As early as Galen in 150 AD, and most likely before that, humans have attempted to bridge the gap between "science" and practice. Unfortunatley, anecdotal evidence of training methods or healing strategies of the past leave too many unanswered questions for general adoption of such recommendations. Impressive was the work of more modern scientist August Krogh who won the 1920 Nobel Prize for his research on capillary blood flow at rest and exercise. One ought to also acknowledge Astrand and Ryhming`s seminal paper on calculating aerobic capacity (Astrand & Ryhming, 1954). Many such papers have expanded our understanding of sport performance; but, at no other time than now have we witnessed an unprecedented acceleration in technology that could help bridge such a gap. The debate on how to best close the gap between research and practice has been ongoing for decades. With the development of new technologies, particularly in biomechanics, this gap appears to be widening rather than being bridged. Guskiewicz (2008) outlined gaps between research and clinical practice in sports medicine. He recommends that sports medicine Professionals continue to research common public sports injuries and report them to Professionals and practitioners to minimize injury risk and optimize injury management. Bishop (2008) outlined an eight stage model that begins with defining a problem followed by descriptive research butmoving past the descriptive research stage poses a real challenge. An interesting insight has also been shared by Keegan et al. (2017) from the sport psychology perspective where they suggest, " ...there is incredible value yet to be realised in proactively researching the processes, assumptions and mechanisms of applied practice." (p.78). A barrier they outline is the lack of understanding by both researchers and practitioners as to what they each do. Each group has an expert skillset but is rarely afforded the opportunity to learn about the other. Talukdar (2017) recently published a book entitled, Sports Fit: Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice, that attempts to identify the principie factors connecting research and practice for strength and conditioning coaches as well as training athletes. The book offers some basic principles that parallel most sports: Train with a purpose and movement is medicine; but, it falls short of having a model to follow for either coaches or researchers wanting to connect Science and practice. Also in 2017, The International Society of Biomechanics in Sports (ISBS) held its 35th International Conference in Cologne, Germany June 2017 with this "gap" issue as its only topic. Halperin (2018) followed this by providing case studies in sport to help address the gap, but few other collective groups or studies have been completed and to our knowledge, no studies have polled both scientists and coaches about this gap. It is clear that researchers and practitioners each have their own welldeveloped skills; however, they are quite different in how they approach a Problem. Before we can bridge a gap between such groups, we need to understand how they view one another`s approach to problem solving. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of coaches and scientists as to the factors that help narrow a gap as well as barriers to overcome a gap between Science and practice in the worlds of Alpine and Nordic ski racing.
© Copyright 2020 Science and Skiing VIII. Book of the 8th International Congress on Science and Skiing. Veröffentlicht von University of Jyväskylä; Vuokatti Sports Technology Unit of the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences of the University of Jyväskylä. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.