The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science
Nicholas B. Tiller
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The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science podcast is the audio version of a monthly column published in Skeptical Inquirer: the magazine for science and reason. In each article, Dr. Nicholas B. Tiller (senior researcher at Harbor-UCLA and award-winning author of popular science) reframes the health and fitness industry through the critical lens of scientific skepticism. For more information, visit www.nbtiller.com
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Available episodes
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May 17, 2023
20. Inside The UFC's Pseudoscience Crisis
It’s hard work beating people up for a living. A professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter typically trains year-round, fusing fighting disciplines such as boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, and Brazilian Ju Jitsu with concurrent resistance and endurance training. They must carefully balance stress and recovery to bring improvements rather than injuries and infections, and then, during fight camp, they complete an intensive eight- to twelve-week training program that culminates in a grueling weight cut to shed 10 percent of their body weight (approximately fifteen pounds for a lightweight fighter). And that’s just to get ready for the contest. They must then enter the cage to trade punches, kicks, elbows, knees, throws, holds, and submissions with another professional fighter while an adoring crowd bays for blood. The two continue until someone gives up, loses on points, or loses their consciousness. Given the clear imperative to perform and recover, why is it that so many fighters use products and services that, by modern scientific standards, are so patently useless?
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/inside-the-ufcs-pseudoscience-crisis/
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Apr 27, 2023
19. Electric Muscle Stimulators: The Devil Is in the Detail
I used to be obsessed with martial arts superstar Bruce Lee. I watched all his movies, read his books, and studied his moves (quite ineffectually). Aside from his martial arts skills and philosophies, it was Lee’s physique that distinguished him from other action heroes of the time. Standing five feet seven inches (172 cm) tall, his compact, muscular frame was perfectly suited to his explosive style of combat. And when Lee punched and kicked through his enemies with unmatched speed and dexterity, his every muscle and sinew leapt off the screen. It was quite a statement, therefore, when Lee was pictured in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (played by Jason Scott Lee, no relation) using an electric stimulator to train his muscles.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/electric-muscle-stimulation-the-devil-is-in-the-detail
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Mar 27, 2023
18. The Physical Toll of Your Smartphone Addiction
The least-used app on my phone is “phone.” The diverse functionality of the smartphone—texting, talking, video streaming, gaming, social networking—has changed the way we work, play, and communicate. I still wonder if Steve Jobs, when he introduced the iPhone at the Macworld San Francisco Keynote Address in 2007, anticipated the influence Apple’s revolutionary creation would have on human behavior. He probably did. Just fifteen years after its release, numerous copycat devices have made the smartphone nearly ubiquitous.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-physical-toll-of-your-smartphone-addiction/
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Feb 17, 2023
17. Barefoot Running: Conspiracies and Controversies
All doctrines have demons, some more literal than others. What I mean by this is that ideologies tend to endure because they’ve a common antagonist against whom proponents can rally. For example, the Abrahamic religions brandish the Devil; politicians demonize members and policies of the opposing party; athletes and supporters unite against an opposing sports team; homeopaths fuel fear of “big pharma”; and proponents of the keto diet denounce carbohydrates, or “big carb,” for their role in diabetes, inflammation, and cardiovascular disease. In the world of barefoot running, it’s the modern sneaker industry, condemned for supplying generations of runners with highly cushioned soles that have weakened their leg muscles, collapsed the arches of their feet, and predisposed them to high rates of injury.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/barefoot-running-conspiracies-and-controversies/
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Jan 25, 2023
16. Health, Wellness, and the “Quick-Fix Fallacy”
Health and wellness scams have endured the ages by exploiting (1) scientific naiveté and (2) our innate desire for simple solutions to complex problems. The Mesopotamians made substantial contributions to science and technology. They were the first to use irrigation in agriculture, the first to forge tools from bronze and iron, and the first to use looms to weave cloth from wool. But despite these accomplishments, they were known to treat illnesses by offering amulets and incantations to the gods and evil spirits that they believed inflicted disease in retribution for the “sins of mankind.”
