The science, roughly speaking, doesn't exist. In fitness, the coverage of science is generally very poor, and the wisdom and experience of trainers is valued over the few, usually poorly-designed small-n papers that exist.
That's not true. Yes, there are plenty of areas that have limited research or small studies but overall there is more than enough to form scientifically based methods of fitness. The best trainers know this and base their methods on research and adjust as new research is published.
Perhaps this is what you meant and just didn't word it well.
That is not what I meant, I do not agree with you.
Are there some interesting studies? Yes, a few, and some trainers are aware of those. (I challenge you/anyone to provide a list of 5 great fitness papers! For funsies, I'm not saying it can't be done.)
However, in general, we're all flying seat of our pants.
I'd love to see some examples of the bedrock research that you believe trainers rely upon.
