The third part of this series of articles on systems thinking moves from a focus on the individual to the collective; shifting from simple actions onto more global questions. Specifically, it tackles the key question of how well our current structures facilitate systems thinking and how effective we are in bridging the gap between the intellectual/academic perspectives on strength and conditioning and the requirements of practical application. In doing this, the article looks at potential reasons why this gap exists and at the challenges of path dependency; it also makes some suggestions as to how this gap could potentially be bridged.