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/health-wellness-and-the-quick-fix-fallacy/
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Jan 6, 2023
15. The Liver King, Lies, and Logical Fallacies
The media backlash was swift and severe. More severe, in fact, than if an Olympic athlete had tested positive for a banned substance. For years, Brian Johnson—a.k.a. The Liver King—has marketed his brand on the core values of primal living founded on his self-derived “Ancestral Tenets.” Primarily through viral social media coverage, Johnson purportedly made more than $100 million per year. But leaked emails recently revealed that his astounding physique wasn’t due to his diet of raw animal organs and powerful supplements, as he claimed, but instead his extensive use of anabolic steroids.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-liver-king-lies-and-logical-fallacies/
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Dec 1, 2022
14. The Backward World of "Retro Walking"
In terms of medical knowledge, the ancient world was primitive by modern standards. It had no germ theory to prevent the spread of disease, no anesthetics to pacify patients before surgery, and no evidence-based medicine to counteract the belief that “humors”—blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm—influenced the body and its emotions. The ancients were also highly superstitious: Greeks and Romans would drink the blood of fallen gladiators, believing it to confer strength and vitality and that it was a cure for epilepsy.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-backward-world-of-retro-walking/
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Nov 10, 2022
13. Is Sport A Breeding Ground for Pseudoscience?
Earlier this year, the world’s most successful male tennis player, Novak Djokovic, was deported from Australia—not for misconduct on the court or for doping, but for violating Australia’s border policy that mandated COVID-19 vaccinations.1 Djokovic is one of many professional athletes who have refused the vaccine, a list that includes Czech tennis player Renata Voráčová; NBA players Kyrie Irving and Jonathan Isaac; American golfer Bryson DeChambeau; and professional footballers Aaron Rodgers, Cole Beasley, Vernon Butler, and Star Lotulelei.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/is-sport-a-breeding-ground-for-pseudoscience/
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Sep 23, 2022
12. Ten Health and Wellness Fallacies Every Skeptic Should Know
If my recent work as a health and wellness skeptic could be distilled into a single message, it would be this: Marketing companies understand our biases better than we do. In a commercialist culture, saturated by big business and bad science, I believe this to be a fundamental lesson in determining objective truths and making sound judgments.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/ten-health-and-wellness-fallacies-every-skeptic-should-know/
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Aug 22, 2022
11. Kinesio Tape: A Magnificent Marketing Machine
The luminous greens, oranges, and blues immediately draw the eye. Particularly when tracing the contours of athletic shoulders and thighs. Of course, that is the point—to be conspicuous and identifiable wherever it’s used.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/kinesio-tape-a-magnificent-marketing-machine/
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Jul 22, 2022
10. Social Media Fitness Influencers: From Pseudoscience to Psychopathology
He is one of the most talented and recognizable athletes on earth. He is also one of the most well paid, earning £25 m ($30 m) per year playing soccer for Manchester United. Yet by endorsing an array of brands and businesses, including Coca-Cola, LiveScore, Free Fire, Nike, Herbalife Nutrition, and Tag Heuer, on his Instagram account, Christiano Ronaldo nearly doubles his soccer salary. With approximately 460 million followers, he is Instagram’s most influential celebrity—more popular than Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Kim Kardashian, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Taylor Swift.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/social-media-fitness-influencers-from-pseudoscience-to-psychopathology/
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Jun 23, 2022
9. When Medicines Go Rogue, Part 2: Oxygen
When the ancestors of modern reptiles emerged from the water and committed to air breathing, they triggered an approximate .300-million-year evolutionary journey that led us to the wonderfully complex network of tubes, membranes, and muscles we presently call the human respiratory system (West, Watson, and Fu 2007). Its primary purpose: the movement of oxygen (O2) from the air we breathe into our blood and then carbon dioxide (CO2) in the opposite direction. Under normal conditions, human respiratory machinery is considered “overbuilt” for the demands typically placed upon it (Dempsey, La Gerche, and Hull 2020).
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/when-medicines-go-rogue-part-2-oxygen/
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May 26, 2022
8. Ten Health and Wellness Buzzwords Every Skeptic Should Know
The word rhetoric, derived from the Greek noun “rhetor” meaning “speaker,” was once considered the art of verbal persuasion. Up to the late nineteenth century, rhetoric played a prominent role in the western education of orators, lawyers, counselors, historians, statesmen, and poets (Conley 1990). In fact, rhetoric originated in a school of pre-Socratic philosophers, thereby reflecting the intellectual assertions of enlightened minds. In modern society, where business and marketing often take precedence over intellectual integrity, rhetoric is thought of as the misleading ramblings of salesmen attempting to convert potential “leads” into paying customers. As a writer and speaker, it is sad to see rhetoric diminished from its noble roots to a pejorative term that implies style over substance (e.g., “marketing rhetoric”).
