Traditionally, quantitative data has been prioritised in sport and exercise research. Controlled studies and randomised trials are often treated as the gold standard, valued for their ability to isolate variables and produce generalisable findings. This work plays an important role in understanding how the human body responds to exercise and nutrition, and in challenging myths, stereotypes, and individual bias.
However, there is growing debate about both the applicability and the ethics of relying too heavily on these approaches. Concerns remain about the gap between physical science research and real-world practice, and about whose experiences are centred, and whose are overlooked.
An over-reliance on quantitative data can also reinforce a narrow performance narrative within sport and exercise: the idea that winning, optimisation, and measurable outcomes are what matter most. This framing sidelines other motivations for movement, diminishes alternative forms of progress, and overlooks the social, cultural, and political forces that shape how people engage with exercise.
Recognising that movement is an embodied activity, and that human experience is formed through an inseparable relationship between mind and body, encourages practitioners to consider the whole person rather than only what can be measured.
If the social dimensions of the exercise experience are side-lined or ignored practitioners are left underprepared for the complexity of their work.
Finding the individual in research
Changing stories, shaping the conversation
Our work contributes to wider conversations about how knowledge in fitness and exercise is produced, whose voices are heard, and how research can be made more inclusive, ethical, and accessible to those working in practice.
Central to our approach are stories and storytelling. We highlight stories from, and of, the field. We consider the daily working practices of coaches and the experience of a range of clients, each with their own motivations, needs and circumstances. The practitioner-client relationship and how it develops, unfolds and is negotiated is the key focus of our work.
These relationships are shaped by the personal histories and experiences both practitioner and client bring with them, and involve ongoing negotiation influenced by context, power, and emotion.
We reflect on the societal, cultural, educational and relational challenges to ethical practice whilst arguing for its value and suggesting approaches for necessary change.
We contribute to conversations about how research on exercise and fitness is conducted, how it can be more inclusive and how it can be better communicated to those working in practice.
The Politics of Personal Training: a critical exploration of fitness coaching, to be published by Routledge in their Sport and Exercise Science Series. Here we explore personal training as a social and political practice. In it, we use our critical and creative auto/biographical storytelling approach, draw on sociological (and other social, health and sport science) writings, report on industry developments and media engagement to add alternative, yet, essential messages on physical fitness coaching to rethink, reimagine and reclaim personal training.
In our field story articles we engage with academic research and with current debate amongst educators, fitness industry representatives, government and fitness professionals.
Our perspective is shaped by our backgrounds as social scientists, and by our identities as PT (Andrew) and client (Gayle). Our aim is to broaden discussion on ethical practice and our work is free for all to read.
Forthcoming book
Stories from the field
explores how research, including, and most specifically, sociological research, can better reflect lived experience and inform ethical practice.
Closing the gap
We argue that qualitative research - particularly sociological research – which illuminates how social norms, power, and inequality, shape people’s relationships with exercise and their bodies, should be central to teaching and learning in sport and exercise. This offers the depth needed to understand lived experience, to work ethically, and to support people whose motivations, vulnerabilities, and histories cannot be captured by metrics alone.
This means:
Highlighting the limitations of academic and vocational curricula that focus almost exclusively on Biomechanics, Physiology, and Psychology, while also recognising the persistent theory-practice gap.
Bringing sociological and qualitative perspectives into learning and research to better reflect the lived, social, cultural, and relational experiences of exercise - for both practitioners and participants.
Addressing the gap in research literacy among working practitioners, so research can meaningfully inform ethical and effective practice.
Our unique approach
Engaging with research, with industry developments, with public discussion we adopt a critical, creative, storytelling approach to revisit, reimagine and reclaim ethical exercise.
By placing Sociology at the heart of exercise and fitness practice, we help professionals and practitioners to better understand how motivation, participation, and wellbeing are shaped by identity, relationships, structural inequalities and external expectations.
We argue that the relationships between exercise professionals and clients are in all ways auto/biographical in that they are relational, and shaped by power, emotion and the embodied stories of all involved. Exercise is not only a physical activity but a social and cultural practice that requires care, integrity, reflexivity, and ethical awareness.