Not any evidence based review or anything like that today. Remember all the propaganda, rhetoric and vitriol about heel striking being evil? I will just leave this Rio Marathon Facebook comment here: As always, I go where the evidence takes me until convinced otherwise ….and a Facebook comment is not evidence, but I think we […]
Tag Archives | loons
“All anti-barefoot running research is paid for by the running shoe companies”
Time to call out another loon…and I not in the mood for some serious science. I belong to a number of skeptic groups involved in fighting anti-science and pseudoscience in many topic areas. In those groups I am always impressed about how often they take screenshots of debates and comments. I now know why they […]
Why do people make this stuff up for?
Time to call out another loon. This time its an article in the Inquisitr, How David Accidentally Slayed Goliath: Vibram FiveFingers And Why Barefoot Is Best. I will ignore that it failed totally to show that barefoot is better and even worse, totally ignored all 10 of the systematic reviews of the science that its not. […]
Quality of the information on Kinesio Taping
I first became aware of the pretty colored tape and its methods when watching the London Olympics in 2012. Ever since then I have kept a superficial eye on the literature on it and it varies. The research results are mixed as to its effectiveness. A 2013 systematic review concluded: “There currently exists insufficient evidence […]
Footwear and Flatfeet: Correlation or Causation?
One of the arguments that often get advanced for a barefoot lifestyle is that shoes cause flat feet as they weaken the muscles. Not sure how people make that conclusion as there is no evidence that footwear wearing populations have feet that is any weaker than barefoot wearing populations – you would have thought that […]
Heel striking in a cushioned shoe with a 10mm drop and he still managed to break the world marathon record!
If you have been following all the propaganda and rhetoric of recent years, then Dennis Kimetto should not have been able to run 2:02.57 to knock 26 seconds off the world marathon record a few days ago in Berlin … go figure! I have held off for a few days from commenting here (been busy commenting […]
Wearing shoes impairs intellectual development
Its Sunday, I not feeling too well and am not up to writing something serious. I needed another loon to ridicule. I was wondering what to write about, then I remembered this from many years ago that gave us a good laugh at the time: Among the untold problems that wearing shoes can impose in […]
See what you want to believe in
There is quite a body of work in the psychology literature on optical and perceptual illusions and how they are influenced by seeing what you want to see. I certainly know very little about the psychology and science of this (though I have fun looking at some). I do know enough to know there is […]
I did a Chi Running course!
POSTSCRIPT: This is a bit embarrassing. It turns out the “coach” that run the course I did was NOT a credentialed Chi running coach and was operating outside the framework or umbrella of the Chi running organisation. Please interpret the comments I make below in that context. _____________________________________________________________ I will start by saying that I […]
Grounding: Going barefoot to prevent cardiovascular disease!
This is another one of calling out the loons post! Grounding or earthing has all the hallmarks and characteristics associated with it being snake oil and pseudoscientific woo. The gullible are falling for the dubious marketing of those with a product to sell. The claims made by those who promote it are a great source […]
Are there really that many ‘dumb’ runners doing this?
I had to roll my eyes at this in my alerts this morning. This was nothing startling, just a case report on 3 runners who got an injury in minimalist running shoes: Minimalist shoe injuries: Three case reports. Cauthon DJ, Langer P, Coniglione TC. Foot (Edinb). 2013 May 10. Running in minimalist shoes continues to […]
Calling out the loons
I have started a new category for posts: Fallacies > Loons. I have no problems with professional disagreements; they exist and more often then not are usually respectful. I have always had a problem with the misunderstanding, misquoting, misuse and misinterpretation of research and science, which was a large part of the motivation for starting […]