Hey, ass-hat with the abstract link. Yeah. You.

[Edit: More than a few readers gave me feedback about my use of a derivative of the r-word, which has gone from a medical term still used in medical journals to a pejorative one when used in a derisive context. A small portion of my patients are developmentally delayed and understanding the power of language (being more than moderately opposed to, “That’s so gay,” referring to anything more offensive than a bus of drag-nuns–which really isn’t offensive at all since the Sisters are AWESOME (honestly, I’ve been to their parties); so I guess”gay”=”awesome”), I’ve replaced it with “Ass-hat”. I have Googled its etymology and can find no reason not to use it. Now, onto the post.]

The rate at which psuedo-information flies around has now reached epic proportions. And not in a good way. Read More...

This study makes no claims. But I bet other people will.

In the fitness industry, everyone’s trying to get or stay ahead. And while there are lots of ways to do that, tapping into published research is one of the more common ways to “reveal” something new and come across as being more leading edge than the next guy/girl.

I would argue that most people who post links to PubMed haven’t read the actual study, but are just browsing abstracts. I’ve written about what abstracts are good for in the past. But it’s been a while since I’ve really taken the theme up.  Read More...

More is not better–when statistics turn bad (it’s just not as entertaining as when animals do)

As with everything, more is not usually better. In statistics, more actually makes you more prone to being accidentally wrong (or, in statistics-lingo, spurious). Today, I’d like to talk about a basic concept that is taught to students in their introductory statistics courses (and hence, you would think, most researchers): The effect of multiple significance testing. Read More...

Abstracts! Huh! What are they good for?

I think it’s a pretty safe statement to say that most fitness end-users, and even trainers, do not have the time or the interest (or, in some cases, the access) to read full papers. Most people tend to have easy access to PubMed abstracts, and are quite happy to read the “chunk-style” format of an abstract (thanks, Lou) because they’re generally short, and fairly easy to understand (because brevity forces simplicity most of the time). Read More...