Nature vs pseudo function Estimated Reading Time: 5 min, 13 sec Functional fitness has made it into the top fitness trends for the last few years (Thompson, 2019). This ‘functional’ buzz seems to cycle around regularly. I know the term ticks many boxes and implies that something is real, authentic, and a natural part of …
Puzzling challenges of placebos Estimated Reading Time: 3 min, 59 sec As noted last blog, there is mounting evidence that placebos seem to defy traditional reasoning by somehow producing meaningful results. In their systematic review, Hurst et al. (2020) found a small to moderate (around 5%) placebo benefit for sport performance. Given that even a …
Adventures with placebos Estimated Reading Time: 4 min, 10 sec Over my career I’ve thoughtlessly disparaged hundreds of gadgets, exercises, training techniques, supplements and suggested superfoods – discounting all as simply placebos. I’ve done this when the science and logic seemed shonky, but without really knowing much about, or appreciating the complexity of placebos. I …
1104 words: estimated reading time 5 mins 30s. . As exercise professionals we are usually pretty enthusiastic about convincing others to share our love of physical activity, exercise and sports – but how much love are we really expecting? I hadn’t really thought too much about this until I recently reviewed an article that got me …
Locking it up 963 words – estimated reading time: 4mins, 50s. One of the things (and there’s a lot) that really perplexes me with exercise is the range of rules and guidelines that surround exercise and exercise technique. What I’m talking about here are the things that exercise professionals seem to repeat and reinforce automatically …
760 words estimated reading time 3 minutes, 48 sec. Following on from my last blog – something else that caught my attention researching and writing our book was the concept of training effort and intensity. I was reading back through some interviews that I’d conducted with college (university) strength and conditioning coaches in the US …
937 words; estimated reading time 4 mins, 41 secs. Stimulate your mind I find the whole gimmick culture that plagues sport, exercise, and health absolutely fascinating. The thought processes and craftiness of the people who think up, and market these things is as intriguing as the vulnerability and gullibility of the people putting their money …
3090 words (that’s a lot!) : estimated reading time: 15 mins, 27 secs. A guide There are arguably many ways that personal research could be done; I’ve tried to approach this from an exercise professional’s perspective. Hopefully, some or all of this information will be helpful in some way. You may want to skip over the …
What do we trust? Finding and evaluating information. Read More »
1385 words; estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 55 seconds. Reflecting on my recent blog on fitness trend and fads, I realised that it was, in reality, a superficial treatment of an important topic. The paper that I reviewed was effectively just a popularity survey and was short on critical thinking – something the 10th man …
1108 words: estimated reading time 5 mins 30s Who’s Bad? One of my closest colleagues would periodically confess to having been bad. She wasn’t reporting on her poor behaviour; she was simply owning up to having eaten a Snickers bar (or something similar). Each time I’d argue that she was actually neither good nor bad …