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Not me, no. I decided to be formally educated in sports science precisely because the internet is awash with disinformation regarding fitness, bodybuilding.com

Not me, no. I decided to be formally educated in sports science precisely because the internet is awash with disinformation regarding fitness, bodybuilding.com included (and, honestly, HN). There are some posts there that get the science right, but there’s a lot of falsehoods too, or unindividualized, “over-engineered” advice. On a more on-topic note: I’ve never consciously held ExRx in high regard, but considering how exhaustive and encyclopedic its curation of exercises is, perhaps I should have. One also couldn’t argue that it contains false content because it merely collects exercises instead of prescribing them (unless of course they’ve added some section where they do, which I don’t know of and cannot comment against).

pokot0 4y ago
I feel like every field where science is lagging behind has this problem. Is this not the case? It seems to me that we know very little about how the body works, processes food, etc. Saying "Sports science" feels very different to me than saying (for example) "rigid body physics". The latter can predict the behavior of objects very precisily, the former struggles a lot and can hardly use the scientific method to begin with.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
  Sorry, what do you mean we know very little about how the body works and processes food? That sounds to me like fields like medicine or physical therapy or nutrition should be impossible, and yet they exist. And correct me if I’m wrong but it doesn’t sound like you know the scope of sports science? It’s a combination of the fields that I made an example of above plus physics, too, and many more (such as business and psychology), but oriented specifically for the purposes of sport and recreation.
- sdwr 4y ago
  Scientists and "put up or shut up" people optimize for diff things. People who get results, in my experience, do the right things but don't usually have correct explanations. Part of it is the subconscious figuring out what works, and hanging it onto the closest known concept. The other half is that false beliefs are practical and helpful sometimes.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    The results I want are long term health. That is much harder to measure and study. I can see which exercise methods results in competitive wins quickly (though some may be a few years), but what will my efforts today change about my life span or old age quality of life?
    - sdwr 4y ago
      I got a dog recently, have been out on walks a lot and talking w other owners. Met a guy with an old dog a few weeks back, she was grey in the muzzle + stiff in the joints, but still moving around happy + unencumbered. He said she was 20 years old, and his second 20+ y/o one. His said he went by: - a balance of positive + negative reinforcement - regular dog food, nothing fancy and that - if she was a seeing-eye dog she'd have been dead by 10 My takeaway is that mental stress is a killer. He was letting her have her "dog-nature". Roam around, sniff things, unburdened. But the #1 has to be people. Everyone withers away alone + takes cues from our environment. The dream is having people around who make it feel natural to be healthy.
operator-name 4y ago
What resources do you consider in high regard?
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
  Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology by Scanlon and Sanders Physiology of Sport and Exercise by Kenney, Wilmore, and Costil. Strength Training Anatomy by Delavier, though this is more like ExRx and is far less exhaustive And the above should be more than enough but it won’t harm to read NSCA’s Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning.
hash872 4y ago
>There are some posts there that get the science right I'm sorry, I don't mean to be uncharitable, but 'exercise science' is not an empirical scientific field like physics or chemistry. It's very difficult to conduct genuine experiments or isolate causes in the human body. It's pretty well-known that lots 'exercise science' studies that prove X were conducted with relatively untrained undergrad volunteers, who would probably gain on any program because they're a) young and b) exercise newbies. Political science has 'science' right in the name too, but I think everyone understands it's not an actual empirical field either (which is fine!) I'm certainly open to hearing contributions from exercise scientists, but I weight folk wisdom from say the bodybuilding or powerlifting fields at least as heavily https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
  Look, questioning everything is OK but you need to have the initiative, too, to understand what it is that you’re questioning. And by the looks of it, you don’t seem to have read any reference book on sports science, otherwise you’d know that it uses the same anatomy/physiology foundations upon which the medical field stands, and that it is not the case that there are zero repeatable findings in the field of exercise physiology for you to invalidate the entire body of knowledge.
  - hash872 4y ago
    Well, medicine has its own replication problem. But the broader reason why this analogy doesn't work is that most medical treatments (medical devices, drugs, etc.) are subject to a really stringent approval & evidence of efficacy process. As they should be! But there just isn't anything similar in exercise science. Studies that prove, like, plyometric wall bounces make you more explosive or something are just incredibly underpowered versus the level of evidence required for the FDA to approve a medical device or drug. If ES studies were somehow conducted with that same level of funding & rigor, I would take them a million times more seriously. In practice, it's an n=10 or 20 study with a bunch of undergrads for a p value of .0501 or something

