Friday, September 16, 2011

What Is The Truth

Well I seem to find less and less time to update this blog but at least I am not filling it with trivia, I hope.  I have been away from Crossfit London for about four weeks and took a break from training the body and focussed on training the mind.  In my breaks from studying I relaxed by reading a book called Bad Science written by Ben Goldacre.  If you only read one book this year read this one.  It was originally published back in 2005 but has been updated and re published.  Ben is a qualified medical doctor who writes for the Guardian among other things. he has a fantastic scientific rational mind that can be described as a Mr Spock with a sense of humour.

The book takes a look at consumerism, journalism, quackism and other isms.  It closely examines how we are regularly deceived by the world of nutrition (ism) and the close links between the daily press industry and the self promoting world of magic pills, supplements, powders, power drinks etc.

It educates you on the facts of the health and beauty industry how real independent research should be conducted and how the stats from these can be manipulated. Read it!

It got me thinking about how this applies to me and my position in the fitness industry and Crossfit.  We all know people who buy vitamins, protein powders, creatine supplements, energy drinks, anti-oxidants (these actually increase your chances of dying!) shit, I have to admit to doing nearly all the above. I now use  FHW. I can now say with some considerable confidence you have been wasting your money.

All these products are promoted with a "research shows" banner of some description. This research will be funded by the industry and promoted within industry related press and when you read it in the daily press as a news feature it will have been published on the back of the idea that the press business model must publish stories targeted at their advertisers target consumers. The story will have ticked boxes such as "magic pill" and "miracle effect" What chance do we have?

Well, believe nothing.  Ask questions, lots of questions.  Come to understand what real research is. Cold, dispassionate and totally focussed on the truth.  Whether it supports a hypothesis or not. Oh and totally open for peer review. Visit the Cochrane website, simply fascinating. Crossfit people talk a lot about diets, this is a massive industry, Zoneing, Paleo fish oil supplements etc. I guarantee that all the literature you read about this will be tainted by the selfish need to self promote.

I will even go on to question what real research has been done regarding our training methods.  Do we produce the fittest people in the world?  I have seen quite a few experts who were Crossfit HQ flavour of the month disappear off the scene. I have seen evidence of this because they question certain methods.  I have no doubt that Crossfit can produce massive amounts of anecdotal evidence about the positives, but real research?  We as humans are the worst at self criticism we always overstate opinions of ourselves, find casual relationships between things that do not exist and spot patterns when there are none.

Now I am not lnocking Crossfit I love it, I have experienced the benefits of following this regime but there is some serious bullshit out there and we can be guilty of this.  The lesson today is be mindful of this, doubt everything and looked to be proved right or wrong.
  

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