I'm not sure what you mean by "treated" or do you mean "cured"? When he worked at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, then led the Virus Research lab at the University of Pittsburgh he "treated" plenty of polio patients using known techniques at the time. None were effective and his goal was to prevent the onset of polio in the first place. That was the result he wanted and he achieved it. The goal of a vaccine is not to cure polio in an infected person, once you've got it, it's to late. It's to prevent the onset of the disease by preparing the immune-system ahead of time. If you look the cause & effect of methodology, it's all very logical. Did Salk's methodology caused the effect he wanted?

Goal to cure polio -> research -> testing methology -> go back to research -> develop effective vaccine

Salk developed something new that had never been done before and cured a debilitating disease, not sure what that kind of logic has to do with fitness-training and replicating the results that millions have achieved previously.


In the methodology of generating world-champions we have similar flow of cause & effect. The following pathway starting with the coaches appears to have caused the effect of world-champions:

1. Coaches: Eddy Borysewicz, Cyrille Guimard*, Edmund Burke, PhD., Chester Kyle PhD.,Chris Carmichael, ->
2. training regimen including weight-training ->
3. out comes many generations of national, Olympic & world-champions from Greg Lemond, Davis Phinney, Andy Hampsten & 7-11 team, to the current Hincapie and Lance Armstrong

* I don't know much about Cyrille Guimard's philosophy, however, Greg Lemond's advocation of weight/strength-training in the gym would seem to indicate that it's a benefit to his TDF titles.


On the other side we have these effects. If you want these results, follow the methodology that causes it:

1. Coaches: Coggan & Stern ->
2. training regimen not including weight-training, saying it's worthless ->
3. out comes how many national, Olympic & world-champions ???


Life is very simple, you look at the results you want, and just follow the people who've come before that have achieved those results. Remember, these are results that have already been achieved, it's nothing magical that requires unknown research methods and techniques. Now to get a breakthrough in new and undiscovered results that have never been achieved like Salk and polio, would be a new phenomenon like an unassisted human-flight sport. Now that would require something revolutionary like the analogy you're using.