Walk into a gym or wellness store and you might encounter compression boots, smart rings, creatine supplements and ice baths. Their use by elite athletes can function as an implicit endorsement, making them seem more proven or more broadly useful than the evidence supports.

As an athletic trainer with experience in collegiate and professional sports, I now evaluate the evidence behind health and performance practices for an NCAA Division I athletics program. That work has shown me how teams decide whether a new product or training strategy offers a meaningful benefit.

Elite sports are natural testing grounds for new approaches to health and performance. Teams pursue small advantages and often have the staff, data and resources to evaluate new ideas earlier than most other organizations. But these are not controlled laboratories. Decisions are made under pressure, with incomplete information and a demand for immediate results. Some ideas prove useful. Others produce effects that are too small to matter, work only in narrow circumstances or fail to hold up as evidence develops.

How teams evaluate new ideas

Championships, careers and major financial investments may depend on keeping athletes healthy and prepared. Given those stakes, teams often explore anything that could give them even a small edge, especially when athletes must recover quickly or remain healthy during a demanding schedule.

Medical, coaching, nutrition and performance staff can look at the same approach from different angles. They ask whether it works, whether the benefit is large enough to matter, whether it is safe and practical and whether it solves the problem facing the athlete.

A strategy may help........

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