This article discusses the consequences of the current trend of production of knowledge in the area of Physical Education, on the training and pedagogical practice of the teachers. We indicate that knowledge in this area is mostly being produced from an empirical realist ontological perspective, which limits the action of the teacher and the development of higher mental functions in the students, in terms of the empirical manifestations of reality, in other words, those that are linked to everyday knowledge and adaptation to the actual way of life. As an alternative to this, we indicate developmental teaching, which postulates the teaching that is organized in a way that leads the development of the higher mental functions through the appropriation and understanding of the essential relations of objects.