Are there guidelines for certain exercises?

Question

I work in medical research and in medicine one important source of knowledge for good clinical practice are guidelines. Usually guidelines are made by some experts committee including and they usually say what treatment in what constellation one should do and what the evidence for this recommendation is. This is super helpful. Is there something similar in sport science for the execution of certain exercises?

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For example, some years ago I heard at the bouldering gym that hanging with completely straight arms leads to shoulder injuries. I did not question this information and always tried to keep my arms bent while bouldering. Some month ago I started to do the dead hang and I saw so many articles and videos stating that hanging with completely loose muscles and completely straight arms would be beneficial for shoulder health. So I started to do a completely passive dead hang with straight arms. But some days ago I read an article that this would be "the fastest way to kill your joints". There is a question about this issue here on PF but the answer refers to an article that contains no sources. So the question remains: Who is right? And how to find out?

There seems to be a wide range of contradicting information and it is often unclear what it is based on. There are Fitfluencer, Defluencer, Professionals (physiotherapy...) and so on, i. e. many different opinions and no certainty - but I can't find any widely accepted guidelines.

So what I am looking for is a source, maybe a database, that embraces recommended execution of certain exercises as it was formulated by an expert committee. I expect such guidelines to include scientific sources, an evaluation about the level of evidence for the recommendation and also that the guidelines are updated each few years. Is there something like this?

I understand that there are different kinds of sports. Actually I would await such guidelines for each kind of sport (in medicine each field has its own guidelines too). But personally I am most interested in bodyweight training and the proper form of execution.

Answer 1

No. Guidelines for individual medical interventions exist for reasons which do not apply to individual exercises:

• Pharmaceuticals have owners who are required to formulate dosing and contraindication guidelines as part of the approval process.
• Medical interventions of all kinds tend to carry substantial costs, risks, and side-effects, and their application needs to be managed in order to limit these harms.
• Placebo medical interventions are possible.
• Blinding of medical interventions is possible.
• Government bodies have financial incentives in order to develop guidelines in order to reduce unjustified prescription of subsidised interventions, and reduce costs associated with iatrogenic harms and illnesses that could be avoided through either preventative medicine.

In contrast, exercise:

• has no owner responsible for its implementation,
• is almost always health promoting,
• has minimal potential to cause harm, with injuries typically being both infrequent and very low in severity,
• cannot be replaced by a placebo for study, and
• cannot be blinded for study.

In particular, the extremely low rates of exercise-related harms make it near impossible to study, except in the higher risk population of professional athletes, where findings would not apply to the general population who are not exercising at similar levels of volume and intensity.

Furthermore, guidelines on exercise technique would largely serve as a barrier to exercise, which would be immensely harmful to overall population health. (Consider the effect on exercise participation is exercises had to be prescribed by a doctor or other professional who was trained in administering the guidelines.)

This is why the existing exercise guidelines (e.g. The World Health Organization's Adult Physical Activity Guidelines) are no more specific than just saying that absolutely everyone should exercise, including both cardiovascular and resistance training, for minimum durations of time per week.

For example, some years ago I heard at the bouldering gym that hanging with completely straight arms leads to shoulder injuries. I did not question this information and always tried to keep my arms bent while bouldering. Some month ago I started to do the dead hang and I saw so many articles and videos stating that hanging with completely loose muscles and completely straight arms would be beneficial for shoulder health. So I started to do a completely passive dead hang with straight arms. But some days ago I read an article that this would be "the fastest way to kill your joints".

None of those claims have any evidence behind them, or even any plausible mechanism by which they could cause harm. They remain popular though, because pandering to people's anxieties is an effective way of hooking them in to listening to you.

A reasonable way of handling such claims would be to look for the evidence of an actual incidence of injury, and dismiss the claim if one does not exist. E.g. It is commonly claimed that sit-ups carry a risk of back injury, yet it is unheard of for injuries to actually occur while performing sit-ups. Given that sit-ups are an extremely common exercise, the absence of frequent injuries strongly suggests that the claims of their danger are false. But taking such claims without skepticism is truly maladaptive.