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Origin…
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Apr 20, 2022
7. When Medicines Go Rogue, Part 1: Methylene Blue
The notion of an “exaggerated health claim” is as old as the wellness industry itself, but only in the past few decades have health claims benefited from being periodically shared by the world’s social media “influencers.” The exposure they afford a product is invaluable, amplifying the marketing claims, and occasionally conceiving new ones, to millions of followers and potential customers. Their influence is once again responsible for a concerning fitness trend that lurks on the periphery of popular culture.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/when-medicines-go-rogue-methylene-blue/
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Mar 30, 2022
6. Using Fear to Sell Fitness: The Health Trends That Are Preying on Our Insecurities
-“Fructose is a poison,” he said repeatedly. “You gotta’ stop eating fruit.”
-“I don’t understand what you mean,” I replied. “In what way is fructose a poison?”
-“Well, it causes disease and … it’s a poison!”
It quickly became clear that he could not articulate what he meant by “poison” or, indeed, how fructose supposedly caused disease. Like many others, my colleague had been deceived by powerful fear-based marketing rhetoric designed to demonize carbohydrates, even naturally occurring fruit sugars, in favor of a high-fat diet. Competing with such an emotive and ideological proposition is complex and fraught with difficulty.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/using-fear-to-sell-fitness-the-health-trends-that-are-preying-on-our-insecurities/
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Feb 21, 2022
5. Intravenous Nutrient Drips: An Expensive Solution to A Nonexistent Problem
On the ground floor of a shopping mall in southern California, nestled between a kiosk selling hot pretzels and another selling mobile phones, customers relax in carefully arranged leather sofas while drip bags containing clear liquids drain slowly through veins in their forearms.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/intravenous-nutrient-drips-an-expensive-solution-to-a-nonexistent-problem/
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Jan 25, 2022
4. How To Use Critical Thinking to Inform Better Health and Fitness Decisions in 2022
Making and breaking New Year’s resolutions is a long-standing tradition of Western Culture. Starting with a clean slate is appealing because it allows us to erase errors of the past year and instill a sense of hope for the new one. Most New Year’s resolutions revolve around health and fitness, with “Doing more exercise,” “Losing weight,” and “Improving diet” consistently appearing in the top five. However, while 77 percent of people are “very confident” or “somewhat confident” that they’ll see their resolutions through to the following year, only 7 percent achieve it. In fact, there’s a huge 12 percent spike in health club memberships in January, with 50 percent of them being canceled within six months. Evidently, adhering to a long-term health strategy is more complex than it appears.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & referen…
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Dec 20, 2021
3. Can You Breathe Your Way to Better Health? The Science and Pseudoscience of "Training Your Lungs"
The respiratory system has long been a target of the commercial health and fitness industry. This is due to several reasons, the most recent being the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has focussed attention on respiratory health and the means (proven or otherwise) to enhance it. We’ll get to that shortly.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/can-you-breathe-your-way-to-better-health-the-science-and-pseudoscience-of-training-your-lungs/
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Nov 18, 2021
2. Diets, Detoxes, and Other Delusions
We’re in the midst of a pandemic! No, not that pandemic. I’m referring to the rapidly increasing worldwide prevalence of obesity, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a condition of abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/diets-detox-and-other-delusions/
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Oct 26, 2021
1. Cryotherapy: The Cold, Hard, Truth
The health and wellness industry is worth an estimated $4 trillion. This extraordinary valuation encompasses the sale of health club memberships, exercise classes, fad diets, supplements, alternative therapies, and thousands of other products and practices, all vying for our attention. In this, the inaugural article in “The Skeptic’s Guide to Sports Science” column, I chose to scrutinize whole-body cryotherapy. Not only does it illustrate the industry’s preference for hype and hearsay over hard data, but it’s also marketed on the exploitation of several ingrained cognitive biases. This makes it an ideal case study for the critical thinker.
* The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.com
* Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
* Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/cryotherapy-the-cold-hard-truth/
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