title: A consideration of the paradigm of exercise physiology.
abstract: Exercise physiology, in terms of the history of biological sciences, is quite young and has a rather tumultuous history - as it spans physical education, health & medicine, sport science, and biology. This has led to the development of differing definitions, research approaches, practices and goals. This is easily seen in the presence of competing and non-universally adopted definitions of fitness. Such internal inconsistencies portray to the outside world a discipline experiencing the problems associated with a changing paradigm. Every science requires the presence of a paradigm that both describes and guides the evolution of thinking, experimentation, and the application of such. It is argued here that exercise physiology has been operating without benefit of a satisfactory and relevant paradigm. A further proposition is that the required disciplinary definitions derived from an articulated paradigm are also absent. A paradigmatic scheme based on biological dogma is presented along with proposed definitions.
authors.affiliation: a Institute for Clinical Exercise & Health Science , University of the West of Scotland , Hamilton ML3 0JB , Scotland , UK.
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Kilgore
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Baker
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Davies
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D010809:Physical Fitness / Q000502:physiology*; D013178:Sports Medicine
keywords: exercise; fitness; health; paradigm; physiology