think, “What’s the problem with that?” The most common gripe I hear is that the exercises or training styles are hardly convenient or practical for the common gym-goer, even if they are the optimal way to train. To that, I agree. A bench-supported, ultra-supinated, Bayesian cable curl is much more difficult that a regular standing bicep curl. However, a poorly executed bicep curl, or any poorly executed exercise, will produce a poorer result than the exercise that is performed with the best technique in mind.

Evidence-based training principles will tell you, more than anything, to use a full range of motion, lift with intensity and proper form, and leave your ego out of everything but your work ethic. Sometimes, a weird lift might serve some people better than a traditional one, and that might scientifically be the best way for that person to lift. It might apply to others, it might not.

This whole argument against ends with the fact that, while science-based training might be criticized, there is no real basis for a “non-science-based” training approach, or a “trust-me-bro-Ronnie-Coleman-said-so-based” training approach. (For the layman, Ronnie Coleman is a body builder who abused anabolic steroids. In his own right, his training was intense, but was sub-optimal, after modern analysis)

The bottom line: even if you think you’re just lifting with good technique, you are using science-based training principles, and you’re likely to get great results if you stick to it.

Before judging a science- or evidence-based training tip, just because your favorite ego-lifting influencer said that only weak people do science-based training, give the tip or even the weird exercise a go for a few weeks. You might find new growth and a better way to train.