pokot0 4y ago

I feel like every field where science is lagging behind has this problem. Is this not the case? It seems to me that we know very little about how the body works, processes food, etc. Saying "Sports science" feels very different to me than saying (for example) "rigid body physics". The latter can predict the behavior of objects very precisily, the former struggles a lot and can hardly use the scientific method to begin with.

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
Sorry, what do you mean we know very little about how the body works and processes food? That sounds to me like fields like medicine or physical therapy or nutrition should be impossible, and yet they exist. And correct me if I’m wrong but it doesn’t sound like you know the scope of sports science? It’s a combination of the fields that I made an example of above plus physics, too, and many more (such as business and psychology), but oriented specifically for the purposes of sport and recreation.
sdwr 4y ago
Scientists and "put up or shut up" people optimize for diff things. People who get results, in my experience, do the right things but don't usually have correct explanations. Part of it is the subconscious figuring out what works, and hanging it onto the closest known concept. The other half is that false beliefs are practical and helpful sometimes.
- bluGill 4y ago
  The results I want are long term health. That is much harder to measure and study. I can see which exercise methods results in competitive wins quickly (though some may be a few years), but what will my efforts today change about my life span or old age quality of life?
  - sdwr 4y ago
    I got a dog recently, have been out on walks a lot and talking w other owners. Met a guy with an old dog a few weeks back, she was grey in the muzzle + stiff in the joints, but still moving around happy + unencumbered. He said she was 20 years old, and his second 20+ y/o one. His said he went by: - a balance of positive + negative reinforcement - regular dog food, nothing fancy and that - if she was a seeing-eye dog she'd have been dead by 10 My takeaway is that mental stress is a killer. He was letting her have her "dog-nature". Roam around, sniff things, unburdened. But the #1 has to be people. Everyone withers away alone + takes cues from our environment. The dream is having people around who make it feel natural to be healthy.

operator-name 4y ago

What resources do you consider in high regard?

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology by Scanlon and Sanders Physiology of Sport and Exercise by Kenney, Wilmore, and Costil. Strength Training Anatomy by Delavier, though this is more like ExRx and is far less exhaustive And the above should be more than enough but it won’t harm to read NSCA’s Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning.

hash872 4y ago

>There are some posts there that get the science right I'm sorry, I don't mean to be uncharitable, but 'exercise science' is not an empirical scientific field like physics or chemistry. It's very difficult to conduct genuine experiments or isolate causes in the human body. It's pretty well-known that lots 'exercise science' studies that prove X were conducted with relatively untrained undergrad volunteers, who would probably gain on any program because they're a) young and b) exercise newbies. Political science has 'science' right in the name too, but I think everyone understands it's not an actual empirical field either (which is fine!) I'm certainly open to hearing contributions from exercise scientists, but I weight folk wisdom from say the bodybuilding or powerlifting fields at least as heavily https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
Look, questioning everything is OK but you need to have the initiative, too, to understand what it is that you’re questioning. And by the looks of it, you don’t seem to have read any reference book on sports science, otherwise you’d know that it uses the same anatomy/physiology foundations upon which the medical field stands, and that it is not the case that there are zero repeatable findings in the field of exercise physiology for you to invalidate the entire body of knowledge.
- hash872 4y ago
  Well, medicine has its own replication problem. But the broader reason why this analogy doesn't work is that most medical treatments (medical devices, drugs, etc.) are subject to a really stringent approval & evidence of efficacy process. As they should be! But there just isn't anything similar in exercise science. Studies that prove, like, plyometric wall bounces make you more explosive or something are just incredibly underpowered versus the level of evidence required for the FDA to approve a medical device or drug. If ES studies were somehow conducted with that same level of funding & rigor, I would take them a million times more seriously. In practice, it's an n=10 or 20 study with a bunch of undergrads for a p value of .0501 or something