The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science

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 ...

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 yea...

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 di...

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 t...

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 revea...

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 f...

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; A...

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 ...

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/...

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 ...

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)...

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 enlightene...

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...

-“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 des...

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...

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 ...

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.skepticalinqui...

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
• Origina...

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 i...