Exercise Science: Disciplinary Perspective
by Dr. Jeffrey Bell
Exercise Science grew from the fields of Kinesiology, the study of human movement, and Physical Education. Generally, it is an interdisciplinary field with many sub-disciplines. These included exercise physiology, biomechanics, motor control, and sport nutrition. For instance, exercise physiology originally studied how the body responded to exercise, heat, altitude, and other stresses so that researchers could gain insight into human function through basic research. An obvious extension of these sub-disciplines’ inquiries was to improve performance in sport. More recently, there has been a focus on improving health through their research.
Professional organizations
There are two major professional organizations that are key in the exercise science disciplines. Both organizations are structured to support professional development and scholarly work. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) is the largest association of exercise science professionals in the world with over 50,000 members (https://www.acsm.org/about). Its mission and focus seeks to…advance and integrate scientific research to provide educational and practical applications of exercise science and sports medicine. The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) is more narrowly focused to serve strength and conditioning coaches and researchers (https://www.nsca.com/membership/membership-overview/).
Exercise science focuses its scholarly work on original research manuscripts, review articles, and textbook chapters. Both the ACSM and NSCA have professional research journals. Blogs and websites are maintained by some professionals, but the level of scientific rigor applied to these depends on the training and academic abilities of the writer; these are not considered key components of scholarly activity in the field. These are, however, useful tools to translate research-driven knowledge for the untrained public.
Documentation in Exercise Science