Originally Posted by
TommyGun
Young Captain, you are in a difficult position. I hope my experience in attempting to publish a peer reviewed paper may provide some context.
I submitted to a second or third tier publication which is very specific to my line of work, a very small niche within the engineering world.
Here’s how it goes when you attempt this. When you submit it to the Editor in Chief (EIC), you will provide several keywords (in your case, perhaps “squat” or strength’). The keyword will be the basis for the EIC to determine who among his/her very small number of willing reviewers has an expertise in those keywords. But, here is the rub: it really doesn’t matter if the reviewers are actually qualified to perform a peer review of work related to those keywords.
As long as the reviewer is willing, the EIC will be more than happy to send it to said reviewer. The journal has a minimum number of reviewers needed for a peer review. In my case it was five. Only two knew my topic. The other three rejected my paper, so it wont see the light of day by a 3-2 vote.
These journals have a tough time finding people willing to spend time reviewing papers. Understandably so. With your topic the reviewers are probably Exericise Science PhDs who have published previously....and we know what’s the ExSci dogma is when it comes to a program like Starting Strength.
Now the real conflicts come. Strike 1 is that you are are a practitioner and not an academic. Unless your re an academic, affiliated with a university or research institution, regardless of the quality of your tests and research, they may not be inclined to accept it. They are the gate keepers and they generally don’t like people like you or me crashing their little world. That world appears to be open only to those who are forced to play the publish or perish game, of which we are not a part of.
Second, in your case, you will be confronting decades of Army doctrine. No matter who good your testing and documentation is, this is a big task.
And please do not let this paper and the quest to get it published become a Moby Dick level obsession, it somehow happened to me. You and your men (and your career) are probably best served by directing your limited time and effort to other goals.
Not impossible, but remember this: Be proud to be a practitioner and not an academic. You and I understand things that the back office non-practitioners will never know.